Peter Booth is associate professor in creative industries in the Department of Communication and Culture and co-director of BI Centre for Creative Industries. He received his PhD in Cultural Economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam, following studies in fine art, economics and finance at University of Melbourne, London School of Economics, and the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. His research broadly covers sociology of art and finance, artist labour, structural and environmental change in the creative sector, and the interactions between technologies and the arts and museum sectors.
Organizational and leader-specific components are used to characterize newspaper executives’ positioning toward social media. From an online survey (n=159), Norwegian newspaper executives report on the efficacy of social media, organizational culture, and work-related role stressors. Employing principal components analysis and clustering methods, we identify four leadership types and find wide variation in social media attitudes and usage reflecting organizational strategic needs and capabilities, social media-related frustrations, culture, and competencies and tradition of the newspaper executives.
Alacovska, Ana; Booth, Peter & Fieseler, Christian (2023)
A Pharmacological Perspective on Technology-Induced Organised Immaturity: The Care-giving Role of the Arts
Digital technologies induce organised immaturity by generating toxic sociotechnical conditions that lead us to delegate autonomous, individual, and responsible thoughts and actions to external technological systems. Aiming to move beyond a diagnostic critical reading of the toxicity of digitalisation, we bring Bernard Stiegler’s pharmacological analysis of technology into dialogue with the ethics of care to speculatively explore how the socially engaged arts—a type of artistic practice emphasising audience co-production and processual collective responses to social challenges—play a care-giving role that helps counter technology-induced organised immaturity. We outline and illustrate two modes by which the socially engaged arts play this role: 1) disorganising immaturity through artivism, most notably anti-surveillance art, that imparts savoir vivre, that is, shared knowledge and meaning to counter the toxic side of technologies while enabling the imagination of alternative worlds in which humans coexist harmoniously with digital technologies, and 2) organising maturity through arts-based hacking that imparts savoir faire, that is, hands-on knowledge for experimental creation and practical enactment of better technological worlds.
Booth, Peter & Røyseng, Sigrid (2022)
Artists and Online Dissemination: An Analysis of Positions and Position-Takings
This article analyzes visual artists’ response to online sales and dissemination technologies by mapping the range of corresponding positions and position-takings by professional artists in Norway. We consider whether artists’ responses align with traditional logics of artistic consecration identified in Bourdieu’s accounts of the field of cultural production, and how these responses correspond to Rogers’ theory of diffusion of innovations. Employing multiple correspondence analysis, we find position-takings toward online sales and dissemination can be structured by a dimension differentiating between technology-oriented optimism and techno-skepticism, between high and neutral levels of risk aversion toward online technologies, and thirdly between technology adopters and those still at an intentional stage.
Purpose This study aims to investigate how, in forming their policy towards open data (OD), art museums interact with the OD ecosystems they are part of, comprising internal and external components such as cultural policy, legal frameworks, user groups and economic conditions and incentives. Design/methodology/approach The authors structure their research as a multiple case study based on three OD ecosystems, each defined by a mid-sized European art museum at its centre. Qualitative analysis of the case studies proceeds from interviews with museum management staff and policy-related agencies in three European countries, in addition to document analysis. Findings The results of this study suggest that museums are sensitive towards their environments and respond to their ecosystem based on what is communicated within their networks. However, museums are not effective in communicating with their users, limiting the informational interdependence necessary for well-functioning OD ecosystems. EU policy appears to be a driving force along with national financial incentives, though institutional conditions are limiting progress. Advancing the field relies instead on an epistemological shift to understand the museum as part of a larger information network. Originality/value As the first comparative case study of art museum OD ecosystems that the authors are aware of, the study provides a qualitative analysis of the complex dynamics impacting OD policy within the mid-sized art museum. The authors identify specific dynamics that are thus far restricting further development of the OD ecosystem of the mid-sized European art museum
Gran, Anne-Britt; Booth, Peter & Bucher, Taina (2020)
To be or not to be algorithm aware: a question of a new digital divide?
Algorithms are an increasingly important element of internet infrastructure in that they are used to make decisions about everything from mundane music recommendations through to more profound and oftentimes life changing ones such as policing, health care or social benefits. Given algorithmic systems’ impact and sometimes harm on people’s everyday life, information access and agency, awareness of algorithms has the potential to be a critical issue. We, therefore, ask whether having awareness of algorithms or not corresponds to a new reinforced digital divide. This study examines levels of awareness and attitudes toward algorithms across the population of the highly digitized country of Norway. Our exploratory research finds clear demographic differences regarding levels of algorithms awareness. Furthermore, attitudes to algorithm driven recommendations (e.g., YouTube and Spotify), advertisements and content (e.g., personalized news feeds in social media and online newspaper) are associated with both the level of algorithm awareness and demographic variables. A cluster analysis facilitates an algorithm awareness typology of six groups: the unaware, the uncertain, the affirmative, the neutral, the sceptic and the critical.
Booth, Peter; Ogundipe, Anne & Røyseng, Sigrid (2019)
In the context of the shift towards participatory practices within museums, museum engagement with social media represents a form of organizational change. This study approaches social media and the corresponding organizational change from a museum leader’s perspective, utilizing data from a broad crosssection of 82 museums in Norway. We address how the characteristics of a museum and its leader impact social media attitudes, behaviors and intention towards social media-based change. Combining factor analysis and clustering techniques, we identify four museum leader ‘types’ who are primarily defined by their (1) perception of museum benefits from social media, (2) perception of own and museum support in social media activities, (3) perception of conflicts that arise from social media usage, and (4) social media-related values. With museums being asked to more fully embrace the participatory potential of social media, this study points to significant differences in readiness to change across museum leaders.
Gran, Anne-Britt; Vestberg, Nina Lager, Booth, Peter & Ogundipe, Anne (2018)
A digital museum's contribution to diversity - a user study
Responding to the Norwegian cultural policy concern of diversity, this article presents the results from three data sets that capture user background, behaviour, values and opinions regarding the digital portal for museum objects, images and stories, DigitaltMuseum. Specifically, the exploratory research draws data from a ‘population’ survey of digital consumption in Norway, a DigitaltMuseum user survey, and device and usage data captured by Google Analytics. Designed, where possible, to capture a user’s perspective, the three data sources describe who uses the digital platform, their content preferences, motivation for using the platform, and what they ultimately do with material found. Although there is evidence that the findings are representative of a super-user group, the results nevertheless indicate that DigitaltMuseum is contributing to cultural diversity in terms of content, purpose for usage, and dissemination. For policymakers and administrators of online museum platforms, the study demonstrates the platform’s contribution to expanded diversity.
Booth, Peter & Klamer, Arjo (2017)
The valorization of art: what artists are up against
Buckley, Brad & Conomos, John (red.). Who Runs the Artworld: Money, Power and Ethics
Olsen, Ragnhild Kristine; Solvoll, Mona K & Booth, Peter (2021)
Thumbs-up to trust? Understanding users’ relationship to Facebook and local news media (Use and trust in local media before and during the pandemic: What local newspapers could learn)
[Academic lecture]. 8th ECREA ECC conference Communication and Trust.
Nordic Mission Possible: An Assessment of Covid-19’s Impact on the Nordic Audiovisual Industry and the Effectiveness of Government and Industry Measures
[Report]. Handelshøyskolen BI.
We have studied the economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the restrictive and mitigating government and industry measures it has triggered for the audiovisual industry in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. This report considers impact directly on each feature film, documentary, and drama series project. By collecting data on projects, which are the fundamental organizing units for audiovisual production, results embody impact not only on production companies, but on all participants involved in a production (cast, crew, suppliers, financiers, etc.). Hence, this approach provides a fuller picture of the whole production sector.
Booth, Peter (2020)
Museum leaders still struggle with social media
[Popular scientific article]. BI Marketing Magazine
Alacovska, Ana; Booth, Peter & Fieseler, Christian (2020)
The Role of the Arts in the Digital Transformation
[Report]. Artsformation Report Series.
Booth, Peter; Solvoll, Mona K & Krumsvik, Arne H. (2020)
Newspaper executives’ perspectives on social media
Krise og kreativitet i musikkbransjen – koronapandemien 2020
[Report]. BI Centre for Creative Industries.
På oppdrag fra Musikkindustriens Næringsråd, og medfinansiert av Norsk kulturråd og de regionale Musikkontorene, har BI Centre for Creative Industries (BI:CCI) gjennomført en stor spørreundersøkelse i musikkbransjen i forbindelse med koronapandemien. Formålet var å kartlegge de økonomiske konsekvensene av koronakrisen, hvilke offentlige tiltak bransjen har benyttet og hvilke nye musikkinitiativ som har oppstått som følge av krisen. Prosjektansvarlig har vært prof. Anne-Britt Gran (BI:CCI), med Linn-Birgit Kampen Kristensen (BI:CCI) som prosjektkoordinator, Peter Booth (BI:CCI) som analyseansvarlig, Audun Molde (Høyskolen Kristiania) og Anja Nylund Hagen (Musikkvitenskap, UiO) som eksperter på musikkbransjen.