The Cultural Consumption Barometer: a case study of communication in statistics in Romania

Abstract

The Cultural Consumption Barometer is one of the most important studies carried out by the research team of the National Institute for Cultural Research and Training, starting with 2005. The Cultural Consumption Barometer is a representative survey and its goal is the description and analysis of the cultural sector in Romania, as far as the level of the cultural consumption is concerned. The main objectives of the study are: measurement of the degree of adjustment of cultural goods distribution infrastructure to the population needs, measurement of the cultural consumption and participation, measurement of the population’s cultural needs, identification of the preferences and cultural consumption behaviour. For ten years the statistical data have been produced and presented to various categories of beneficiaries. Each year a large amount of statistical information is produced and the challenges are to present them to the general public, who is interested in this topic, as well as to the experts in various fields of culture, who are willing to use the results in a more pragmatic manner. The goal of this article is to have an in-depth insight into the topic of presenting statistical data in culture for the general public, who in most of the cases is not familiar with this approach on the cultural field. How to present statistical data to the journalists, experts in culture or local public administration representatives? What is the most relevant information and how to present it, in order for it to be used for cultural strategies and projects? How was the data from the Cultural Consumption Barometer presented in mass-media and what reactions did they generate? These are the most important questions we want to answer in our article. We shall present a case study carried out on the archives, including media news about the results of the Cultural Consumption Barometer. First, we shall present the way statistical data were selected and included in the public report and then we shall discuss the way they were presented by the journalists in the mass media news and what reactions they generated from the beneficiaries. The conclusions of our paper highlight the importance of paying attention not only to the content and methodology of research, but also to the manner of presenting data to beneficiaries. Moreover, the communication strategy is very important in an environment with low rates of quantitative literacy.