Friday, October 14, 2011

the results are in, and... we are engaged




Yesterday The Ontario Arts Council released its Ontario Arts Engagement Study, a survey and report commissioned from research firm WolfBrown.

Obviously, I'll be studying this report in detail and commenting on the findings in both my work and on this personal blog. I'll start by noting a couple of quick findings that jump off the page and make folks in the OAC Literature Office* very excited indeed:

The report finds that "with respect to individual activities, overall frequency of participation is highest for ‘reading articles in newspapers or magazines’ (94%), ‘watching movies on a computer, TV or DVD’ (94%), ‘listening to music on a local radio station’ (90%), ‘reading paperback or hard cover books for enjoyment’ (88%)..."

Magazines and books holding their own against film and music? The numbers don't lie.

In fact, of the top ten most prevalent arts-related activities in the province that also show high frequency rates (once a week as opposed to once a year) reading in books and magazines occupy two of the top four rankings. This province loves us some reading!

Data for the study was collected through a series of 1,594 telephone interviews of Ontarians in all parts of the province. The interviews were conducted by Ipsos Reid this past May and June.

You can find the full report on the OAC website here, and a summary here.

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*For those unaware, I run the Literature Office at the Ontario Arts Council. That's my day job.


1 comment:

Crockett said...

Well John, I am pleased to hear that Canadians (especially in Ontario it seems) are so connected to the arts. That is a good showing for our country.

It must be quite the spectacle then for you to see the parties in the house of commons, who are historically the most supportive of the arts, to be unified and completely opposed to the digital locks provision of the conservative's bill C-11.

In contrast then are you supportive of the Conservative government's bill that has the distinction of being the most restrictive in the world [including the USA] to the application of those locks?

What about the section pillaging the rights of writers, or the damages section that is in the words of Mr. Henderson 'A licence to steal'?

Seems like the time for excitement will be short lived.