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The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of the “audience exchange” approach for audience development and research, and to highlight the insights offered by peer-to-peer dialogue in understanding experiences of unfamiliar arts.

Using a case study with contemporary arts audiences, and setting this in the wider context of studies with other first-time attenders at a range of arts events, the paper explores the use of the “audience exchange” method, in which facilitated conversations after performance events allow newcomers to reflect upon and deepen their first-time encounters with live arts.

The study demonstrates the way in which conversations about arts events can enrich audience experience, and shows how participants use exploratory and emotional language to articulate their understanding of unfamiliar arts events. Peer-to-peer learning occurs through these conversations, in ways that could be further supported by arts organisations as a valuable tool for audience development. The audience exchange discussions also reveal the varieties of participation from “drifting” to full attention that are all part of audience engagement.

This is a small-scale, qualitative study, and the method has potential to be tested in future studies with a greater variety of participants (e.g. younger or more ethnically diverse groups).

Use of the audience exchange for enriching experiences of first-time attendance could be adopted by arts organisations as a regular part of their audience engagement. Greater understanding of how new audience members draw on prior cultural experiences in finding the language to articulate their first impressions of an unfamiliar arts event could be valuable for targeted marketing and increasing accessibility.

The originality of this study lies in its elaboration of the audience exchange method, and its focus on the language and peer-to-peer learning evident in the facilitated post-performance discussions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of donors to a UK-based contemporary music organisation fundraising scheme through the theoretical lens of liminality.

In-depth interviews with 16 members of the Sound Investment scheme investigated the motivations and experiences of individual donors to the commissioning of new music. Thematic analysis suggested parallels with the framework of “liminality,” which shed new light on the ways in which membership changed donors' relationships with the organisation and audience.

Motivations for supporting contemporary music commissioning included personal interest, cultural responsibility and alignment to the values of the organisation. Tangible benefits, particularly access to rehearsals, brought donors into closer connection with the creative and managerial working of the organisation.

The sample did not include any lapsed donors, or people who had chosen not to participate. Future research could test the liminal framework in different artforms and through different tangible benefits.

Understanding donors as liminals could help arts organisations to develop membership schemes that more effectively sustain individual giving. Key elements of involvement and access are identified that could engage audiences more widely.

This case study foregrounds lived experience of arts donors where previous literature has primarily focussed on motivations for donating. It highlights the liminal elements of becoming an individual donor, namely, the integration and socialisation processes, the space-and time-bound interactions with the organisation and the alignment of values with the organisation. This framework offers a new way for arts organisations to understand and enhance individual giving in a time of austerity.

Snacking contributes to one-quarter of children’s total daily energy intake in the USA, with many snack foods being nutrient-poor and energy-dense. Snacking and sugary beverage consumption have been identified as potential contributors to childhood overweight and obesity and may play a particularly important role among children from socioeconomically disadvantaged households that generally display higher rates of obesity. This exploratory study investigated associations between consumption of snack foods, sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) and overweight and obesity in children from low-income households.

Data from households that participated in a multi-state cost-offset (CO-CSA) community supported agriculture intervention in 2016 and 2017 (n = 305) were analyzed. Fixed effect regression models were used to estimate associations between child monthly consumption of salty snack foods; sweet snack foods and SSBs; and child weight status, accounting for demographic characteristics.

No associations were found between snack or SSB consumption and child overweight. However, household income was significantly, negatively related to all three consumption variables (Salty snacks: ß = −0.09, SE = 0.04, p = 0.02; Sweet snacks: ß= −0.10, SE = 0.04, p = 0.01; SSB: ß= −0.21, SE = 0.05, p = 0.0001). The results suggest that household income may play an important role in children’s snacking and SSB behaviors among more disadvantaged households.

Factors beyond snack food and SSB consumption should be explored to better understand childhood overweight and obesity, and to inform future obesity interventions.

Socioeconomic disparities in childhood obesity are an ongoing policy-relevant issue within the USA and internationally. This study provides new information about child snacking behaviors in a unique, low-income population and contributes to the evidence base regarding the role household context in shaping child consumption behaviors.

This article seeks to understand how audience members at a live jazz event react to one another, to the listening venue, and to the performance. It considers the extent to which being an audience member is a social experience, as well as a personal and musical one, and investigates the distinctive qualities of listening to live jazz in a range of venues.

The research draws on evidence from nearly 800 jazz listeners, surveyed at the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival and in The Spin jazz club, Oxford. Questionnaires, diaries and interviews were used to understand the experiences of listening for a wide range of audience members, and were analysed using NVivo.

The findings illustrate how listening to live jazz has a strongly social element, whereby listeners derive pleasure from attending with others or meeting like‐minded enthusiasts in the audience, and welcome opportunities for conversation and relaxation within venues that help to facilitate this. Within this social context, live listening is for some audience members an intense, sometimes draining experience; while for others it offers a source of relaxation and absorption, through the opportunity to focus on good playing and preferred repertoire. Live listening is therefore both an individual and a social act, with unpredictable risks and pleasures attached to both elements, and varying between listeners, venues and occasions.

There is potential for this research to be replicated in a wider range of jazz venues, and for these findings to be compared with audiences of other music genres, particularly pop and classical, where differences in expectations and behaviour will be evident.

The authors demonstrate how existing audience members are a vast source of knowledge about how a live jazz gig works, and how the appeal of such events could be nurtured amongst potential new audiences. They show the value of qualitative investigations of audience experience, and of the process of research and reflection in itself can be a source of audience development and engagement.

This paper makes a contribution to the literature on audience engagement, both through the substantial sample size and through the consideration of individual and social experiences of listening. It will have value to researchers in music psychology, arts marketing and related disciplines, as well as being a useful source of information and strategy for arts promoters.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to formulate an exhaustive list of the issues, gaps, and barriers at each level of the agri-food value chain in North Carolina (NC), and second, to identify the issues of greatest importance to its members.

This research employed the Delphi technique in two stages of input. The first round of input was designed to create a comprehensive list of issues for each of nine “stages” of the agri-food value chain. In round two, the issues were prioritized.

The top ten responses of each stage were aggregated into themes that represent the most critical issues identified by respondents: connectedness within the value chain, access to markets and marketing, affordability/availability of food and food distribution, farm profitability, societal awareness, and education about healthy, local food, and supporting institutions.

The findings could be used by practitioners to inspire innovation in food-related products, programs, processes, organization, and marketing. The findings can help farmers, institutions, food distributors, policy makers, and other members of the agri-food value chain to make decisions about food distribution and access in NC and in other states facing similar issues and circumstances. The findings of this research also have further reaching implications, such as the connectivity of members along the agri-food value chain, the impact of a strong agri-food value chain on agritourism and the potential value of state marketing initiatives.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the jazz festival experience at the Heineken Jazzaldia Festival in San Sebastian, Spain. It focuses especially on the relationship between participants’ area of residence and their experience of the festival, concert expectations, preference for different festival settings and perception of the best aspects of the festival.

This study modifies and applies the Audience Experience Survey (Radbourne et al., 2009) to the Heineken Jazzaldia Festival in San Sebastian, Spain. A total of 406 valid questionnaires were obtained. A quantitative analysis technique was used for the area of residence, on the one hand, and for concert expectations, audience experience and venue setting, on the other. A qualitative approach was applied for identifying the best aspects of the festival.

The results suggest that the audiences’ festival preferences differed according to their area of residence. Audience members who lived in Spain outside of the Basque Country were more motivated to attend the festival, had higher concert expectations and greater indoor venue concert attendance, and considered music diversity to be one of the most important aspects of the festival. Local participants were more likely not to have expectations prior to concerts, had higher outdoor venue concert attendance rates and preferred ambience compared with residents from outside of the Basque Country.

Findings could be relevant to festivals’ organisers for management and marketing purposes in terms of their audiences’ needs and preferences. One of the main results obtained is that local residents were more likely not to have expectations prior to concerts. They also equalised music diversity, artists, stages and atmosphere as the best Festival’s aspects while participants from outside of the Basque Country prioritised music diversity aspect.

This paper contributes to the literature regarding residents’ behaviour in the Spanish music festival context. Our findings add to the body of knowledge around local audiences’ and non-local audience’s experience in jazz festivals.

Many of today’s information and technology systems and environments facilitate inquiry, learning, consciousness-raising and knowledge-building. Such platforms include e-learning systems which have learning, education and/or training as explicit goals or objectives. They also include search engines, social media platforms, video-sharing platforms, and knowledge sharing environments deployed for work, leisure, inquiry, and personal and professional productivity. The new journal, Information and Learning Sciences, aims to advance our understanding of human inquiry, learning and knowledge-building across such information, e-learning, and socio-technical system contexts.

This article introduces the journal at its launch under new editorship in January, 2019. The article, authored by the journal co-editors and all associate editors, explores the lineage of scholarly undertakings that have contributed to the journal's new scope and mission, which includes past and ongoing scholarship in the following arenas: Digital Youth, Constructionism, Mutually Constitutive Ties in Information and Learning Sciences, and Searching-as-Learning.

The article offers examples of ways in which the two fields stand to enrich each other towards a greater holistic advancement of scholarship. The article also summarizes the inaugural special issue contents from the following contributors: Caroline Haythornthwaite; Krista Glazewski and Cindy Hmelo-Silver; Stephanie Teasley; Gary Marchionini; Caroline R. Pitt; Adam Bell, Rose Strickman and Katie Davis; Denise Agosto; Nicole Cooke; and Victor Lee.

The article, this special issue, and the journal in full, are among the first formal and ongoing publication outlets to deliberately draw together and facilitate cross-disciplinary scholarship at this integral nexus. We enthusiastically and warmly invite continued engagement along these lines in the journal’s pages, and also welcome related, and wholly contrary points of view, and points of departure that may build upon or debate some of the themes we raise in the introduction and special issue contents.

This paper aims to investigate the potential for digital badges to support alternate learning and career pathways in formal and informal learning environments. Stakeholder groups in higher education and industry discussed how digital badges might transform current processes of admitting undergraduate students and hiring young professionals.

This research uses a thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with 30 stakeholders in higher education and the technology industry.

Interview participants expressed optimism about the potential for digital badges to make learning pathways visible to learners and external audiences and to promote equity in STEM (STEM: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education and careers. Participants noted several obstacles, largely focused on issues of credibility and logistics of working with badges across settings.

Though the research approach is limited in geographic scope, the findings have broad applicability and insight for the use of digital badges in general.

Education policymakers, employers and scholars will be able to use the insights from this investigation in their efforts to find innovative ways to expand and diversify the STEM workforce, as well as support a wider range of learners than is currently supported by initiatives aligned with the school-to-workforce pipeline metaphor.

This paper directly confronts issues of real-world applications of digital badges by discussing practical implications with college admissions officers and employers. The current study fills a need for research that investigates the use of digital badges across – as opposed to within – contexts.

The authors aimed to identify the nature of customer harassment against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) workers.

The authors analyzed data from in-depth interviews with 30 LGBTQ service workers in the United States who had recently experienced customer harassment.

Among various forms of customer harassment LGBTQ workers reported, some showed commonalities with previously reported cases of race-based and gender-based customer harassment. However, other cases highlighted unique aspects of LGBTQ-based customer harassment—customers morally condemned their LGBTQ identities, refused their service while displaying emotional disgust, and made sexual advances while imposing sexual stereotypes and fantasies about LGBTQ people. Experiences of customer harassment varied across subgroups of workers who had specific sexual and gender identities, and LGBTQ workers of color were harassed for their LGBTQ and racial identities simultaneously.

Past research on group-based customer harassment has focused on incidents against straight, cisgender women and workers of workers of color, but the present study identified the nature of customer harassment that targeted workers' LGBTQ status.