Consumption of Cultural Content in the Digital Environment in the Post-Pandemic Latvia

Abstract

Abstract Research purpose. COVID-19 has a huge impact on the life-style in modern society, including the switching to online studies and remote work. The majority of the studies view the consequences as negative, while at the same time the pandemic have enhanced some positive changes. The goal of the research is to find out, how the time spent online and the content consumed online are changed due to pandemic as well as to determine what cultural content young people are consuming online. Design / Methodology / Approach. To achieve the research purpose author conducted a survey, using own developed instrument – questionnaire. In total, 1029 respondents participated and 934 questionnaires were valid. The survey was conducted in December 2020 using snowball sampling. The developed questionnaire contained 14 questions were grouped into 2 sections: A) Questions about consumption on cultural content online before and during the pandemic and B) Respondent profile. Findings. Totally the number of hours young people are spending online in post-pandemic period increased because of COVID, but most fastest growth is by those who spent more than 8 hours (from 15 to 100 persons). 53,2% from all respondents are spending about ¼ of all time online consuming cultural content, and 23,2% are not consummating cultural content online at all. 3 main significant reasons why the youth is spending time online are: it is easy and fast (77%); the digital environment is always along in the phone (77%); in the digital environment it is possible to communicate with friends (65%). Spending time online most respondents are consuming informative content, including news and blogs (64%) and the content related to hobbies or leisure (60%), but the cultural content was ranked with just 26%. The most used digital cultural content is movie watching (30,5%), seminars and courses about culture (18,6%), conferences dedicated to culture topics (17,1%), tours in world museums (16,3%) and study books (15,9%). Further, gender, like gender, can not be considered both a significant factor and a predictor of digital consumption. Unlike the two, occupation and place of living are predictors for share of online cultural consumption: occupation appeared to be a moderating factor for digital consumption of cultural content, which make Latvian findings different from what appears in literature. Originality / Value / Practical implications. The results of the research are representing changes in online consumption of culture goods and services caused by COVID-19. As the target group of this survey are youth from 18 to 25 years old, they can be used by evaluating potential and planning of culture goods and services online for this target group. It because evident, that some of the post-pandemic cultural consumption trends appeared as the impact of pandemic, enhancing cultural consumption growth in certain areas, involving more youngsters to cultural consumption compared to pre-pandemic period.