Creative Lives - Connecting Communities: How voluntary creative groups use social media to connect and share their activity

Apply for this SGSAH-funded internship with Creative Lives, up to 12 weeks FTE, between January & October 2025.

The project is titled Connecting Communities: How voluntary creative groups use social media to connect and share their activity and will involve researching and reporting on which social media platforms are preferred by local voluntary creative groups, and why.

Deadline for Applications is 15th November 2024.

Location

This internship will be primarily remote, with the option to use desks at The Melting Port in Edinburgh Mon-Fri 9am-5pm if desired.
We will cover expenses for interns to visit local creative groups within a reasonable distance from their home, otherwise all case study interviews should be carried out via Zoom.

Project

Like other community networks, most voluntary creative groups use social media to connect with their members, promote events and share their activity with the general public. We want to explore which platforms they use and why; how it helps them stay in touch with each other and the wider world; what the challenges and pitfalls are; how has social media helped them achieve a broad reach and make unexpected connections; and what's on the horizon in terms of current and future social media platforms (i.e. the decline of X/Twitter and the rise of income-generating platforms such as Substack. Also, what variations are there for people in different equality groups (e.g. do age demographics determine preferences?

Outputs

1. To research and report on which social media platforms are preferred by local voluntary creative groups, and why.

2. How they use them - and to what end.

3. To find success stories (increased profile, a boost in ticket sales, recruiting new members etc.).

4. To explore difficulties and challenges groups have encountered, and how they overcome them.

5. To create a helpful 'toolkit' for creative groups to help them make the most of social media platforms (this should include at least six case studies of local, grassroots creative groups across Scotland)

6. To write a short report capturing the challenges some groups experience using technology (and social media in particular) to help us with our policy/advocacy work.

Timescale

Application Deadline: 15th November 2024

Start date (or must start by): Flexible

End date (or must end by): Flexible

Project can be worked full time, part time or flexibly in blocks, full-time for three months, or part-time for six months

Benefits to the Researcher

Creative Lives is a very supportive organisation, with team members based in Scotland (Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow), and in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We all work closely together to achieve our aims, and the intern will be invited to attend meetings, online events, one-to-one conversations and more with the whole organisation, to help benefit their learning. We have good experience of impact assessment - collecting and analysing quantitative and qualitative data as well as equalities reporting to funders.

This internship would start with a period of 'deep dive' digital research, exploring how groups use social media as well as scoping changing trends in social media usage more generally, followed by interviews (in person or online) with group organisers, all of which will increase their understanding of how grassroots creative groups work, and the enormous benefits they bring to their local communities.

We will work closely with the intern as they produce their resources (toolkit, report etc.) to convey the findings of their research, helping them produce professional outputs for use by the public.

Key Relationships

The intern will work with staff members across Creative Lives; with the organisers and participants of local creative groups across Scotland (and the UK); and there is potential to speak to social media experts and attend online training and conferences relating to this topic.

Person Specification

Apply here

Return to the Internships & Artists Residencies 2025 page to see other internship opportunities.

First published: 4 October 2024