Emerald Open Research Open Peer Review Any reports and responses or comments on the article can be found at the end of the article. RESEARCH ARTICLE Exploring contemporary patterns of cultural consumption: offline and online film watching in the UK [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review] Matthew Hanchard , Peter Merrington , Bridgette Wessels , Simeon Yates 2 School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8RT, UK Department of Communication and Media, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7ZG, UK Abstract This paper focuses on patterns of film consumption within cultural consumption more broadly to assess trends in consumerism such as eclectic consumption, individualised consumption and omnivorous/univorous consumption and whether economic background and status feature in shaping cultural consumption. We focus on film because it is widely consumed, online and offline, and has many genres that vary in terms of perceived artistic and entertainment value. In broad terms, film is differentiated between mainstream commercially driven film such as Hollywood blockbusters, middlebrow ‘feel good’ movies and independent arthouse and foreign language film. Our empirical statistical analysis shows that film consumers watch a wide range of genres. However, films deemed to hold artistic value such as arthouse and foreign language feature as part of broad and wide-ranging pattern of consumption of film that attracts its own dedicated consumers. Though we found that social and economic factors remain predictors of cultural consumption the overall picture is more complex than a simple direct correspondence and perceptions of other cultural forms also play a role. Those likely to consume arthouse and foreign language film consume other film genres and other cultural forms genres and those who ‘prefer’ arthouse and foreign language film have slightly more constrained socio-economic characteristics. Overall, we find that economic and cultural factors such income, education, and wider consumption of culture are significant in patterns of film consumption. Keywords Film, cultural consumption, consumers This article is included in the Digital World gateway. 1 1 1 2 1 2 Reviewer Status AWAITING PEER REVIEW 30 Oct 2019, :16 ( First published: 1 ) https://doi.org/10.35241/emeraldopenres.13196.1 30 Oct 2019, :16 ( Latest published: 1 ) https://doi.org/10.35241/emeraldopenres.13196.1 v1 Page 1 of 21 Emerald Open Research 2019, 1:16 Last updated: 30 OCT 2019