Consumption trends of Cultural and Creative products in “phygital” contexts

Introduction

This Call for Papers aims at collecting original papers which address the challenges faced by the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs) in contemporary “phygital” consumption contexts. We expect to receive papers addressing holistic frameworks including contemporary theories explaining consumer behaviour regarding CCIs’ goods and services, papers presenting novelty in their qualitative or quantitative methodology, and ultimately papers contributing to the understanding of consumption of cultural products and services in contemporary environments, including economic, psychological, social, and technological purchasing factors. We welcome qualitative or quantitative papers, covering different countries, in the form of theoretical, conceptual, and empirical contributions, based on primary and/or secondary data. Case-study analyses are also welcome if they enable to discover unusual and original realities in different geographic and cultural contexts.

In short, this Special Issue aims at identifying and mapping current trends of consumption of cultural and creative products recently adopted at individual or society level. This mapping aims at filling the gap in the academic literature and at highlighting “best practices” that could benefit cultural stakeholders in adopting and implementing effective policies in the future. The classification of CCIs adopted to the aims of this Special Issue is the ESSnet-Culture organization in 10 cultural domains: heritage, archives, libraries, book & press, visuals arts, performing arts, audiovisual & multimedia, architecture, advertising, and art crafts (cf for more details, ESS-Net Culture Final report, 2012, section 3.2).

Nowadays, several drivers are forcing societal transformation. We face some urgency on increasing sustainability through the implementation of circular practices and technological innovation. From a practical side, global connectivity, new information and communication technologies, robotics and the artificial intelligence (AI) development provide new ways of interaction between organisations and consumers. These new ways integrate immersive digital technologies with physical experiences to provide sustainable-oriented choices (Kotler et al., 2024). The CCIs meet these challenges by creating and delivering new cultural products while interacting with current targets and addressing new audiences. Similarly, scholars need to assess these rapid social, cultural and environmental changes to better understand society’s cultural trends and behaviour.

CCIs’ primary objectives include to utilise, create, modify, promote, or sell cultural, artistic, and historical content, as well as items related to education and management, often through intellectual property (Castaldi, 2018). CCIs serve as crucial drivers of economic growth (UNESCO, 2024), regional development (Kalfas et al., 2024; Sokół et al., 2023), cultural innovation (Sica et al., 2025) and social cohesion (Gohoungodji and Amarak 2023). Furthermore, CCIs aspire to humanise society through culture-sensitive strategies which foster cultural diversity and understanding among different cultures (Castellani, 2019). Recent research findings advocate the strategic integration of CCIs into broader environmental, territorial, social, and economic development agendas to understand the increasing complexity of the role of CCIs in our society (Sica et al., 2025).

New digital environments provide a powerful scenario to transform cultural and creative experiences into more memorable interactions (Batat and Hammedi, 2023; Li et al., 2026; Liu et al., 2025). Extended reality technologies such as augmented reality and virtual reality may create a combination of physical, human, and digital elements to offer a unique “phygital” experience (Anwar et al., 2025; Gao et al., 2026; Gursoy et al., 2023).

CCIs’ phygital experiences may contribute to individual consumer (Lee et al., 2024) and to societal well-being (Pérez-Cabañero and Salvador, 2026) by providing spaces for fostering education, intercultural dialogue, social cohesion, and collective resilience (Fissi et al., 2025). However, further research is needed to better understand how emerging cultural and creative practices contribute to this goal.

List of Topic Areas

• Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs)
• Cultural consumption
• Phygital experience
• Artificial intelligence (AI)
• Sustainability

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available at: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/aatm 

Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see: https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/aam 

Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”.

Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Deadlines

Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 15/07/2026

Closing date for manuscripts submission: 15/02/2027