Poland 6.2

According to recent research led by prof. M. Krajewski in 2024 cultural participation in Poland is undergoing a clear transformation. Poles are increasingly moving away from the traditional model of culture based mainly on visits to institutions such as theatres, museums, galleries or philharmonic halls. Instead, culture is more often experienced at home, online and through everyday practices. Listening to music, watching films and series, using streaming platforms, following social media or sharing content on the internet have become important forms of cultural activity. 

Recent research points out that culture is now strongly connected with digital technologies and everyday life. It is often consumed individually, through smartphones, computers and headphones, and adapted to personal interests and routines. As a result, cultural practices are becoming more private, fragmented and personalised. This also means that the communal role of culture is weaker than in the past, because people less often experience it together in public spaces.   

An important conclusion is that traditional ways of measuring cultural activity, based mainly on attendance in cultural institutions, are no longer sufficient. They do not fully show how people actually engage with culture today. Contemporary cultural participation should therefore be understood more broadly, as a set of everyday, digital, private and social practices that go beyond the old division between “high” and “popular” culture. 

The data on cultural participation in Poland is collected annually by the Centre for Public Opinion Research. The 2018 survey was carried out in January 2019 on a representative sample of 928 adult citizens of Poland. The 2025 survey was conducted in January 2026 on a representative named sample of 938 adult.

According to the Centre for Public Opinion Research, cultural participation in Poland increased between 2016 and 2018. In 2018, 56% of respondents declared that they had gone to the cinema, 44% had attended a concert, 34% had visited an exhibition or museum, and 24% had attended a theatre performance.

More recent data from 2025 indicate some changes in participation patterns. Cinema attendance slightly decreased to 53%, while participation in exhibitions and museums increased to 38%, and theatre attendance rose to 28%. Concert attendance remained stable at 44%. At the same time, the share of respondents reading books for pleasure decreased from 67% to 64%, and attendance at sports events fell from 43% to 37%.

Table 4:     Share of respondents who participated at least once in a particular cultural activity, 2018 and 2025