Meet the Shortlisted entries for the Digital Content category in the 2025 Digital Culture Awards, which celebrates innovative use of digital technology to create and distribute creative and cultural content.

The Winner will be announced in the middle of March. 

The Shortlist

1. MBD (Metro-Boulot-Dodo) – Steel Town Tales

Promotional poster for Metro Boulot Dodo's 'Steel Town Tales'. Image is a screenshot from their interactive project, showcasing a person stood on a cobbled street in an industrial town with a factory in the background as the sun rises.

Image © MBD (metro-boulot-dodo)

MBD (metro-boulot-dodo), based in Leicester, specialises in immersive storytelling, using technology to bring stories to life in engaging ways. 

Their ambitious Steel Town Tales project was designed to document and creatively reimagine the history of Corby’s steel industry by working directly with its residents. The project actively engaged the community in exploring the Northamptonshire town’s industrial past through a combination of innovative and immersive digital technology like VR, workshops and hands-on activities.  

The project successfully merged high-end digital content and interactive, impactful storytelling with the involvement of different age demographics, encouraging people to share their own history. The project’s creative use of technology succeeded in bringing inaccessible or non-existent spaces like Corby’s former steelworks back to life for a new generation. 

2. Cardboard Citizens – Cardboard Citizens: More Than One Story

A homeless woman is sat on the floor on cardboard next to a shop door looking up. There is text that reads 'Cardboard Citizens Presents: MORE THAN ONE STORY. A film exploring the multiple realities of homelessness in the UK today.'

Image © Cardboard Citizens

London based Cardboard Citizens creates theatre for social change, working for and with those with lived experience of homelessness, empowering them and challenging society’s perceptions.  

More Than One Story is a series of nine monologue films created and performed by people with lived experience of homelessness and poverty and was Cardboard Citizen’s first venture into filmmaking. The project’s goal was to give a voice to underrepresented individuals, deepen understanding of homelessness, and engage diverse audiences.  

It was launched through a nine-week multi-channel distribution campaign aimed at target audiences, promoted in partnership with The Big Issue and with a dedicated microsite. Post-event surveys, creative insights and digital metrics were used to measure the impressive impact and showed the films reached a diverse audience of 153,000 – 206% over their target – and saw their website traffic grow by 236% year on year. 

3. Manchester Jewish Museum – Engaging collection videos

@mcrjewishmuseum

Can you imagine receiving a letter from the US president? 😯 In this video we were joined by two volunteers from @habonimdrorna who helped us explore the story behind our most recent (and very exciting!) donation 🩷 #museuminterpretation #jewishmuseum #manchesterjewishmuseum #letters #jfk #jfkennedy #jewishhistory #jewishlife #jewishculture #ottofrank #annefrank #henryrose #manchester #museumlover #museums #museumfromhome #jewishart #yourmjm #museumcollection

♬ Lo-Fi chill beat(886457) – 平松誠

Manchester Jewish Museum holds an extensive collection of photographs, objects and oral history testimonies documenting the story of Jewish migration and settlement in the city. 

They set out to make their collection and archives more accessible, relevant, and appealing to younger audiences, leading them to focus their resources on producing social media content. The marketing manager collaborated with the museum’s curators to develop a weekly series of short videos, shared through Instagram Reels, which highlighted lesser-known but remarkable and resonant stories from the museum’s collection. This cross-team collaboration has been a key factor in the project’s success, helping them share their collections in a contemporary and engaging way. 

Following considerable growth in followers and engagement on Instagram – particularly in younger audiences – they have expanded strategy to build a TikTok channel.  The success has seen the museum expand its volunteer programme to include a Social Media role which has helped develop the digital skills of over 10 individuals aged 18-25 looking to join the workforce. 

4. Louise Orwin & Co – FAMEHUNGRY

Promotional poster for Louise Orwin & Co's 'FAMEHUNGRY'. Yellow text reads 'FAMEHUNGRY' and a white woman with brown hair is holding a melting ice cream and phone whilst staring off into the distance. The woman is stood in front of a background of blue sky and clouds.

Image © Louise Orwin & Co

Performance artist, writer and director Louise Orwin creates research-based performances and video projects, which are provocative and political, often working with participation. 

FAMEHUNGRY is the result of two years of intensive and innovative research and development by Louise, who wanted to create a truly hybrid digital and in-person theatrical experience that supported collaboration between performance art and online content creation and asked how live performance can survive in a world of digital media.  

The experience includes separate shows performed live simultaneously in the real world and on TikTok, creating a truly unique experience for its two different audiences and posing the same challenge every time – if she gets to 20,000 likes, what ‘amazing’ thing will she do? 

With over 51 performances so far, it has reached over 3000 in-person audience members and more than 34,100 on TikTok – with up to 350 viewers at a time – and received multiple awards and 5-star reviews. The show is currently touring internationally in 2025, including a 3 week run in New York, Malta, Denmark and more international dates to come. 

5. Royal Armouries – TiKTok launch

The Royal Armouries, the world’s oldest museum, holds a vast national armoury collection – from Henry VIII’s armour to Japanese Samurai swords. The collection is on display across three sites, the White Tower at the Tower of London, its modern riverside home in Leeds, and the artillery at Fort Nelson, near Portsmouth.  

With ambitions to become the museum and heritage world’s best and most-followed TikTok channel, they have harnessed the talents of their young, passionate marketing and communications team and collaborated with the museum’s knowledgeable curators, live interpreters and more.  This has resulted in creating compelling, serious but also dynamic and often witty content from its important collections. 

In the first three months of this new strategy, they went viral twice, resulting in 23 million post views, 228,000 profile views, 3.2 million likes, 254,000 comments and 635,000 shares. Recent data from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport shows that between July and September, the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds increased visitors by 62% since pre-pandemic levels in 2019bucking the national trend for museum visits which saw a 14% decrease. 

What next? 

Head back to the main Awards page to learn about the Shortlisted organisations in other categories.