Cutting Edge | Protecting and preserving cultural diversity in the digital era

Digital infrastructure remains a barrier in some parts of the world but even among countries with strong digital infrastructure, very few have developed a comprehensive national digital culture plan that goes beyond initiatives taken to digitalize or strengthen certain facets of their cultural sectors. Yet, adapting to the new digital landscape is one of the main frontier issues for the development of national cultural policies that will ensure that culture remains a common good for all. Robust public cultural policies are vital in ensuring the safeguarding of heritage for future generations; developing diverse, vibrant and prosperous creative ecosystems and ensuring that expanding access to culture is a vehicle for more peaceful and tolerant societies.

Digital technologies have a significant role to play in safeguarding cultural heritage, including in the wake of conflicts, natural disasters and other emergencies. In Syria, for example, UNESCO has been working with UNITAR-UNOSAT, to produce an assessment of damage to the Ancient City of Aleppo, using satellite imagery and a detailed SD model of the Citadel, developed by the French start-up Iconem. Similar initiatives are underway in Yemen where UNESCO is training heritage professionals in the knowledge of 3D documentation of buildings, monuments and sites, and also in Iraq where UNESCO is collaborating on the use of drone technologies and photogrammetry to document the scale of destruction of the Old City of Mosul, as part of UNESCO flagship initiative "Revive the Spirit of Mosul". Such information can serve as the crucial foundation for the recovery of countries and communities in rehabilitating the edifices of their shared identity, or in ensuring the transmission of memory in the case of irreversible damage. Digital technology can also help in the fight against illicit trafficking of cultural property. With looters exploiting tools such as social media, online forums and the deep web, public authorities can deploy remote sensing to detect and monitor excavations; as well as machine learning and 3Dimagery-fed blockchain technology to trace provenance records. The sharing of data between countries, through the use of technologies, is also vital.

Threats to cultural heritage can also strike in other forms, such as the devastating fire that hit the Brazil National Museum in Rio de Janeiro in 2018. The fire is estimated to have destroyed some 80-90% of the museum’s 20- million piece collection. The fact that at least part of the museum’s inventory was digitised will play an important role in the recovery process. Indeed, the digitisation of museum’s collections – repositories of some of the unique and vital objects of our common story – is vital for ensuring that content can be shared across museums. Interestingly, a 2016 report by the Economist Intelligence Unit showed that many developing country institutions - such as in China, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru and Thailand - do better at archive digitization. The report concludes that “it is perhaps no coincidence that these countries, prone to natural disasters, have felt a greater sense of urgency to preserve their cultural assets.” New technologies can also enhance disasters risk reduction strategies. For example, the tsunami early warning systems - developed through UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission - are important for preserving cultural heritage, particularly of the Small Island Developing States. Whilst there is widespread recognition that digital technologies offer new ways to produce, store and share museum and heritage assets, the framework for doing so is yet to be fully defined. UNESCO is supporting the Reproduction of Works of Art and Cultural Heritage (ReACH) initiative, led by the Victoria & Albert Museum of the United Kingdom, which aims to detail a roadmap for how museums can engage with these technologies, particularly in relation to scientific challenges such as the restoration and reconstruction of cultural heritage, as well as preserving memory in the case of fragile heritage.

Digital technologies can also be harnessed for documenting, transmitting and revitalising intangible cultural heritage. As intangible cultural heritage cannot be seen or held in physical form, documentation particularly through media production projects, allows us to understand the evolutionary trends of a certain element of intangible cultural heritage and formulate measures for its safeguarding. A project by a UNESCO category II centre, for example, is supporting Asia-Pacific Member States to digitize damaged analogue audiovisual resources so that these may be preserved and managed. It must be noted, however, that digital tools are not without their complications in relation to intangible cultural heritage, as they particularly raise questions of local cultural property rights. The UNESCO 2003 Convention on living heritage clearly places communities at the heart of safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage practices and the community-based negotiations for the documentation and digital circulation of representations of local intangible expressions remain key in ensuring that digital technologies are harnessed correctly.

In addition, an increasing part of the world’s cultural heritage is being produced, distributed and accessed in digital form. Cultural and educational resources “born digital”, such as electronic journals, web pages or online databases constitute a substantial repository of human knowledge with the potential to facilitate intercultural dialogue. However, they are particularly vulnerable to the risk of technical obsolescence and physical decay. The UNESCO Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage (2009) provides guidance on what texts, audio, film and image files should be preserved.

Digital technologies are also having a profound impact on the creative sector, with many burgeoning opportunities. Many artists and creative practitioners have altered the ways in which they work, pushing the limits of experimentation, opening new opportunities for collaboration and finding new audiences. The Ker Thiossane villa for art and multimedia based in Dakar, Senegal (also a UNESCO Creative City for Media Arts) is an example of an arts space that facilitates experimentation with the integration of digital technologies into traditional artistic practices. Cultural and creative industries and sectors that distribute cultural goods and services have been empowered to generate new products, access new markets and build innovative business models. The volume of data circulating on the internet is growing exponentially and revenues are also increasing. For example, in 2016, digital music revenues for the first time made up 50% of the recorded music market globally. As well as the diversity of cultural expressions, linguistic diversity is impacted by mass digital technologies. Currently, just 10 of the world’s estimated 7,000 languages are used to access 77% of the 1.8 billion websites on the internet (according to Internet World Stats); meaning that 95% of languages are practically excluded. Particularly the development of artificial intelligence potentially provides opportunities for automatic translation to expand the linguistic reach of the internet and increase access.

New technologies have, however, reconfigured the entire value chain: from creation to production, distribution, access and participation, posing a new challenging landscape. This new digital model is not merely a modernised version of a traditional one but is qualitatively different and requires a new approach. No longer does each actor in the chain contribute to adding value to a product or service and then pass it on to the next stage, like a pipeline. The digital model is a more networked one, with data at its heart, in which all five processes are taking place almost simultaneously. Understanding this underlying change in the economic model is vital for understanding how best to design public policy to make the most of the creative sector, which contributes some 3% to global GDP, providing some 29 million jobs worldwide.

This significant shift in the structure of today’s digitized global economy, and the repercussions for the creative scene, has given rise to very powerful online platform giants whose growing influence poses certain risks. The strength of a global platform like YouTube is so large that other actors, including the creators themselves, face difficulties in negotiating fair remuneration. The pandemic has also exacerbated this phenomenon as many of the large platforms saw an increase in the number of subscribers whilst artists such as musicians were increasingly reliant on record sales due to the cancellation of concerts, yet the benefits do not necessarily filter through to producers.

Furthermore, rather than expanding the scope of the diversity of cultural expressions globally, production and distribution are increasingly concentrated in the global North to the detriment of the global South, as illustrated by the fact that 95% of the app market is concentrated in just 10 countries. Such imbalances pose the risk of a homogenisation of culture at the global level, whilst at the same time that digital divides within countries can lead to the dominance of certain cultural practices or expressions to the detriment of valuing all cultural diversity.

Further complex issues arise from the rise of artificial intelligence and the use of big data. Artificial intelligence (AI) now has the capability of creating cultural content such as music and in 2018, the first ever artwork created by AI was sold at auction for $432,500. This raises fundamental questions about copyright and ownership, and is part of a larger question on the ethics of AI, which UNESCO is currently examining through its initiative to develop an international Recommendation on the ethics of artificial intelligence.

Even the lines between producers and consumers have blurred, leading to the concept of “prosumers”. The changing nature of the availability of content have raised expectations of access to cultural content for minimal or low cost, putting the livelihoods of artists and creative professionals at risk. Furthermore, the huge volumes of data circulating on the internet are susceptible to censorship and audiences may have their personal data misused. There is a further danger that virtual communities create “echo chambers” that distort perceptions and that algorithms tailor cultural content to the extent that they undermine the notion of culture as a common good.

The regulation of global cultural platforms is thus a critical challenge which requires concerted and coordinated policy dialogue, with a view to strengthen online cultural diversity, as well as to better protect copyright and cultural professionals’ livelihoods, and protect human rights in this new digital environment. The pandemic has in many ways highlighted the role of public authorities as guarantors to ensure access to cultural content online, paving the way for such policy dialogue. In response to these challenges, UNESCO developed in 2017 digital guidelines that also call upon Member States to supply the necessary digital equipment to public institutions such as schools, libraries, museums and cultural centres, as well as set up digital literacy programmes. These guidelines - adopted so far by 145 Member States and the European Union, as part of the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions - is also supported by an “open roadmap” for their implementation.

New technologies also affect how we access – and participate – in arts and culture. Firstly, digital technologies have applications in enhancing visitor experiences whilst conserving World Heritage sites for the future. For example, the Mogao Caves in China, a UNESCO World Heritage site that contains the largest collections of Buddhist cave painting in the world, were beginning to decay as a result of growing contact with visitors. A state-ofthe-art visitor centre was built, featuring exact replicas of the caves and drastically reducing the time visitors spent in the original site. In a similar move to change the visitor experience of cultural heritage, the World Heritage Journeys in Europe platform features 34 lesser-known World Heritage sites from 19 European Union countries to reduce the pressure on Europe’s most visited sites and share the benefits of cultural tourism more equally in way that is more environmentally and economically sustainable.

Digital technologies also increasingly expanding opportunities for cultural mediation in museums and libraries. In the future, virtual and augmented reality usage may be expanded to enhance the visitor experience, perhaps allowing visitors to explore World Heritage sites in their original state, or may one day even provide personalised virtual museums. UNESCO’s 2015 Recommendation concerning the Protection and Promotion of Museums and Collections, their Diversity and their Role in Society explicitly acknowledges the opportunities of information and communications technologies for museums in terms of “the preservation, study, creation and transmission of heritage and related knowledge” and calls upon Member States to support museums in using these technologies. Doing so could enable public authorities to overcome the paradox of the digital transformation, whereby certain populations suffer further exclusion from cultural life, for example by reaching out to new audiences, such as youth, or enhancing visitor spaces for people living with a disability to enjoy content. A 2016 report by the Economist Intelligence Unit concludes that museums galleries and theatres in many countries have made considerable strides, for example, in creating rich, user-friendly websites, and in using social media to expand their audiences. However, there is still progress to be made in terms of allowing patrons to interact with art and culture, as well as digital education initiatives. Crucially, the report notes that digital access boosts rather than reduces physical engagement with cultural content.

Digital technologies also lie at the intersection between culture and education. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic global lockdown, with hundreds of millions of students worldwide confined at home, cultural materials proved to be vital to continue learning, stimulate the imagination and engage in critical thinking. The role of the publishing industry, artists’ audio recordings of books, and the online resources made available by museums and other cultural institutions were brought to the fore. In addition, the internet provides opportunities for lifelong learning about heritage and the arts, opening up channels for intercultural dialogue. Digital technologies are also proving key in contributing to community-based education about intangible cultural heritage. For example, an innovative project to document indigenous knowledge of plants for medicinal, agricultural, economic and religious uses in the Subanen community of the Philippines ensured that this ancestral knowledge would be available to present and future generations in multimedia format.

Ministries of Culture and public cultural agencies around the world have made positive steps towards adapting their work to meet the demands of the digital age, even if this work tends to fall short of a comprehensive national digital culture plan. Many of these initiatives have focused on the modernisation of specific sectors, such as books, music and film, as well as updating copyright legislation. Cultural statistics remain exceedingly scarce and very few countries collect information on culture in the digital environment, such as digital music revenues. Without data on the cultural sector, it will prove difficult to design policies that respond to the real needs of the sector at national level, or even lead to counter-productive policies. Since the onset of the pandemic, there has been an acceleration in the collection of data, usually through online surveys. From a questionnaire by an Ethiopian civil society organization representing the music sector to a major sub-regional initiative between South American Ministries of Culture, such data strengthens dialogue with different actors and between ministries – or indeed countries - to create more agile context-specific policies.

Adapting to the digital sphere requires deeper collaboration between the different actors in the cultural sector to co-construct solutions to local problems. The 2018 Reshaping Cultural Policies report, that focuses on cultural and creative industries, shows that there is "evidence that the most effective digital policies – that have achieved the greatest impact over the long term and with the lowest investment – have been those that have actively involved private companies and civil society organizations working with digital tools in their conception and implementation". Given the transversal nature of culture, there is great scope for cooperation with authorities responsible for education, tourism, commerce, innovation, health and social welfare, as well as diplomatic relations, through digital solutions.

Digital technologies are here to stay and every day are pushing boundaries in the cultural sector. They have the potential to power great leaps of progress for the cultural sector, particularly in heritage management, guaranteeing cultural diversity and expanding access to culture. However, the challenges posed by these technologies remain great. A lack of funding and digital infrastructure is holding back cultural digitization in some countries, although a lack of awareness of the benefits of digitization, among both culture professionals and consumers, may also be a hindrance to progress. Even where the technical possibilities exist, the digital skills gaps remains a major barrier for such technologies becoming a powerful tool for all people. Furthermore, the heavy concentration of cultural content on some platforms and the threats posed to cultural professionals' livelihoods also risks impoverishing the rich cultural mosaic represented by all of humanity: a mosaic that must also be reflected in the digital world. Neglecting to address these key issues risks fundamentally undermining the principles of human rights and equal access to cultural life, as well as the protection of cultural and linguistic diversity - principles at the very core of the work of the United Nations.

Only states can guarantee that digital technologies can work for the common good of all of society. The pandemic has further highlighted the role of the state in addressing the crucial need to support leading-edge research, stimulate innovation in the education sector for the development of digital skills, and ensure cultural diversity and access to culture in the digital world. This requires designing cultural policies and regulatory frameworks founded on fundamental rights: freedom of expression, respect for cultural diversity, the economic and social rights of artists and cultural professionals, the collective cultural rights of minority communities and access to culture for all, including the most marginalized. Finding truly robust and long-lasting solutions requires a collective reflection and effort, through dialogue within societies with all actors and through the multilateral system, so that new technologies are developed for all and by all.

Digital technologies are tools that have the power to transform societies. Today we face an important choice: whether to invest in our new tools in a way that ensures that culture contributes to building open, equitable, inclusive, prosperous and pluralistic societies for the common good of generations to come.