Research within Cultuurlab is situated at the intersection of culture and new media, or so called e-culture. Starting from the observation of actual transitions in society (i.e. creative economy, convergence culture, marketisation, expansion of virtual social worlds, ‘networked information economy’), we reflect about how culture gets a new role in the network society and how static forms of creation, production, content, participation and policy become hybrid.
More particularly, the process of digitisation and the implications for (the creation and production of) cultural content, participation and policy are analysed, evaluated and contextualised. The digitisation is blurring boundaries between formerly differentiated cultural content, actors, markets and policies. The process of digitisation is creating a new (digital) cultural sphere, which is underpinning the Cultuurlab research.
The increasing digitisation of cultural content and the birth of the digital born content have resulted in a vast variety of cultural content being made available – free or at a price – to consumers/citizens. Digital cultural content is more and more becoming available at all times and everywhere. The digitisation is transforming the way we access, (re)use and experience this content. The safeguarding of public domain content and sustainable digital access to cultural content for everyone have become important policy goals throughout Flanders, Europe and beyond. Besides, digital accessibility is increasingly seen as a potential means to increase the level of valuable virtual cultural participation.
Within this new digital cultural sphere, traditional questions concerning diversity, literacy, cultural value, quality, access, preservation, participation, etc. are still up-to-date. Besides, also new questions arise touching upon piracy, the dichotomy public versus private value, new content policy models to stimulate (digital) cultural content production, the digital preservation and distribution of cultural (heritage) content, impact assessment, feasible models of content valorisation and alternative models of content financing (policies) such as Public Private Partnerships. Besides, in this context of hybrid (virtual) cultural production and participation, the hierarchic knowledge structure and the role and power of the consumers/citizens (cf. user empowerment) and artists/institutions/companies are (partly) changing. Consumers/citizens even get the opportunity to create cultural content themselves (cf. the so-called ‘prosumer’). This context is forcing producers of content to rethink existing business, financing and valorisation models, and supporting policies.
In light of these trends, Cultuurlab identifies 4 interrelated domains that require thorough and critical investigation: (1) virtual cultural participation; (2) digital cultural content; (3) cultural financing, distribution and valorisation models and (4) (e-)cultural policy.
The research methods used by Cultuurlab include deskresearch (mapping, document analysis), policy analysis, surveys, interviews (in depth, focusgroep interviews, expert panels), content analysis (analysis digital cultural content), observation (observation ICT use), impact assessment and business modelling.
|