The project
The overarching research question is: How does digitization influence the diversity dimensions in the culture and media sector?
The project is a collaboration between the Norwegian Business School (BI), the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the National Library of Norway, and the University of Copenhagen. The project is financed by The Research Council of Norway through the KULMEDIA programme.
In the research project we examine the impact of public and private digitization initiatives on diversity. We concentrate on four industries: the library and book sector (e-books), museums (digital collections), film (digital cinema and movie files), and the press, especially local newspapers (e-papers). In Norway, the state plays a significant role in both the financing and the digitization of the sector; therefore we focus on the interaction between public and private actors.
Diversity deals with content production, the user, patterns of digital consumption, private and public distribution and dissemination channels as well as the new technological production conditions relating to interfaces, software (algorithms) and new methods of analysis (Big Data).
The overarching research question: How does digitization influence the diversity dimensions in the culture and media sector?
Other important issues are:
- What are the unintended consequences of digitization on diversity in the selected industries and in culture and media policy?
- How does the heterogeneous population use the new private and public digital services?
- How does digitization change the conditions of diversity within the cultural heritage sector when it comes to selection, dissemination, participation, and the use of digital tools for the big data analysis?
- How do digital innovation, business models and distribution channels influence the quality of the culture and media content and the diversity of the content being offered?
Diversity is a key objective in culture and media policy documents and securing a public infrastructure is a primary task. New digital conditions for production, distribution and consumption imply new challenges for the policy making and public funding. This research project can contribute to the production of knowledge that is relevant for a new digital culture and media policy