5 Key Points from the Culture is Digital Report
Last week the Department of Digital Culture Media and Sport released their long awaited Culture is Digital Report . The idea of the report is to explore how digital is being used in the cultural sector and what new ideas could be inspired. This report brought together ideas from the public, the cultural sector and academics to help the government decide what policy to introduce. This report is important as it gives us a clue as to how the government will shape future public funding for arts and cultural organisations.
The team at Teesside had a lot of predictions for this report, and we were delighted to see most of them have come true. Here is our guide to what we think are 5 key takeaways from this report:
1. Evolution rather than upheaval — One of the biggest fears within the cultural sector is that many organisations don’t have the capacity to deal with a sudden change. Arts Council funded organisations have been told to create a digital strategy, and have had to make immediate changes, many have shared concerns that the process has been done too fast. It will come as a relief to hear that they have been listened to by Secretary of State Matt Hancock, who is describing the changes as an evolution. The government have also made funding provisions to help organisations get to grips with the digital through collaboration.
2. Digital Maturity Index/Digital Culture Code — One of the most interesting concepts in the report is that of Digital Maturity, which is how experienced companies are with digital processes. The government wants to reward and value companies that have digital maturity through ranking them. They also want to set up a Digital Culture Code to set up guidelines on how to make companies more digitally mature. It is not clear yet if this will be a requirement for public funding. There is a possibility and fear that funding could be directly linked to a Digital Maturity Index forcing companies to take the route and compete on new rules for pots of money.
3. The use of publicly funded organisations to innovate — This idea isn’t new as it appeared in the Welsh Government’s vision for culture in 2016. The idea is to have large publicly rounded cultural organisations, who have capacity, to pioneer new digital ideas that others could use in their work. In the Culture is Digital report the government have committed to an Innovation Lab at the National Gallery, and for the Royal Opera House to host an Audience Lab. The best practice created in these labs will be shared for all cultural organisations to benefit from.
4. Collaboration is Key — We at Creative Fuse North East know that collaboration works for innovating new ideas. In the culture is digital report new funds have been announced to connect digital and cultural businesses to try new ideas. We are ahead of the government with this! Our NE Culture is Digital Pilot with Sage Gateshead, Festival of Thrift and Theatre Hullabaloo is doing just that. We hope that our pilot project can show how this collaboration can be achieved.
5. Digital doesn’t mean automatic engagement — Whilst the digital agenda sounds like an unavoidable future, the report quite rightly doesn’t see it as the complete answer. The report talks about culture as sometimes being a space away from screens and the constant presence of the digital in modern life. It still reserves a space for real world activity and encourages it to still be developed alongside digital content.
This post originally appeared on the Creative Fuse North East website.
