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41 2 Cultural heritage within digital information contexts Abstract: This chapter explores the vast domain of digital information contexts in relation to cultural heritage, providing an overview of the nature of digital media, and also references examples from libraries and museums as well as the field of media studies. The complex topics of the digital divide, moral rights to cultural heritage and intellectual property issues are highlighted as they are especially relevant in information literacy training, and in understanding the presentation of cultural heritage in virtual domains. The social aspects of cyberspace and social responses to the digital domain are also explored, with a particular focus on the problems posed by information flux and challenges to traditional authorities in the digital domain. An example of a contested conference by UNESCO on the subject of WikiLeaks is provided to illustrate the problems of tracing contested narratives in the digital world. Key words: digital information contexts, digital cultural heritage, digital divide, cyberspace, cyberculture, digital cultural communication, digital media, virtual museums, digital libraries, information flux, information literacy, social media, digital intellectual property. Overview of the contexts of digital information The digital domain has generated a vast area of research and scholarship, and the field of media studies is especially

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Cultural heritage within digital information contexts

Abstract: This chapter explores the vast domain of digital information contexts in relation to cultural heritage, providing an overview of the nature of digital media, and also references examples from libraries and museums as well as the fi eld of media studies. The complex topics of the digital divide, moral rights to cultural heritage and intellectual property issues are highlighted as they are especially relevant in information literacy training, and in understanding the presentation of cultural heritage in virtual domains. The social aspects of cyberspace and social responses to the digital domain are also explored, with a particular focus on the problems posed by information fl ux and challenges to traditional authorities in the digital domain. An example of a contested conference by UNESCO on the subject of WikiLeaks is provided to illustrate the problems of tracing contested narratives in the digital world.

Key words: digital information contexts, digital cultural heritage, digital divide, cyberspace, cyberculture, digital cultural communication, digital media, virtual museums, digital libraries, information fl ux, information literacy, social media, digital intellectual property.

Overview of the contexts of digital information

The digital domain has generated a vast area of research and scholarship, and the field of media studies is especially

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strong in discourse on digital information contexts. This chapter will map some key contextual characteristics and features of the digital domain that influence the ways in which cultural heritage is presented and communicated, and which are especially relevant to the development of a model to teach information literacy and cultural heritage in today’s networked world. Also explored are the complexities of the digital divide, moral and intellectual property rights, and the social effects of the digital domain in a world that can be described as being in a state of “information flux.”

The exploration begins with a distinction between traditional forms of media and those in the digital domain, outlined by Marshall (2004). Traditionally, communications occurred in printed form (letters, books, newspapers and magazines), while in the digital domain printed forms are now manifest though the Internet, the World Wide Web, email, Palm Pilots, mobile phones and digital television. Traditionally, images were conveyed through photographs, film and television, while in the digital domain images are conveyed through DVDs, digital cameras, satellite television, the Internet, the web and webcams. Sound was traditionally conveyed through phonographs, telephone and radio, and in the digital domain this has expanded to include iPods, MP3s, mobile phones, web radio and digital cable music (ibid.: 2). Most importantly, Marshall identified that digitalization is essentially the reduction of all information into binary code, which can be both read and manipulated (ibid.: 17). The ability to manipulate and alter information in digital form is a critical factor to take note of.

Levy noted that the development of telecommunications led to an explosive and chaotic deluge of information, with the density of links increasing as much as the volume of data within databases, networks and hypertexts. This non-hierarchical flood of data generated intellectual confusion

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and wars of propaganda and counter-propaganda (Levy, 2001: xii). Levy argued that the next evolution, namely the formation of “cyberspace,” created a qualitatively more different space for communication than any previous technological developments, including telecommunications (ibid.: 175). He proposed that the most constructive application of the tools offered by digital communication is to use them to exchange knowledge, develop new forms of cooperation and join forces in collective creation. He thus suggested the combination of collective human intelligence and imagination (ibid.: 182). When considering museums and cyberspace, Levy noted that the digital copy does not substitute for the original, authentic object, and posited that contrary to fears that virtual museums will replace actual museums, the virtual domains actually led to increased numbers of visitors to the physical museums, in search of more rich, actual experiences of culture (ibid.: 197).

Levy argued that cyberspace will not offer universal solutions to miraculously improve our lives but will lead to additional dimensions of life in terms of modes of relation (interactive and community-based communication in continuously reconstructed virtual spaces), modes of understanding (ways of thinking, simulations, non-hierarchical navigations, collective intelligence), and literary and artistic genres (hypertexts, interactive documents, virtual environments, collective creation) (ibid.: 201). Levy also argued that cyberspace has often been viewed in postmodernist terms, but in fact the values of liberty, equality and fraternity – all very modernist Enlightenment views – are embedded within cyberculture. He conceded that, despite this, the tools of technology do in fact destabilize economies and societies, sometimes rapidly and violently (ibid.: 250). Levy concluded by noting three major stages in human culture: small societies, based on oral cultures that were self-centered, inward-looking and lived as

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non-universal totalities; civilized societies using writing as a means to developing a totalizing universal view; and cyberculture, which leads to the globalizing of societies and creates a universal ethos, without totality (ibid.: 254).

Another scholar of media studies, Lacey, argued that any communications medium mediates between audience and reality. A communications medium conveys a representation, and thus it is necessary to be aware of conventions being used in the representations (Lacey, 1998: 222). Lacey noted that with the development of digitization came the increase in power to manipulate images, change them and transmit them instantly and widely (ibid.: 223). Lacey also noted that as more people become media literate and aware that the media deals with representation and not reality, the more likely they are to analyze images and not just accept them at face value (ibid.: 224). This observation is a very important factor to note in the development of a model for information literacy and cultural heritage.

Kalay explored the issue of preserving cultural heritage through digital media, and noted that digital imaging was the act of historically reconstructing heritage sites, places and artifacts. The benefits of digital imaging include the ability to connect text and data, and the ability to link competing and alternative narratives (Kalay, 2008: 5). The benefits of digital reconstruction include the unlimited storage space for data (compared to physical museums and libraries), but the disadvantage is that it diminishes the power of the traditional gatekeepers of cultural heritage – namely academic journals, governments and museums – and this opens the way for amateurs and charlatans, leading to questions of authenticity. Kalay also highlighted the key problem of how to choose what data to digitize, and what to leave out, and posed the question of whether the format

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would still be accessible several years from the time of digitization. Most important for our purposes was Kalay’s observation that digital media present viewers of the screen with problems of authenticity, interpretability, guidance and contextuality (ibid.: 6).

The development of social media platforms has led to problems in conducting research into what occurs in these domains. Tremayne noted that blogs – or the blogosphere – while being a classic form of social media are an exception in that they have qualities that make them more conducive to research. These qualities include the fact that communication is primarily in text form, is archived, and it is possible to trace and reconstruct the flow of ideas to the point of origin, unlike other social media. Also, the social ties of the blogosphere network are designated in their sections for blog rolls (links to other blogs deemed to be relevant), and in the ability to link within blog posts themselves, often to respond to other blogs. The speed with which this particular social network is evolving is also pertinent (Tremayne, 2007: x–xi).

In terms of digital reproduction of cultural heritage, Malpas (2008) referred to the 2003 UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage as moving away from previous static heritage practices of collection, conservation and static display from one perspective. Malpas posited that the distinction between material and non-material cultural heritage is an artificial one, since culture is always tied to materiality – even language has a form of materiality in speech, symbol and sign (ibid.: 15). In this context, it can be noted that digitization and new media are both reproductive (replicating the existing) and productive (creating the new) (ibid.: 17). Malpas observed that virtual reconstructions allow for a multiplicity of perspectives (ibid.: 18), and digital technology

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releases cultural heritage from being tied to physical location, as well as time period (ibid.: 21). Malpas further observed that the digital reproduction of an object removes it from its original context, making it generic rather than unique, and also obliterates place, distance and difference, providing increased availability (ibid.: 22). This leads to a change in the way that the object is experienced, and also a change in the way that one experiences self in relation to the object (ibid.). Malpas concluded that new digital media thus threaten self-identity and social locatedness (ibid.: 23).

Sutton observed that in a world of flux and mixture, technology provides a means of durable information storage. While technology itself is a cultural and psychological achievement, it is dependent on the construction and exploitation of social and technological resources (Sutton, 2002: 131).

In an in-depth exploration of the nature of digital information, Tredinnick premised that the emergence of digital information has destabilized the traditional understanding of the nature of information (Tredinnick, 2006: 1). He argued that the humanist values of the nineteenth century were interrelated with the development of knowledge and culture, and that this was possible due to the stability of print. In this context, libraries and archives located their function to become repositories of collective cultural memory, with a view to improving society (ibid.: 47). However, in the digital age, he noted that the ease with which information can now be copied, retrieved and shared – leading to collaborative discourse via websites, blogs and wikis – challenges this traditional notion that textual stability is essential to information management practice, and thus the assumption that libraries and archives are the exclusive purveyors of the values of humanism through their collections (ibid.: 47–50).

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Tredinnick also noted that hypertext (which reflects the conventional academic practice of cross-referencing) on the Internet enables the ability to now combine and recombine texts in new contexts (ibid.: 197–201). He observed that specifically in the context of wikis, which have collaborative authorship and textual instability, knowledge production and organization have become participatory. Web 2.0 has been credited with making knowledge creation more democratic; however, Tredinnick argued that the ability to participate requires a range of skills, having access to computer equipment, education and the time to participate (ibid.). Tredinnick also cited the example of blogs, which have become legitimate platforms for intellectual – as well as political and social – discourse. Anyone can publish an article on a blog, and instant commentary and analysis can occur from readers and participants around the world (ibid.: 228).

Tredinnick concluded that transglobal cultural formations not shaped by corporate organizations are now possible in the digital world, and thus interactions are no longer being shaped from the top down but, rather, from the bottom up (ibid.: 265). From this, it can be noted that the traditional institutions of museums, archives and libraries’ role as exclusive purveyors of cultural heritage is being significantly challenged.

Exploring digital libraries in the context of culture in a report commissioned by UNESCO, Tanner noted that digital libraries, due to their use of a range of technologies, are creating a complete paradigm shift in the field of librarianship. He stated in his report that the term “culture” can include heritage, arts and creativity, museums, creative industries and tourism, social customs and ways of life, and his report framed culture in the context of this scope. Tanner explained that a major driving force for libraries, archives and museums in pushing to digitize their collections was the

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mission to provide wide access to their resources and reach new audiences, the cost of which is still a constraining factor in many cases (Tanner, 2005: 4–6). Tanner described some examples of digitization initiatives that had been undertaken which resulted in online access for a world audience. These included the British Library, which has made items such as the works of William Shakespeare, Chaucer, the Gutenberg Bible, the Magna Carta and Renaissance Festival Books available to a global audience (ibid.: 15). He also noted other examples initiated to preserve language and literature, such as the Digital Library of Dutch Literature and the Austrian National Library’s program, as well as several memory projects including the American Memory project, UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme, Australia’s Pandora Archive and the Czech Memory project (ibid.: 18–21).

Tanner observed that with global patterns of migration, cultural cohesion and social inclusion have become increasingly important factors to address, and that many cultural heritage organizations worldwide were focusing on using digital resources as a means to provide a sense of cultural identity for people who have been displaced, and for indigenous people who have had their sense of home distorted by the arrival of colonial occupants. He noted examples of projects addressing these issues – including the Digital Shikshapatri, Shoah Archive, Digital Imaging South Africa, Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, Aboriginal resources in Australia such as AIATSIS (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Studies) and Awaba (an electronic database and guide to the history, culture and language of the indigenous peoples of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie region of New South Wales), and projects to digitize Native American heritage run by the Labriola National American Indian Data Center and the Cultural Heritage Preservation Institute (ibid.: 22–4).

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In a later study commissioned by the National Library of Scotland, Tanner outlined a model whereby he described how libraries originally had a role of managing containers of information, and then they moved to managing content, especially electronic content. He referred to the problem of the Deep Web, where much knowledge is stored but is not easily accessible due to the fact that it has not been tagged with meta-information and is thus not retrievable by traditional search engines. Tanner estimated that the Deep Web contains 550 billion individual documents while the World Wide Web contains only 1 billion (Tanner, 2009: 39–40). The third stage in the role of libraries was a shift to context. This is held to be the critical role of the future digital information environment, where instead of simply discovering the container, with its content, the user can also access linked data which includes additional text, audio and video recordings that supplement the item and provide context to it, and the user can also add their own content and context to it if so allowed (ibid.: 40). This model of container, content and context is an appropriate one to include in a model for information literacy and cultural heritage, since it contains all the elements universally applicable to museums, libraries and archives.

Henning explored the role of museums in relation to new media and observed that museums traditionally had an inability to detach objects, scenes and people from their fixed places in time and space and allow them (or their traces) to circulate as multiples and reproductions. She argued that a misconception regarding new media in the context of museums is that it threatens attachment because new media deal with information and data in the virtual rather than the material (Henning, 2006b: 306). She conceded that the authenticity of artifacts displayed in new media form in virtual museums can become questionable, due to the fact

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that visitors to virtual museums can access texts, images, sounds or movies that only exist as a collection in a database. Further, the variability and modularity of new media allow for Internet virtual museums to create “museum collections” which do not exist only in one database, but exist as different pieces of data stored in numerous databases across the Internet, accessed through a portal (ibid.: 307). Despite these cautions, Henning concluded that new media offer museums a way to overcome the traditional separation of public display and research collection in the museum. Through new media objects, researchers and visitors can access far more of a collection – even if these are reproductions of visual and textual data and artifacts – than could ever possibly be placed on display in the physical museums. In harnessing new media, museums can make the exhibition become an interface through which different objects in the collections can be accessed according to preference, allowing visitors to make their own comparisons and interpretations (ibid.: 309).

Southeast Asia has made significant advances in what Russo and Watkins termed “digital cultural communication.” They described how digital cultural communication emerged from the advent of virtual heritage, where the focus was more on taking tangible objects from the built environment and making them accessible through visualization, augmented reality and digitization. With the emergence of technology that has enabled global access to broadcast media, virtual reality technology, video, mobile technology and the Internet, they noted that cultural institutions are challenged to keep culture relevant, accessible and used (Russo and Watkins, 2005: 4–5). They noted that digital cultural communication seeks to explore relationships between cultural institutions and their audiences, and create technologically enabled platforms that can facilitate interactive and collaborative cultural experiences between the institutions and communities

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(ibid.: 5). In this environment, the institution is no longer the sole custodian and purveyor of culture, but by means of wikis, blogs and other web media the communities can contribute content and share their experiences with the institution. Thus, the traditional mechanisms of displaying culture to the public via physical exhibitions and dioramas have been supplemented in cyberspace to allow the communities to add commentary, experiences, opinions and other content (ibid.: 6–7). This example is especially relevant to the development of the model for information literacy and cultural heritage.

Of particular interest is the example described by Russo and Watkins at the State Library of Queensland, Australia. They described the “Queensland Stories” initiative, for which digital cultural communication has been employed. In this example, a platform is provided for the community to explore shared history by being able to contribute photographs, narrative, audio and video. To enable and equip the participants with the necessary skills to contribute, mobile laboratories delivering information literacy training are provided. Thus, community members receive what is termed information literacy training in order to be able to contribute content to Queensland Stories (ibid.: 11). Upon examination of the information literacy architecture described by Russo and Watkins, however, it becomes apparent that the information literacy being referred to is in fact information and communication technology (podcasting, blogs, wikis, and other technology) literacy training. While training in information and communication technology applications would certainly be incorporated into an information literacy program as a core module, it is nevertheless not the only aspect of information literacy. This example, however, serves as a very useful model to highlight the critical role that information literacy training as a whole has to play in cultural heritage experiences in the digital domain.

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The digital divide and moral rights to cultural heritage

The discussion so far has highlighted the various aspects of the digital domain that lead to two recurring questions in this author’s mind: ‘What of those who cannot access the digital domain and the Internet for reasons of poverty, illiteracy and lack of skills?’ and ‘What of those who can access the digital domain, but have restrictions on the amount of bandwidth they are allowed per month, as is the case in many countries?’ In other words, what of those who have no access at all, and what of those who have limited access in terms of bandwidth available?

Tanner noted the impact of the digital divide as a critical factor needing to be bridged for everyone’s benefit (Tanner, 2009: 45–6). He foresaw that in the digital future, users would be less likely to visit the physical library buildings, as they would be able to access everything they need remotely via the Internet (ibid.: 47). This, however, assumes that all citizens in all countries by then would have access to computers and networks to remotely access digital resources.

Trend argued that the enthusiasm for a technological utopia had been criticized on the basis that the majority of non-Western nations, and nearly 97 percent of the human population (at the time of Trend’s writing in 2001), were prevented from being connected to the Internet due to poverty, lack of access, or lack of knowledge and skills required (Trend, 2001: 2). While subsequently there has been significant progress in increasing access to the Internet, and while many countries have prioritized the development of information and communication technology infrastructure, it is a reality that the majority of the world is still excluded from the digital domain. In addition, for example, this

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author, who is based in South Africa, while having Internet access, has tested a number of virtual exhibitions and watched online videos and has found that the two gigabyte data bundle allocation per month is consumed very rapidly in these high bandwidth activities, thus limiting the amount of access.

There are thus two categories of exclusion from the digital domain: no access at all, and limited access due to the pricing of bandwidth that is sold in data bundles in some countries, meaning that only wealthy individuals, corporations and institutions can enjoy unlimited access.

Until such time as access to the digital domain is universal, museums, libraries and archives can play a critical role in providing access for the general public to cultural heritage in the digital domain by making it available from their buildings. Museums, libraries and archives in countries where there is no, or only expensive, Internet access for their general populations can invest in computers linked to the Internet, with no bandwidth restrictions, and allow their users to experience virtual exhibitions and online cultural heritage. This would be incorporated into a model for information literacy and cultural heritage training for lifelong learning, both as a special provision for those who are excluded from the digital domain in their countries, and for those with full access in developed countries, since information literacy skills to navigate the digital domain remain a common denominator.

Noting the irony that many citizens in developed countries can enjoy online learning about the cultural heritage of the people in developing and remote countries, while the people in those countries cannot enjoy the same access to their own cultural heritage online due to a lack of, or restricted access to, the digital domain, we now turn to the issue of moral rights to cultural heritage. Britz and Lor noted that there are

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a number of moral questions surrounding the digitization of Africa’s documentary heritage by Western countries, and that any digitization process should recognize the cultural and moral rights of the African people to their own heritage, that the ownership rights should be acknowledged, and that African people have the right to economic interest in exchange for making their heritage available to the world (Britz and Lor, 2004: 221).

A good example of respecting moral rights to cultural heritage is provided by Leavy et al. (2008: 301) who described the development of a set of protocols developed for the Digital Songlines project. These are very useful to consider when approaching the sensitive area of moral rights to cultural heritage by communities, and in information literacy and cultural heritage training questions need to be asked as to whether or not the cultural heritage presented evidences respect for the moral rights of traditional owners. In the Digital Songlines example, ten protocols were developed to ensure the ethical treatment of intellectual property and copyright issues pertaining to Australian Aboriginal cultural knowledge (ibid.). The first required the recognition of the stories of traditional owners as a body of knowledge; the second recognized that the stories are sourced from traditional owners; the third, that the communities themselves decide what stories can be told in any virtual heritage project; the fourth was that the approval process is run by the communities themselves; the fifth, that the story represents the community and skin group, and is geographically located to a specific place; the sixth was that ownership and copyright of the story is always held and retained by the community council or nominated traditional ownership group; the seventh was that the content, including artistic representations, is approved by the community at all milestone production stages; the eighth was that the story

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presented by the community is not modified unless this was endorsed and approved by the traditional owner representative of the community. The ninth protocol was a crucial one, stipulating that the community is paid industry standard royalties on any revenue earned. This aspect has often been overlooked in other projects. The tenth and final protocol was that the community participates in all stages of the planning, design and production of the virtual heritage application (ibid.: 301–2). In assessing any virtual heritage project online, it is good to keep these protocols in mind, to determine the authenticity and reliability of indigenous cultural heritage represented, in any context, and in any part of the world.

Returning to the developed world, the issue of rights, and intellectual property rights, is no less contested. Marshall (2004: 104) posited that new media cultures are defined by what he termed “indiscrete cultural commodity,” whereby the production of cultural commodity was no longer able to be controlled by the traditional monopolies (ibid.). The fragmentation of the former control by monopolies was due to the digitalizing of many cultural forms, and the ability to manipulate digital code and alter originals, be it film or music (ibid.: 105). Marshall described how the terrain of “commons” was being navigated in the field of new media and cultural studies, and that the appropriate frame was now “the art of making,” which challenged traditional producers of cultural commodity (ibid.: 106). He noted how production now invites the user to participate in completing the cultural commodity, and cited the example of the gaming industry where developments created by users have been uneasily accepted, while the conflicting view that intellectual property rights are threatened creates a tension (ibid.: 107), and thus one of the cultural struggles in the digital domain is over the boundaries of intellectual property rights (ibid.: 108).

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Expanding on this tension, Lessig noted how the law protected commercial culture, and how before the Internet people were free to share stories or create domains within family or community without being subject to the law, while the law protected those who created culture for commercial purposes. Now, with the advent of the Internet, people are being subjected to legal regulation in their creation of culture, where they previously fell out of reach of the law (Lessig, 2004: 8). Lessig further noted how the Internet has enabled people to make and cultivate culture beyond local and national boundaries, which also threatens the traditional content industries (ibid.: 9). He pointed out how the Internet has enabled peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing which threatens traditional copyright boundaries and has led to the created crime of “piracy” (ibid.: 17). He also noted how the concept of media literacy has become paramount in American classrooms (ibid.: 35), and how blogs have become a major platform for social and political discourse and analysis in the United States (ibid.: 41).

Lessig further observed that traditional mainstream media and television are constrained by the need to keep readers and viewers – if they do not, their ratings, and thus revenue, fall – while blogs are free from such constraints, enabling a flourishing of free opinion (ibid.: 43). In another observation, Lessig noted how books go out of print very rapidly, often within a year, but that they get a “second life” where they are resold in second-hand books’ shops, or borrowed from libraries and read. However, with television, movies, radio and the Internet, there is no guarantee of a second life, and vast tracts of culture simply disappear (ibid.: 113). Lessig pointed to the key challenge of how it was once possible to borrow or purchase a book and read it as many times as one wanted, whereas with e-books, copyright law supports the content rights owner in restricting how many times the

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e-book may be read (ibid.: 144). Lessig described the attempt to address this problem and provide balanced and fair copyright protection with the development of Creative Commons licensing (ibid.: 282).

Finally, in contrast to the trend of intellectual property, there has emerged an ideal known as the “hacker ethic.” Himanen described the hacker ethic as the culture of the information age, noting that “hacker” in this sense was not referring to computer criminals, but to programmers who believe in the free and open sharing of knowledge and information, and who have developed a culture of innovation (Himanen, 2004: 423–4). This ethic exists as a tension to proponents of intellectual property rights, and thus in assessing any online resources it is important to note whether the creator of the online content asserts copyright, or specifies that the material may be freely used and shared.

In developing a model to teach information literacy and cultural heritage, the issues surrounding moral rights, intellectual property rights and copyright laws are thus an essential element to incorporate into a program for lifelong learning.

Social responses in the digital world

The development of the digital domain and the Internet have also had a significant impact on the social behavior and responses of people.

Trend observed that the Internet has transformed the way in which people work and pursue leisure activities, as well as how people learn and create knowledge and participate in politics and public life. Trend argued that technologies emerge from specific contexts and are shaped to serve particular interests. Observing that technology is promoted

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without question to be the culmination of civilization, leading to a post-industrial Utopia, he criticized this euphoria (Trend, 2001: 1). Trend challenged claims that the Internet is free of discrimination in terms of race, gender, age and other variables. He also argued that many online communities use “in” language which excludes outsiders, and described the plethora of chat rooms and forums that are racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, or sexist (ibid.: 183–4).

One cannot discuss the digital domain without including the view of Castells, who is well known for his seminal introduction of the concept of the networked society. He defined a network society to be one where the social structure is composed of networks that are powered by electronic information and communication technology, and observed that the network itself is simply a set of interconnected nodes with no center (Castells, 2004a: 3). In Castells’ view, historical and social analysis has been built in a distorted manner, focusing on ethnocentrism and apology rather than on scholarly investigation of the network complexity of a multicultural world (ibid.: 4). He noted that the vertical, hierarchical society was efficient until the advent of electronic network communication technologies, following which centralization became less efficient, and even became a hindrance to the functioning of a network (ibid.: 5). Core to his paradigm of a networked society was the issue that the network society is global and interconnected, but while not everyone is included in the network they are still affected by processes that take place within the network. Some cultural groups that are defined by the boundaries of their historical identities have become deeply fragmented as a result of being included, or excluded, from the network. Castells observed that networks by their intrinsic nature act to exclude those components that are of no value to the functioning of the network, and thus it is up to social actors

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to act on the network to modify it to suit their interest. The network influences the lives of those who are excluded from it, and who are without agency within the network to modify it to their advantage. The only other way they can acquire agency is by means of becoming nodes in alternate networks (ibid.: 22–3).

Castells argued that the socialization of people and the construction of shared cultural practices now take place in the networked digitized world of the mass media and the Internet (ibid.: 30). In this context, power is still the structural capacity to impose one person’s will over another person’s will, but it is further defined as the ability of each network to define its own power system depending on programmed goals (ibid.: 31). Control is dependant, in the networked world, on the ability to program or reprogram network goals, and the ability to connect different networks to ensure that they work together cooperatively (ibid.: 32).

Castells further noted that all societies are cultural constructs which comprise the set of values and beliefs that guide the behavior of people in that culture, and that the global network contains a multiplicity of cultures. He observed that the network has the dual characteristic of commonality (global) and singularity (local cultures) which he considered to be the cause of cultural identities becoming pockets of autonomy that can become resistant to the fading awareness of their identities in favor of the dominant network (ibid.: 38). Resistance identities, as he termed them, have produced dramatic political conflict in the network society, and the affirmation of local cultural identity as resistance has made the convergence of cultural diversity in the network society more difficult. Castells posed the question of how to connect the different cultural identities together in a manner that created a protocol of communication rather than exclusion, since exclusion can lead to violence and

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destruction. He posited that a global network society should practice a culture of communication protocols that enable communication between cultures in such a way that they do not need to relinquish their own values, nor have the values of others imposed upon them. This would result in culture no longer being defined by content, but as process (ibid.: 39). Castells proposed that the hypothesis of the culture of the network society should contain a process where conscious social actors from a diversity of cultural backgrounds come together to share their knowledge, beliefs and resources which could overcome the ancestral fear of the other (ibid.: 40). These observations reflect the core tenets that will be presented in the proposed model of information literacy and cultural heritage for lifelong learning.

Sey and Castells observed that while democracy is the most pervasive political system in the world, there is a widespread crisis of legitimacy of many governments and politicians in many parts of the world. They noted how the Internet can be used as a platform for interactive political activities and organization, and that this creates a tension between political authorities who want to use the Internet for one-way communication to their citizens, and citizens who use it to bypass official narratives in order to create their own, leading to action by citizens (Sey and Castells, 2004: 363–81). This of course has been demonstrated recently in the so-called “Arab Spring,” where social media was harnessed to organize political protests that led to the downfall of established political leaders.

Challenging the idea that the digital domain is solely responsible for the globalization of culture, Tubella pointed to the fact that the globalization of culture has a long history, even before the advent of the Internet, citing the example of how colonizers imposed religions on indigenous communities (Tubella, 2004: 385). Tubella also noted how central place

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debates in communication theory revolve around cultural and collective identities, and these debates are mostly localized, not extending beyond their own cultural boundaries. Examples of this include the way in which Latin American scholars focus on the role that the media and popular culture play in the construction of identity; the way in which European scholars are concerned with the influence of North American culture transmitted through film and television on their own societies; and the way in which North American scholars are concerned with the influencing of other cultures to adopt their own values (ibid.: 385–6). Tubella posited that theories of identity fall into two main streams: those who see cultural identity as flexible and constantly changing; and those who see it as fixed and unchanging (ibid.: 387). He asserted that mass media create emotional involvement, something that governments are well aware of and aim to control in order to shape identity and culture (ibid.: 388). These different foci all have a bearing on the development of the model for information literacy and cultural heritage.

Rheingold extolled the virtues of the virtual community, but cautioned against the commodification of the virtual public sphere (Rheingold, 1994: 281–3), and linked this trend to the loss of privacy in a world where politicians have become commodities, citizens are the consumers, and issues are decided based on staged events (ibid.: 285). He referred to Bentham’s concept of the Panopticon, and to Foucault’s description of how surveillance technologies could enforce this Panopticon (ibid.: 289).

In the digital domain, another key factor to take into account that can affect social perception now and in the future is that of the flux of information. Brindley (2012) warned that the amount of accessible information is in danger of disappearing. Describing how legal deposit

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legislation has enabled the British Library to collect, preserve and make available the national cultural and intellectual heritage, Brindley noted that the legal deposit legislation in Britain was extended in 2003 to ensure that this applied to digital content as well. However, nine years on, the legislation has still not been implemented, and, in the meantime, vast quantities of British digital heritage have vanished forever. She also noted how people’s thoughts and experiences are being recorded on social media (including blogs and Twitter), and thus can be updated rapidly as well as disappear forever. While she referred to the Library of Congress’ intention to archive everything on Twitter, she pointed out how vast volumes of data on Twitter have already disappeared. In the past, letters and diaries were able to be kept for posterity, but, in the present, very little of what occurs in the digital world is able to be captured. Brindley also cited the example of the London Olympics, and how it is estimated that only one percent of all online activity related to the 2012 London Olympics will be able to be captured.

There is another social spin-off with regard to information flux, namely the increasing abilities of technology to provide limitless surveillance in the online world. Bossewitch and Sinnreich (2009: 2) explored the role of strategic agency in the age of limitless information, noting that social power is no longer based on what is concealed but is demonstrated in the acts of revelation, and in the methods employed to collect and display information. They described a growing cultural database which has upended traditional knowledge and power dynamics. They introduced the concept of “information flux” as a basis for interrogating the discourses around transparency, privacy and surveillance. Further, they noted that software is well suited to the function of remembering, in terms of capturing the data and processes in a way that can be stored, retrieved and reproduced.

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Bossewitch and Sinnreich also noted, in contrast to Brindley’s cautions, how records are permanent, unlike memories, and highlighted the connections between memory and identity, asking who was doing the remembering. They noted that omnipresent surveillance prevents forgetting, and that there are different responses to this from individuals and governments. They observed how young people share volumes of personal data in social media such as Myspace, Facebook and Twitter (ibid.: 3). These authors also argued that the rise in the volume of data being collected is inevitable, but what is still being negotiated is the net direction of the flow. They proposed the “information flux” model to assess the current responses to the flows. They described three broad information flows, namely: positive flux, where one leaks information, and others have access to more information than one does; negative flux, where one gathers and retains more information than one emits; and neutral flux, where everyone has equal access to everyone else’s information, which would be an ideal state of perfect transparency (ibid.: 4).

Bossewitch and Sinnreich pointed out the limitations of this model, in that information is not the same as knowledge and some pieces of information are more valuable than others. They referred to Foucault’s conception of Bentham’s concept of the Panopticon, which described the ultimate prison and surveillance state, and posited that it needed updating, using the information flux model, in order to outline the space of strategic action within the networked and surveilled environment (ibid.: 5).

Of note is the description by Bossewitch and Sinnreich of some examples of social agency strategies as a response. These include that of the traditional Panopticon, namely, a prison where all inmates are under surveillance from the guards above. In the networked society, this is construed as

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a positive information flux, from the individual outward towards the institutions of power. The second strategy is that of what the authors term the “sousveillance society,” whereby individuals reverse the polarity of flux to watch the watchers, and surveil the institutions that are surveilling them. A relevant example of this would be WikiLeaks. The third strategy described is that of total transparency, which the authors noted is not fully possible; this strategy described the ideal society where everyone has equal access to each other’s information, which constitutes a neutral information flux (ibid.: 6). The fourth strategy was described as the “off the grid” strategy, whereby individuals strive to disappear completely from the information grid and reduce information flux to zero – they can either disconnect from the network completely, or use methods such as encryption software. The fifth strategy – the “black hole” strategy – describes the intent to collect as much information as possible, while leaking as little as possible; this is often used by governments, intelligence agencies and corporations. The converse of this is the “promiscuous broadcaster,” where individuals freely share any and all information about themselves, often without being aware of the implications; thus they are engaging in a positive information flux (ibid.: 7). Finally they describe the “voracious collector,” where a consistent negative flux is maintained but does not require the participant to go completely “off the grid” (ibid.: 8). Another prevalent strategy, and one particularly relevant to the aspect of critically evaluating information, is the strategy of “disinformation campaigns,” which aim to reduce the flow of accurate information, resulting in a negative information flux. Here, participants introduce noise, chaos and deliberate deception into the system in order to protect themselves from surveillance, and hide true information. Governments, political parties, advertisers and individuals all engage in this

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(ibid.: 9). Bossewitch and Sinnreich concluded by noting that these technologies and strategies have a profound impact on the structure of personal identities and social networks (ibid.: 11).

Continuing the theme of social responses to authority in the digital domain, and especially in the context of cultural heritage, Cameron’s critique of UNESCO is informative.

Cameron (2008) critiqued the 2003 UNESCO Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage, stating that it had created digital heritage as a new type of legacy. She also argued that the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme has little critical reflexivity as to what heritage means in the context of the current heritage debates. Cameron considered digital heritage to be a selective pool of materials deemed worthy for preservation for posterity, and argued that this in fact is a Eurocentric idea for producing identity (ibid.: 172). Cameron also pointed out that new digital heritage as envisioned by the UNESCO charter is tethered to discourses on preservation and conservation. Implicit in this is the assumption that value is given to works of the past, or new works as they relate to the past. In other words, nothing is deemed to be of value if it is not from the past (ibid.: 173). She further observed that digital heritage, as well as traditional heritage, represents the commodification of the past, and that it looks back, attempting to “salvage a future from the ruins of the past” (ibid.: 174). She concluded that digital heritage is a “discourse of loss,” in that heritage is only considered to be of value if it is threatened by loss, or is lost (ibid.: 175). She posited that digital heritage is comprised of surrogates, or copies that are mobilized to mourn and validate discourses of a lost past, and that the messages are linked to the past, rather than the surrogate itself. This is different from born digital which is considered to be the same as a non-digital original (ibid.: 176). Cameron

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also observed how items selected to be preserved rely on selection criteria of what is deemed to be valuable, and thus other items are silenced (ibid.: 177). She noted further how UNESCO exercises cultural authority over the processes of making meaning (ibid.: 179–80).

Finally, Cameron highlighted how different groups who are outside of the deemed authorities, such as UNESCO and other official bodies, are using their own criteria to craft their own identities and cultural materials in digital format, and this is being facilitated by social media. Thus, these technologies enable an independent definition of position to technologies of domination by authorities such as UNESCO (ibid.: 180). Thus enabled by technology, communities are subverting the cultural domination of traditional institutions (ibid.). Cameron concluded that individuals can use social media to reconstitute their own cultural codes and disrupt, challenge and subvert established hierarchies of digital heritage selection (ibid.: 181). This is supported by her citation of an example of how Maori communities were using virtual and augmented reality to create their own materials in digital format (ibid.: 180).

In contrast to this view, the previously mentioned project by the Australasian CRC for Interactive Design (Digital Songlines) is cited by Leavy et al. (2008: 294) as a partnership between many universities and industry partners that are developing protocols and methodologies to facilitate the collection and sharing of indigenous cultural heritage knowledge across Australia, in collaboration with the indigenous communities. Digital Songlines takes into account how traditional Aboriginal culture is passed on through oral traditions, art, dance, rituals and legend (ibid.: 295), and that land, kin and spirituality are all connected in Aboriginal culture. It aims to communicate the Aboriginal culture, history, rituals, stories and association of the land through

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3D virtual worlds. The constructed virtual world explores the spiritual, the mythical and the magical of the land which is both a hunting ground and a place of worship for Aboriginals (ibid.: 296).

However, Cameron’s criticisms are borne out by an example which illustrates that the element of contested history is prevalent in the digital world. A conference was convened by UNESCO in February 2012 to discuss WikiLeaks, known as a whistle-blower of alleged governmental misconduct. The narrative surrounding the conference was hotly contested by WikiLeaks’ supporters, and by WikiLeaks itself, which claimed it had not been invited to speak at the conference, though UNESCO denied this. An exchange of emails followed, with statements by WikiLeaks running under the headline “WikiLeaks denounces UNESCO after WikiLeaks banned from UNESCO conference on WikiLeaks” (WikiLeaks, 2012). UNESCO in turn contested that they had banned WikiLeaks from the conference, stating that WikiLeaks was welcome to attend the conference, but could not participate as a speaker. WikiLeaks then produced a series of email correspondence and added them to the narrative to demonstrate their point (ibid.). UNESCO in turn responded by posting one email message, under the banner “UNESCOLeaks to refute WikiLeaks accusations” (UNESCO, 2012).

When the conference began, WikiLeaks supporters around the world created an #OccupyUNESCO hashtag on Twitter, and followers created their own conference which entwined with commentary from supporters who went to the actual conference and who sent out tweets to the alternative conference being held in the digital domain of Twitter (WikiLeaks, 2012). UNESCO supporters used the hashtag #mediafuture for their tweets.

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This example graphically illustrates many of the complexities of the digital domain already highlighted. Firstly, WikiLeaks is regarded as a threat to national security by the United States government, and by other governments, and while WikiLeaks considers its activities to be legitimate and in the public interest, the United States and other governments do not, thus reflecting deeply politicized contested views. UNESCO could be considered to be a neutral and balanced international organization that could mediate in an objective fashion, but, as the Twitter dialog showed, they were accused of holding an anti-WikiLeaks conference in order to pacify the United States government, and to secure funding which had previously been withdrawn by the United States government because UNESCO had admitted Palestine as a member of UNESCO. The hotly contested debate took place at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France, on websites, on Twitter and on Facebook, and thus the narratives were scattered in a variety of places, physical and digital. While it was possible to follow all the narratives and debates taking place at the time if one was following live on Twitter, and monitoring the web, as well as monitoring both UNESCO official tweets and #OccupyUNESCO alternative tweets, how possible would it be to trace all the narratives surrounding this conference, which are essential for context placement, in the future? Would all of those archives still be there, and, if so, how easy would it be to mine and retrieve them from their various digital and physical locations? Countless events take place in the digital domain each year, yet will they be kept as alternative narratives essential for contextual review in the future? The above example also illustrates how groups of individuals with common interests can band together in the digital world to develop their own narratives, while rejecting those of official authorities.

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In order to test these questions, this author did not take screenshots at the time the debate took place in February 2012, and thus has recounted what was observed from memory. The author then sought to recover the debates some months later, in July 2012, seeking to retrieve the narrative in order to provide a few screenshots as evidence of what took place. However, a search of Twitter revealed that the archive of all comments made under the hashtags of #OccupyUNESCO and #mediafuture was no longer retrievable. While undoubtedly the tweets still reside in the accounts of the various individuals who participated in the event, there is no easy way to track down those users. The only evidence that can be reproduced here is a mere trace from this author’s own user account of tweets that were retweeted (see Figure 2.1).

This one example in itself illustrates many of the issues and controversies that take place in the digital domain.

Figure 2.1 A trace of an important contextual narrative, the full narrative has since disappeared from theTwitter archives

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While it is only one politically charged example, relevant questions for anyone seeking to locate and trace all contextual narratives taking place in the digital domain are: How many other instances of incomplete and disappeared narratives are there? How can we correctly evaluate information if much of the contextual narrative has since disappeared?

Concluding comments

This chapter has aimed to trace the main elements involved in the digital domain that need to be kept in mind in the development of a model to teach information literacy and cultural heritage. It has deliberately drawn from a contentious example to illustrate many of the concerns raised by the various authors and scholars cited, as contentious issues are prevalent in the field of cultural heritage. We can observe that museums, archives and libraries each have their own cultures of practice in the traditional sense, but new media and digital information contexts present challenges to these cultures of practice that will need to be addressed in the development of the model to teach information literacy and cultural heritage in today’s networked world. Most noteworthy in the context of the development of the model are factors such as: digital content being able to be manipulated and changed, raising doubts on the integrity of information; the instability of data in a continuum of information flux where important contextual narratives can disappear; the role of communications media in representing reality, necessitating the development of media literacy skills; issues surrounding the ethical use of information; moral rights to cultural heritage; intellectual property rights; and social behaviors in the digital domain.