D:\Documents and Settings\Ana\My Documents\Biserka-knjiga ...

Challenges for cultural policies: the example of digital culture
Challenges for cultural policies: the example
of digital culture
Biserka Cvjetièanin
Who still remembers the first comparisons of cultural policies that were undertaken
in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s? It was a result of a French and Swedish initiative
launched within the framework of the Council of Europe’s activities in cultural
policy, aiming to carry out a comparative research and evaluation of their cultural
policies (Girard, 1982; Wangermée, 1988; Myerscough, 1989). This project has
shown that comparative research of cultural policies of several countries can
highlight important issues, such as the development of cultural practices in different
countries in a given period, cultural priorities, the overall level of cultural investment
in comparison to other countries, and the investment into particular cultural sectors.
These comparisons could be used as one element in the decision-making process
regarding the orientation and the development of the cultural policy. Although
comparison and evaluation of cultural policies later became an important aspect of
international cultural cooperation, these early studies showed that international
cooperation in itself had no place in cultural policies and was not, therefore, the object
of analysis or research, these being focused more on the development of cultural
practices and investment in the arts and culture. Some twenty years later, the situation
is completely different: one could almost say that everything concerning cultural
policies has become international, that there are no issues without an international
dimension. The dynamics of communication penetrate into all aspects of cultural
policies, as is evident from the European cultural policy (Littoz-Monnet, 2007).
Cultural policies today focus on two questions: cultural diversity and intercultural
communication. Why?
103