Watch this EU-LAC Webinar on YouTube!
Access the concept note and further event materials in the attachment.
The EU-LAC Foundation organised a webinar in the framework of the Digital European Week in Hamburg on how the tendency towards digitisation in the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean has had an impact on the cultural sector, and specifically, how it has shaped cultural policies of the different countries in the two regions.
The digital age has profoundly changed the ways whereby we live and interact with one another. The emergence of digital technologies has revolutionised the means of creating and spreading culture and therefore has had an impact on the entire cultural value chain. Albeit these changes entail a series of challenges, they allow the creation of new cultural expressions in terms of languages and forms of accessibility.
In light of this transition, in recent years, public institutions working in the realm of culture in numerous countries have developed policies and strategies aimed at taking advantage of the opportunities and mitigating associated disadvantages and challenges. The inclusion of digitisation policies has thus become one of the priorities for cultural policymakers. These advancements have resulted in a better understanding of the necessity for national, regional and multilateral efforts in this regard as keys to fully harnessing the potential of digital culture.
In turn, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed that, despite these endeavours, there are still significant differences between and within countries - and regions - in terms of digitisation to date. These imbalances hinder the transition into digital-based cultural policies and the effectiveness of national and regional strategies thereto.
This webinar aimed to provide a space for dialogue and presentation of challenges and promising initiatives at the level of cultural policies in Latin America and the Caribbean and the European Union. It contributed to the generation of knowledge and the bi-regional exchange of information about opportunities, initiatives and best practices in terms of digitisation in the field of culture at national, sub-regional and bi-regional levels.
