1999 - Working Document
III - Challenges of Culture in a Global Era
Culture and globalization
Present generations have witnessed fundamental changes in the configuration
of the world affecting many of its principal spheres. During the
last half century, radio, television and the telephone have seen
an exponential growth in their presence in society around the world.
To these media new technologies have been added as part of a profound
and dizzying revolution in communications.
At the same time, global political and economic orders have undergone
extraordinary transformations. Ideological differences have lost
force, opening the way for exchange and communication between groups
and individuals in different nations, while other kinds of difference
-cultural differences for example- have acquired new strength. International
commerce has grown like never before, and the network of transportation
of people and goods has expanded in response to an ever greater
demand.
As part and parcel of this complex process, the patterns of communication,
contact and exchange between people and societies have been modified
to a similar degree. Not only are the connecting bridges more numerous
and efficient; the new media often involve new formats and languages
that require specific skills and knowledge.
Communication, contact and exchange between cultures have always
been primary factors in the development of those cultures, for which
reason the phenomenon of globalization and the changes involved
in relation with these activities present previously unimagined
challenges and opportunities for regional, national and local cultures
and the work of promoting them.
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Stockholm Action Plan
- New trends, particularly globalization, link
cultures ever more closely and enrich the interaction between
them, but they may also be detrimental to our creative diversity
and to cultural pluralism; they make mutual respect all
the more imperative.
Objective 1: To make cultural policy one of he key components
of development strategy
- Co-operate internationally and regionally
in engaging in cultural activities to tackle the challenges
of urbanization, globalization and ongoig technologial changes.
Objective 4: Promote cultural and linguistic diversity
in and for the information society.
- Co-operate in the domain of audiovisual
media, particularly as regards training, and the development
and distribution of audiovisual productions.
- Encourage cultural co-operation, particularly through
joint projects in the field of cultural industries (production,
investment and transfer of rights).
- Encourage research on the relastionship between culture
and its dissemination in the media and through new communication
services, and support efforts to co-ordinate, and possibly
harmonize, methods of measurement and evaluation of cultural
programming in the media.
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Challenges and perspectives
One of the subjects of greatest interest for societies, governments
and other national and international institutions concerns the perspectives
for cultural diversity in the context of a global era. We recognize
in the cultural assets of each people not only a source of identity,
both collective and individual (in other words a constitutive and
essential dimension of groups and individuals), but also a source
of integral development in which the economic sphere is also included.
In this sense the cultural diversity of nations and the world represents
a value to be preserved.
Globalization has brought with it an internationalization in areas
such as fashion, mass culture and consumption in certain types of
commodity. At the same time, it has stimulated a revaluation, a
reaffirmation and, at times, a recovery by particular peoples of
the cultural elements that characterize and identify them to the
rest of the world. There is an increasing awareness of foreign cultures,
a knowledge that is the indispensable starting point for the knowledge
of one's own culture. We are conscious of each other and confirm
what we are to the degree that we relate to the rest.
Globalization -and the direct and indirect bridges of communication
through electronic and audiovisual media that it lays across the
world- announces that this knowledge between cultures and those
who make them up (equally fundamental for tolerance, respect and
peace within and between countries) may be even greater in the future.
For this kind of cultural interaction to be sustained on equitable
terms, it is of vital importance to honor the aim of keeping media
and communication spaces open to the participation and contributions
not only of certain cultural groups in particular but to the whole
diversity of society. In this context, the public communications
media, in accordance with their vocation for service, have a particular
responsibility, which extends from the opening of new spaces for
promoting cultural wealth in all its variety to making available
their tools for creative expression to groups and individuals.
Another field that has claimed considerable attention of governments
is that of the cultural industries. The exchange of cultural contents
within countries and that at international level have a close relation
with these, as long as the products they market reflect to a greater
or lesser extent the culture in which they are generated.
For this reason it is so important that the local, national and
regional cultural industries should be vigorous and dynamic, so
as to contribute to a cultural feedback in their own societies and
a strengthening of their image and presence abroad. The cultural
industries, on the other hand, play a fundamental role in comprehensive
social development, one of whose bases is popular culture. One of
the starting points is to broaden, both in theory and practice,
the concept of cultural industries, so that the role in this sphere
of artists, craftsmen, designers and other creators who work in
a systematic and organized way in the generation of cultural assets,
whether as individuals or collectively, should be considered in
all its value.
Faced by a world moving towards an ever greater interdependence,
cooperation between governments in these fields, as well as the
participation of the other sectors of society, is more necessary
than ever. Some of the lines along which this joint effort can be
developed include the creation of media networks for information
exchange and the development of common projects; co-production of
television and radio programs, films, Internet sites, publications;
exchanges involving experience, knowledge, and educational and training
personnel; the promotion of common markets.
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Subjects for discussion
- In the era of globalization, the divisive function of national
frontiers is being weakened, while their dimension as bridges
or links is being strengthened. Cultural exchanges increase both
in quantity and speed. Likewise, the assimilation of cultural
products as a fruit of this exchange is greater and more rapid.
How can we promote a cultural exchange that responds
- to a balanced and open dialogue? How can we achieve a cultural
exchange that, rather than falling into stereotyped patterns,
leads to greater understanding among nations?
- How can we stimulate the interest of the local, national and
regional media in disseminating the distinctive cultural contents
of the society in which they develop?
- While insisting on the work that needs to be done in order to
induce the media and the cultural industries to favor certain
cultural contents and contribute to the preservation of cultural
diversity, what is no less important is the role of societies
as receptors and consumers of such contents, thus constituting
the main parameter of the behavior of these media and industries.
This being the case, what are the leading strategies for expanding
awareness among different publics of the importance of cultural
diversity and its preservation?
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