Culture in the Digital Space - from Information to Communication

By Aleksandra Uzelac

Digital culture is the manifestation of the development of the cultural sector's activities in a networked environment. The study of new practices of digital networking (e.g. cultural portals) offers insight into the newly emerged changes which the cultural sector must understand in order to be able to take active part in the development of digital culture. The convergence recognizable in the new media erases clear borders between different forms of activity in the virtual sphere.

The presence of the cultural sector through various web resources is one of the basic aspects of digital culture. In the analysis of digital culture a significant role is played by structures which emerge in the virtual space itself, such as portals, virtual social networks, blogs, wiki services. Such structures have a more complex role than the simple provision of information – they contribute to the creation of new forms of virtual communication and cooperation. Very little systematic empirical data and few studies are available worldwide on this topic, and it is difficult to come to conclusions regarding the changes so rapidly taking place in modern societies. As the phenomenon of cultural portals is fairly recent, it is important to systematically research the development trends in this segment, in order to shed light on this topic through evidence-based research, which should facilitate the more systematic informing of cultural policies in this segment of digital culture which is increasingly gaining importance.

The objective of the research is to assess how the new structures of virtual communication, such as cultural portals, are developing, and, through an overview of theoretical literature and a comparative research conducted via an online questionnaire, evaluate the position of Croatian digital culture in the international context, establishing whether it follows the development trends of digital culture in the world. The analysis will give us insight into the possibilities which virtual communication offers. The data analyzed about cultural portals will reveal to us the development trends of digital culture in Croatia and the world, where the virtual environment offers the cultural sector the possibility to organize the way it works on a new basis.

Research Summaries

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