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This paper describes digital cultural policy as a slow and ambivalent or reluctant revolution in a policy field. In investigates how cultural policy has gradually been affected by digitalization in the field of cultural production. I argue that digital cultural policy has developed in a sedimentary fashion, but that it also has been continuously marked by a certain ambivalence towards the digital revolution. Digital cultural policy is ultimately described as a field of hyperconvergence, where ideas, political tools, technology, and policy areas are entangled to an increasing degree. This challenges the research on and the analysis of digital cultural policy. The paper is primarily based on a close reading of Norwegian cultural policy documents. I have employed all the white papers on cultural policy from the Ministry of Culture between 1973 and 2019 – both the ones that explicitly deal with cultural policy and the ones that deal with a specific field of the arts (performing arts, visual arts, music etc.), as well as annual reports from Arts Council Norway between 1975 and 2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on recent debates within cultural policy and cultural studies, arguing that questions of cultural meaning-making processes need to be taken into account when assessing accessibility issues discussed in current academic and political contexts. Approaching opera as a cultural phenomenon in the context of a minority culture, the paper focuses on the alleged democratization process entailed by digitalization. Departing from the division between the democratization of culture, referring to the dissemination of cultural works to those lacking access, and cultural democracy, in short, to value the subjective judgement of taste, the paper aims to investigate the connections between the meaning of opera and the cultural context in which this meaning is conceptualized. The opera culture among the Swedish-speaking Finns, a small, heterogeneous language minority, is used as a case study. The paper concludes that as long as the cultural meaning of opera is to stand for valuable, high culture, attempts to democratize opera will lead to new renegotiations between the high and the common. Understanding such connections between cultural policies concerning digital accessibility and cultural meaning is especially important in the post-pandemic era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My contribution intends to map the cultures and practices related to crypto-finance use in two distinct sectors: the 'mainstream' space of retail investors and the avantgarde space of artists/activists. This paper explores the realm of crypto-finance by using the lens of cultural and social analysis, deploying a frame derived from the theory of public sphere. By doing this I analyse the cultural production of the publics which coalesced around crypto, evaluating the change of visibility implied in these new public discussions of finance. The aim of this paper is to highlight potential bridges for cultural policy in two fields that have both partially departed from an institutional framework but that ultimately ended up being significantly embedded in mainstream cultural and social processes. In the case of ordinary crypto-investors, I will reflect on how platformed cultural production is responsible for the creation alternative financial literacy. In the case of artists, I will explore how blockchain-based innovation nurtured a new space for the imagination of finance and welfare. I will conclude by discussing these developments and drawing implications crypto-finance has for the discussion on the role of financial investment and digital technologies in our societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a change to the remit and title of a UK government department provides a starting point for reflection on the growing role of digital technologies in the re-imagination of UK cultural policy. An early strategic report produced by the re-named DCMS was entitled Culture is Digital. Identifying the UK's cultural and technology sectors as 'the ultimate power couple,' this report directs the cultural sector towards the use of technology to enhance public engagement and to improve technical skills through the development of collaborations with technology companies. Reflecting on the place of DCMS in UK cultural policymaking and drawing on analysis of this report and associated strategic documents, including responses and updates produced in the light of the Covid pandemic, the paper analyses the claims made about the elision between culture and the digital and their consequences for the status of cultural policy within the British state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural policies aim to respond to the widespread use of digital technologies in cultural practices by facilitating their application and addressing associated challenges. In arguing that policy positions emerge through the interface of digital technologies and culture and that they need to be negotiated in practice, this paper discusses how digital technologies are perceived and negotiated in traditional cultures of making. The immersive nature of cultural values is made explicit through symbolic work that embeds the digital as documentation of the life cycle of hand-woven materials. Applying the framework of cultural techniques, digital technologies are perceived as products of culture. They signify the interwoven complexities of values between people, cultural practice and materials recognising cultures of making as policy directives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ways in which the digitalization of the music industries has impacted the work of musicians locally, in the semi-peripheral country of Hungary. In particular, it focuses on the ways in which the work of musicians is shaped by gender relations. It aims to critique the democratization discourse of the digitalization of musical production by exploring, first, the local policy and industry context of digitalized musical labor, and, secondly, the role of gender relations within the household in the labor and careers of musicians in Hungary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to studies of implicit cultural policy in platformised societies by offering an empirical study of dating apps and the ways in which they are operating a digital enclosure of the practice of dating. Reflecting on a qualitative research project conducted in different phases from 2017 to 2021, I analyse subjective experiences of dating apps in the aim of deciphering some traits of digital culture of love's structure of feeling. I focus on the role played by the algorithm as a libidinal object invested with merit and blame, and capable of (re)producing a libidinal economy within the app itself. This is characterised by the gamified alternation of validation and humiliation, which gives the subject the possibility to deal with these feelings in the de-personalised virtual space of the app. Engaging with the app, the subject aspires to foster a careless conduct, in which moral codes traditionally associated with personhood are lifted. I argue that the policies implicit within the logic and agency of dating apps shape the techno-utopia of post-romantic love: a risk free, painless and efficient interaction, deprived of the complications of embodied romance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The converging agendas in supporting cultural creativity and digital innovation became evident in the development of creative economy in China. Maker culture has become a key concern for public policy in China, driven by a demand for individualised creativity and the need to co-opt such creativity for nation building. Critics of maker culture have argued that it re-enforces a new global hegemony, one that prioritizes the values of the developed West over Chinese socialist and Confucius values. Applying the concept of ideoscapes, I explore the interpretation and the mediation of the Western creative discourse by Chinese makers and their unique social practices. This article shows the local adaptation of liberal democracy. In the push for a national maker culture strategy, amateur makers as well as professional technology activists work with the state to re-define 'keywords' for the operationalisation of Western creative discourse in very different context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]