Enhancing Cultural Democracy From National To Global Cultural Democracy In Cultural Policies

Abstract: "Cultural Democracy", like many cultural policy themes, has different meanings, relevance and importance depending on the political, economic, cultural and social contexts in which it is applied. "Democratising culture" - implementing strategies to increase access to and the dissemination of ideas and values - has certainly been aided by the arrival of the internet, but it remains those with resources, with networks, with expertise and historical privilege, who are best able to assert their values, ideas, beliefs and ideological assumptions: what hopes then, for a more democratic world order, in which everyone - or at least the majority of people - may be able to project their views, traditions, values and perspectives into the "global market of ideas"? My reflections on this theme will be informed by my South African experience, by my serving as part of UNESCO's technical facility on the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, and

This book discusses how public cultural policies can relate to the principle political issue of democracy. Here, democratic cultural policies include ideas and ideologies, institutional structures, agents and interests, power, access and participation and distribution of economic resources. Contributors focus on analysing the relationship between a political system and culture and the arts as an empirical field. They critically consider questions such as: How do different democratic forms affect cultural policy consequences? Can cultural autonomy be combined with cultural democracy? How is cultural policy-making used as a political process and which interests are involved? What position does popular culture have in cultural policies? How does a former Soviet state like Lithuania handle the question of culture and democracy? What does it mean when UNESCO talks about cultural diversity? How did intellectuals act in cultural policy debates in France in the late 19th century? The volume also looks at whether the democratisation of culture is actually possible. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Cultural Policy.

The dissertation studies the extent to which festivals, from a popular event for the masses, evolved into exclusive events, and shows how festivals affect society and are affected by it through practices in accordance with cultural democracy. Festivals relation to society is explained through the following concept-areas: 1. The artist's role 2. The use of festivals 3. The European example 4. Cultural democracy 5. Cultural policy 6. Active participation 7. Cultural tourism 8. The media The dissertation identifies cultural policy, active participation and the media as key areas of concern in order to attain a coherent culturally democratic society. The study recognised that certain festivals and forms of art have been taken over by elite groups of people who exclude others from accessing them. What is called mass culture appeared to include many more practices and manifestations of creativity than the perceived established arts. How mass culture is seen, is important in the way people are given freedom to preserve and express their cultural preferences and identities. In this respect, the media play an important role through their capacity to promote and supply culture. The media use segmented functions of culture and influence people's behaviours.

Cultural Democracy explores the crisis of our national cultural vitality, as access to the arts becomes increasingly mediated by a handful of corporations and the narrow tastes of wealthy elites. Graves offers the concept of cultural democracy as corrective--an idea with important historic and contemporary validation, and an alternative pathway toward ethical cultural development that is part of a global shift in values. Drawing upon a range of scholarship and illustrative anecdotes from his own experiences with cultural programs in ethnically diverse communities, Graves explains in convincing detail the dynamics of how traditional and grassroots cultures may survive and thrive--or not--and what we can do to provide them opportunities equal to those of mainstream, Eurocentric culture.

This book places the study of public support for the arts and culture within the prism of public policy making. It is explicitly comparative in casting cultural policy within a broad sociopolitical and historical framework. Given the complexity of national communities, there has been an absence of comparative analyses that would explain the wide variability in modes of cultural policy as reflections of public cultures and cultural identity. The discussion is internationally focused and interdisciplinary. Mulcahy contextualizes a wide variety of cultural policies and their relation to politics and identity by asking a basic question: who gets their heritage valorized and by whom is this done? The fundamental assumption is that culture is at the heart of public policy as it defines national identity and personal value.

This interdisciplinary and international collection explores the role of the arts in shaping contemporary religion and politics. The authors ask about the future of viable communities and democratic cultures in a postmodern world, looking for clues in artistic practices and institutions and their impact on how people create history and interpret texts. The collection shows that the arts are central to struggles over the shape of society in the new millennium.

Encouraging more – and different – people to attend the arts remains a vital issue for the cultural sector. The question of who consumes culture, and why, is key to our understanding of the arts. This book examines the relationship of audience development to cultural policy and offers a ground-breaking perspective on how the practice of audience development is connected to ideas of democratic access to culture. Providing a detailed overview of arts marketing, audience development and cultural democracy, the book argues that the work of audience development has been profoundly misunderstood by the field of arts management. Drawing from a rich range of interviews with key individuals in the audience development field, the book argues for a re-conceptualisation of audience development as an ideological function of cultural policy. Of importance for students, academics and researchers working in arts management and cultural policy, the book is also vital reading for anyone working in the arts, cultural and heritage sectors with an interest in understanding how our relationship with the audience has been constructed.