Trine Bille, Anja Mølle Lindelof, and Linnéa Lindsköld
The cultural policy agendas in the Nordic countries and across the Western world are under pressure, as suggested by polemic research titles in recent years such as “The end of cultural policy?” (Mangset 2018) and “Culture is bad for you” (Brook et al. 2020). These studies are primarily referring to the so-called legitimation crisis of cultural policy, reflecting that over the past decades it has become clear that the basic cultural policy ideal of democratization of culture has at least partially failed (Hadley & Belfiore 2018). Despite decades of cultural policy efforts, it is still the well-educated and well-off who use the cultural institutions to a greater extent than the rest of the population, and there seems to be a persistent demographic bias in the use of publicly funded cultural institutions (Vestheim 2012; Bille 2021; Bille 2022).
Another major challenge is the continuous technological development, where digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) are constantly changing the cultural landscape and challenging established understandings of the aims and means of the Nordic cultural policy model (Duelund 2003). AI, digital media, algorithms and new platform-based communication infrastructures have influenced dissemination channels, citizens’ consumption patterns and the working conditions and income opportunities for artists’ and producers’ more generally. Cultural consumption is now increasingly taking place through podcasts, streaming services and social media (Valtysson 2020), affecting how people meet and interact with cultural products and how value is attributed to cultural institutions and events (Lindelof & Janssen 2023). Furthermore, the massive rise in the supply of content that accompanies the rise of streaming services and new support mechanisms, including private funds, radically changes the importance and scope of national cultural policy distribution principles.
In addition, global trends in the form of sustainability and climate challenges, as well as new geopolitical uncertainties and the unstable political climate, will impact future cultural policy. Policy making today often takes its point of departure in collaborative processes and wicked problems, such as migration, health, or climate agendas. The need to revisit the potential cultural policy in the light of this dramatically shifting political, economic, and technological landscape seems to be increasingly urgent.
Despite these grand challenges, the aims and means of cultural policy have been surprisingly stable (Bille 2022; Mangset & Hylland 2017), and therefore, we find this special issue of Nordisk kulturpolitisk tidsskrift on the future of cultural policy to be timely.
There can be distinguished between three different types of cultural policy research. The first type is studies of actual cultural policy, which investigates cultural policy as such. The policy development or the practice of cultural institutions are studied and explained primarily thought document analysis, interviews or other qualitative methods.
Visit the source: Scandinavian University Press
