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Cultural Access and Participation - from Indicators to Policies for Democracy CultureWatchEurope 2012 Conference Cultural Access and Participation - from Indicators to Policies for Democracy Helsinki, Finland 30 June 2012 Conference Reader Cultural Access and Participation - from Indicators to Policies for Democracy CultureWatchEurope 2012 Conference Helsinki (Finland), 30 June 2012 Editor’s Note This reader is a digest of the discussions that took place during the conference “Cultural Access and Participation - from Indicators to Policies for Democracy” in Helsinki on 30 June 2012. It contains various presentations, papers and a general résumé of the issues and broad conclusions of the conference. The one-day reflection process in Helsinki, generously hosted by the Ministry of Culture of Finland, was the fourth in a series of CultureWatchEurope1 gatherings.The event was devoted to looking at the role of culture and partincipation in cultural life as a key factor in enhancing ‘democratic governance’ which is one of the Council of Euorpe’s main priorities. The specific aim was to reflect on the body of research available on access to and participation in culture and propose practical tools for democratic cultural policy making in times when society is exposed to many challenges. These relate to increasing mobility and to shifts in values and practices induced by social, demographic, economic and technological developments. Cultural policy makers need not only to understand these developments, but also to actively shape them. Cultural participation fosters the exercise of active citizenship and promotes cohesion. We are indeed dealing with key questions of democracy, when asking about participation in culture. We shall carefully watch the implementation of the right of everyone to take part in cultural life and invest in our adequate understanding of respective national contexts as well as in identifying trends. The reflection process on this issue is far from being exhausted. The present reader is an important input to the Council of Europe Conference of Ministers of Culture on “Governance of Culture – Promoting Access to Culture” (Moscow, 15-16 April 2012) as well as to future works of the Directorate General on Democracy. We thank all those who contributed to the research and reflection process around the Helsinki Conference and invite readers to continue developing, together with the Council of Europe, the political agenda on democratic access and participation in culture. Claudia Luciani, Democratic Governance Director, Council of Europe, December 2012 1 CultureWatchEurope is a multi-stakeholder platform initiated by the Council of Europe to spot, monitor and evaluate trends relating to culture, heritage and media across Europe. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Report on the Conference by Tommi Laitio: Counting What Counts .............................................. 4 Message by Conference participants ..................................................................................................... 4 About the report ..................................................................................................................................... 4 Age of uncertainty .................................................................................................................................. 4 From anecdotes to evidence .................................................................................................................. 5 Evidence for change .............................................................................................................................. 6 Understanding participation ................................................................................................................... 7 Indicators for monitoring pre-defined objectives .................................................................................... 9 Indicators for change.............................................................................................................................. 9 Helsinki participation research process ................................................................................................ 10 Concluding notes ................................................................................................................................. 11 II. Participants’ reflections .................................................................................................................... 13 A. Culture for sustainable democracy in the digital age ....................................................................... 13 Stojan Pelko: Introduction ................................................................................................................. 13 Joost Smiers: Digitisation and cultural democracy, an (as yet) unfulfilled promise .......................... 15 Jan Malinowski: Culture is not about “culture” .................................................................................. 31 B. From statistics to indicators - could we arrive at a European cultural participation index? .............. 35 Elena Di Federico: Measuring cultural participation: a state of the art ............................................. 35 Susanne Keuchel: Empirical Studies "Cultural Participation" - Projects in Germany and Europe ... 44 Vladimír Bína: a Proposal for Indicators on Cultural Participation and Access to Culture ................ 60 Andreas Wiesand: Let's start a "Helsinki participation research process" now! ............................... 76 Andrew Ormston: ‘Ha! hold my Brain; be still my beating Heart.’ - How to measure the culture we love ................................................................................................................................................... 78 Xabier Landabidea Urresti: Beyond statistics and indicators for access, participation and experience in cultural leisure............................................................................................................................... 82 C. From indicators to cultural policies .................................................................................................. 83 Colin Mercer: From Data to Wisdom: building the knowledge base for cultural policy ..................... 83 Jukka Liedes: Policy development through user-oriented indicators and the challenges and pitfalls of evidence-based policy making ..................................................................................................... 95 Péter Inkei: What indicators policy makers really use, and the added value of a proposal for a European Cultural Participation Index ............................................................................................ 104 III. Conference programme ................................................................................................................. 110 IV. Participants’ Curriculum Vitas ...................................................................................................... 112 V. - Appendices .................................................................................................................................... 130 Appendix 1 - Recommendation 1990 (2012) The right of everyone to take part in cultural life – Parliamentary Assembly .................................................................................................................... 130 Appendix 2 – Council of Europe Internet Governace Strategy 2012-2015 ........................................ 137 CultureWatchEurope Event 2012 Reader 3 I. Report on the Conference by Tommi Laitio: Counting What Counts Message by Conference participants Both economic austerity and demands for more transparent policy call for the cultural field to up its game. Arts and culture needs a solid body of evidence to make a stronger case on culture’s fundamental role in open-mindedness, equality, prosperity and participatory democracy. European countries are in very uneven stages in developing this argumentation. The 2013 Council of Europe Conference of Ministers of Culture (Moscow, April) should give a push for stronger European collaboration by adopting the suggested Helsinki Participation Research Process (HPRP). The HPRP would develop a biannual, European cultural participation index. As the Helsinki meeting of CultureWatchEurope demonstrated, there is also a vast body of data that could already be transformed into analysis and insight. As a reaction to the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly’s recent recommendation on "The right of everyone to take part in cultural life", we – the participants of the CultureWatchEurope event in Helsinki – wished to send five clear messages as input to the Ministers of Culture conference taking place in 2013 in Moscow. 1. Suggest to start a Helsinki Participation Research Process (HPRP)... 2. …which develops a set of European cultural indicators and a system for biannual surveys... 3. … that will be able to measure societal and economic impact of culture beyond mere input, employment and attendance … 4. … and help decision makers, cultural professionals and citizens better understand the essential role of culture as a creator of "empathy for difference"…. 5. … and in order to better understand cultural participation and, especially, non-participation. About the report This report2 reflects the debate of the CultureWatchEurope meeting held on 30 June 2012 at the House of Estates (Helsinki, Finland). The presentations given and a full list of attendees can be found attached. The meeting was called upon by the
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