THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF PARIS DEPARTMENT OF GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS MASTER OF ARTS IN GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS CULTURAL SPHERE AND PUBLIC INTEREST Combining Free and Participatory Culture, Cultural Democracy and Critiques of Value Regimes to Rethink Policy, Artistic and Institutional Practices v1.1 Péter Bálint Langmár Langmár Péter Bálint / Peter Langmar peter [DOT] langmar [AT] gmail [DOT] com - Paris, March 31th, 2011 - THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF PARIS MASTER OF ARTS IN GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS THESIS OF PÉTER BÁLINT LANGMÁR Langmár Péter Bálint / Peter Langmar Thesis director, the committee members, and the head of the Master’s Program APPROVED: Thesis Director: Julie Thomas Committee member: Yudhishthir Raj Isar Program Director: Waddick Doyle Date: March 31th, 2011 STATEMENT OF AUTHENTICITY I have read AUP’s policies on plagiarism and certify that the content of this thesis entitled CULTURAL SPHERE AND PUBLIC INTEREST Combining Free and Participatory Culture, Cultural Democracy and Critiques of Value Regimes to Rethink Policy, Artistic and Institutional Practices v1.0 is all my own work and does not contain any unacknowledged work from any other sources. 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Signature: Date: March 31th, 2011 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The help of the followings was crucial in order to realize this research: • Bon, Courtney, Dalma, Mark, Sara and Sarah gave me a hand in the hardest days; • Open source programming communities provide a wide variety of indispensable software solutions; • Numerous authors shared their works under licences, such as Creative Commons. Many thanks for their direct or indirect support. iv ABSTRACT The thesis aims at a holistic and multidisciplinary redefinition of public interest in the cultural sphere, contextualised in the democratic and cosmopolitan era. The thesis reveals various problems and weaknesses of the cultural sphere by combining a wide variety of concepts and discourses such as critiques of: high and mass culture, aesthetics, monopolistic competition, hegemonic value and copyrights regimes. In other words the thesis merges the critiques of the oligopolistic actors, of the hegemonic copyright and value regimes of the cultural sphere. The argument is supported by case studies of two major French museums and of Joseph Beuys' practice. After review several critiques of the cultural sphere the research argues for tackling these issues in the spirit of cultural democracy, free culture and participatory culture. As our findings show these three notions can provide approaches to creating an 'ideal' cultural sphere. After redefining public interest, we will suggest how all stakeholders may reach these 'ideal' conditions. The suggestions are addressed to public bodies – including cultural and educational institutions, policy makers, public funding bodies – and cultural professionals. The thesis concludes, there is a clear need to open up a debate about cultural value in order to eliminate hegemonic value regimes. Recent copyright regimes, systems of public subsidy and cultural institutions do not serve the public interest. In order to possibly obtain a balanced, competitive and democratic cultural sphere, which promotes freedom of expression and cultural identity, active cultural participation is also indispensable. Finally the research explores the promise and possible ways of development of the online cultural sphere. v TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................1 1. Motivation..............................................................................................................2 2. Research Questions..............................................................................................2 3. Research Methodology..........................................................................................3 4. Research Hypothesis............................................................................................3 5. Terminology...........................................................................................................4 5.1. Culture...........................................................................................................4 5.1.1. Cultural Sphere.......................................................................................4 5.1.1.1. Institution................................................................................................4 5.1.1.2. Cultural Industry.....................................................................................4 5.1.1.3. Commercial and non-commercial Culture..............................................5 5.1.2. Elite Culture............................................................................................5 5.1.2.1. High Culture...........................................................................................5 5.1.2.2. Art...........................................................................................................6 5.1.2.3. Artists vs. Amateur..................................................................................6 5.1.2.3.1.Cultural Democratization......................................................................6 5.1.3. Folk Culture............................................................................................6 5.1.4. Mass / Popular Culture...........................................................................7 5.1.5. Participatory Culture...............................................................................7 5.1.6. Cultural Democracy................................................................................7 5.1.7. Free Culture...........................................................................................7 5.1.8. Cultural Translation.................................................................................8 5.2. Value Recognition..........................................................................................8 5.2.1. Academic................................................................................................8 5.2.2. Aesthetics...............................................................................................8 5.2.3. Remix.....................................................................................................8 5.3. Democracy.....................................................................................................9 5.3.1. Representative and Direct Democracy...................................................9 5.3.2. Public Interest.........................................................................................9