Digital Technology and Cultural Policy
Working Paper #19, Fall 2001
Kieran Healy, University of Arizona
ABSTRACT
This paper reviews how digital technology, and the devices and
broadband
networks associated with it (the Internet, for short), can be
expected to
a ect the ways in which books, music, the visual arts, libraries
and archived
cultural heritage (cultural goods, for short) are produced, distributed
and
consumed. The paper has four parts. First, I place the growth
of the Internet
in historical and comparative perspective. I argue that the United
States is presently engaged in a regulatory e ort similar in intent
to those
imposed on earlier communications revolutions. In this context,
I outline
the ways that the Internet can be expected to change how people
produce
and consume cultural goods. I distinguish between practices the
technology
makes possible and practices likely to become established as typical
for the
majority of people. Second, I discuss some of the new arenas for
cultural
policy thrown up by the Internet. I argue that, just as it has
bound many
kinds of cultural content into a single medium, the Internet has
tied together
a variety of regulatory issues and brought cultural policy into
contact with
areas of policy-making not normally associated with culture. Third,
I focus
on the relationship between creativity, consumption and copyright
law.
Fourth, I describe a number of key conflicts over the Internet's
architecture
and content. How these are resolved through policy choices will
have important
consequences for how we consume and experience cultural goods
of
all kinds in the future.
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