Abstract
The Twenty-first Century has presented us with an odd paradox: the forces of technology, and most especially the digital revolution, have been providing us with increasingly individualized entertainment options, while the forces of the economy have tended to reduce those options and to homogenize them, homogenizing cultures in the process. Under the guise of increasing individual choice, the diversity of the world’s varied cultures is under threat.
Cultural diversity is a value in itself and a collective good. It is only natural that people wish to preserve the connections to their collective pasts and identities. This wish to maintain a sense of community is both particular and universal. Indeed, we all benefit from the preservation of cultural diversity: encountering folkways other than our own exposes us to different ways of thinking and can lead to new, occasionally profitable ideas. We are, at the very least, enriched. Can the world’s cultural diversity be protected? Can it be sustained?
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Notes
- 1.
Indeed, the Nielson media measurement company estimated that the number of US households with televisions actually dropped for the first time in 20 years (Gelles and Edgecliffe-Johnson 2011: 14).
- 2.
For the discussion of these three tasks, I rely heavily on Feigenbaum (2002).
- 3.
This section is mainly based on historical background information taken from de Grazia (2005).
- 4.
In a comparison of the most watched television shows in Australia, France, Italy, Sweden and the United States, only in Australia was the most watched show an import. Curiously, once Australia is excluded only France had an American production in the top ten: the movie Star Wars (International Herald Tribune 2005).
- 5.
Conversation with a German law student at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 2008.
- 6.
Meeting of experts in Vancouver, Canada (19 March 2002) regarding “Recommendations, Theme 1” by the Organization of American States.
- 7.
Production Director Ted Kenney noted that “If you have a bad story…using 3D is not going to make it any better. You’ll just have a bad story… in 3D!” (Stolzberg 2011).
- 8.
I’m grateful to Nina Seavey for this point.
- 9.
Not all down-loaded files are compatible will systems developed by different electronics firms. A movie file from Blockbuster.com won’t work on a SONY HDTV, for example. This has led to a film industry initiative called “Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem” to develop a single standard (Stone 2010).
- 10.
Interviews, British Film Institute.
- 11.
These policy suggestions are largely based on the OECD report, Remaking the movies (2008: 107–117).
- 12.
Interview, French Ministry of Culture.
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Feigenbaum, H.B. (2014). Sustaining Cultural Diversity When Faced with Changing Technologies. In: Lang, A., Murphy, H. (eds) Business and Sustainability. Sustainability and Innovation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07239-5_8
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