Valuing culture and creativity impacts in a global technological era: Reshaping the analytical framework

Abstract

In a global world, increasingly mediated by new technologies, but where place, communities and territories assume even more importance, the valuing of culture and creativity faces new conceptual and operational challenges. This paper addresses these challenges in order to question the measurement tools usually applied in valuing the impact of culture in society, proposing a new conceptual grid to assess the impacts of creative and cultural activities, in all their diversity and multidimensionality. This results from an intense co-construction process, over the few past years, involving a variety of cultural agents, both in Portuguese and European contexts, in the scope of several research projects. This analytical framework helps disentangling the increasing complexity of the mechanisms underlying value creation in cultural activities, enabling self-assessment of its diverse impacts, in a particular territory or community. A specific grid is presented, comprising five main dimensions (cultural, economic, social, environmental; citizenship and participation), for assessing the territorial impacts of cultural activities. These are subdivided into 15 subdimensions and operationalized in 75 different indicators. This analytical framework is being transposed to a digital application that allows the systematization, self-assessment and self-awareness of value creation and their impacts by the agents of the cultural/creative sector.