New Possibilities for Local Content Distribution

In this 2-page article, Rosa M. Gonzalez explores new avenues for drawing on information and communication technologies (ICTs) for creating and disseminating local content, which she defines as "the expression of a community's knowledge and experience." The very process of sharing this content, she suggests, provides important opportunities to the members of a community (however defined) to interact and communicate with each other, expressing their own ideas, knowledge, and culture in their own language. This line of thinking coheres with United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)'s Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, which highlights cultural diversity's pivotal role as "a source of exchange, innovation and creativity."

Despite the rich possibilities that local cultural expression and use of local languages hold, Gonzalez contends that the dominant trends are the top-down flow of content from economically and socially powerful groups to less privileged and disadvantaged ones, and from more developed countries and more sophisticated media production houses to less developed countries and networks. She points to various reasons for these trends, such as concentration of media ownership, a limitation of access and high-quality content sources, weak or non-existent production/programming budgets, and a lack of commitment to the importance of local content for the promotion of cultural diversity.

UNESCO, the organisation with which Gonzalez is affiliated, has pursued several strategies for empowering local content producers by promoting and fostering local content development and distribution. One such strategy is ICT-facilitated partnership - creating proactive linkages with content creators, media organisations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), distribution and broadcasting outlets, and professional international organisations. To this end, in 2002 UNESCO launched the Programme for Creative Content, which is an effort to boost the production and distribution of local content for television, radio, and new media (Editor's note: click here for further details).

The use of the internet is central to another example she cites: that of UNESCO's Audiovisual e-Platform (click here for access). This multicultural, online catalogue is designed to enable independent producers and broadcasters to reach international audiences, while also serving as a space for intercultural communication and dialogue. The programming available through this system consists of recently directed television productions that are innovative in form or content, and that provide a genuine expression of different cultures. (Productions can be fully screened online and acquired by contacting the rights-owner). As Gonzalez explains, independent directors, producers, and distributors use this tool to promote their own work by giving access to their contacts to their personal catalogues. At an institutional level, UNESCO uses the tool to stimulate the distribution of materials to broadcasters, networks, festivals, cultural institutions, and other partners (e.g., local associations, media libraries, and cultural centres). She suggests that opening this kind of initiative to the general public, following the "pay-per-view" principle, could go some way toward ensuring sustainability and keeping local creativity alive in the audiovisual sector.