The impact of digitization on cultural participation: pros and cons

It is trivial nowadays, that digitalization weaves through our whole lives, which prevails more than the average in some fields. The cultural sector is one of these, where digital technology plays an enormous role in all phases of the value networks. So obviously digitalization is the main trendsetter in cultural participation too. At a first glance it seems to provide only favourable consequencies, that is approved by the experiences we had during the Covid epidemy. In the months of the lockdown it was digitalization that made possible for us to consume various, even „live” cultural productions at home. Meanwhile it is worth to evaluate the effects of digitalization on cultural participation more sophisticatedly for avoiding frequent stereotypes. Let’s take only the following questions: Does everybody have the required tools and competencies for digital consumption? Does the cultural experience change by virtuality? Does digitalization decrease the rate of non-consumption? What will happen with the traditional cultural infrastructure? Etc. When looking for the answers, we also have to think about whether the research methods we used till this time are suitable or not. By detailing the above mentioned issues the paper mainly tries to invite for common thinking rather than to give answers, as for supporting the appropriate responses, new, relevant and overall researches should be accomplished.

Keywords: digitalization, culture consumption, virtual culture consumption, research of
cultural participation