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The creation and dissemination of local content reflecting the values and experience of local communities and cultures is necessary for the preservation of cultural diversity. Cultural identity and expression will, in turn, foster harmonious and equitable development of all sections of humanity.
During the last few years there has been a growing recognition of the need to generate local content and make it available through new and traditional media in order to empower communities and lead them to an inclusive knowledge society. Local content is the expression and communication of a community’s locally owned and adapted knowledge and experience that is relevant to the community’s situation. The process of creating and disseminating local content provides opportunities for members of the community to interact and communicate with each other, expressing their own ideas, knowledge and culture in their own language.
The lack of local content is evident across all media and information channels. One needs to spend just a few minutes in front of a television or computer screen to notice the overwhelming presence of content coming from content providers in the developed countries, reflecting language, values and lifestyles which are often vastly different from those of the community “consuming” the content.
Content does not flow of its own accord; it needs owners or originators with the motivation to create, adapt or exchange it. Obviously, the agencies that ‘push’ global or non-local content are more powerful and resourceful than those disseminating local content. With a few exceptions (e.g. the telephone, community radio, or indigenous knowledge systems), most formal content and communication ‘channels’ in developing countries help to push ‘external’ content into local communities. Counter efforts to distribute local content (such as African film, Asian research publications, ‘southern voices’ in the media, or the e-trading of traditional crafts) to global networks face an uphill struggle.
While the importance of local content has often been raised in many international meetings and by numerous donors and cooperation agencies, concrete initiatives and expertise in this area are scarce. Many, if not most, content initiatives using ICTs tend to ‘push’ external content towards local communities. In other words, they mainly provide ‘access’ to other people’s knowledge. With a few exceptions, new technologies are not used to strengthen the ‘push’ of local content from local people. Generally, the balance between ‘push’ and ‘pull’ – or supply and demand – is heavily weighted towards non-local rather than local content.
UNESCO aims to facilitate the creation of local content by indigenous peoples, in order to preserve and promote the expression of their cultures. Through the use of ICTs, indigenous peoples will be trained to use ICTs to produce media content (be it for television, radio or new media), which reflects their needs, aspirations and views about the world. They will be able to share their identiy, language, values, customs and tradition with the rest of the world, delivered through their very own perspective. In this way, the heritage of indigenous peoples is recorded, preserved for the benefit of the generations to come.
During the last few years there has been a growing recognition of the need to generate local content and make it available through new and traditional media in order to empower communities and lead them to an inclusive knowledge society. Local content is the expression and communication of a community’s locally owned and adapted knowledge and experience that is relevant to the community’s situation. The process of creating and disseminating local content provides opportunities for members of the community to interact and communicate with each other, expressing their own ideas, knowledge and culture in their own language.
The lack of local content is evident across all media and information channels. One needs to spend just a few minutes in front of a television or computer screen to notice the overwhelming presence of content coming from content providers in the developed countries, reflecting language, values and lifestyles which are often vastly different from those of the community “consuming” the content.
Content does not flow of its own accord; it needs owners or originators with the motivation to create, adapt or exchange it. Obviously, the agencies that ‘push’ global or non-local content are more powerful and resourceful than those disseminating local content. With a few exceptions (e.g. the telephone, community radio, or indigenous knowledge systems), most formal content and communication ‘channels’ in developing countries help to push ‘external’ content into local communities. Counter efforts to distribute local content (such as African film, Asian research publications, ‘southern voices’ in the media, or the e-trading of traditional crafts) to global networks face an uphill struggle.
While the importance of local content has often been raised in many international meetings and by numerous donors and cooperation agencies, concrete initiatives and expertise in this area are scarce. Many, if not most, content initiatives using ICTs tend to ‘push’ external content towards local communities. In other words, they mainly provide ‘access’ to other people’s knowledge. With a few exceptions, new technologies are not used to strengthen the ‘push’ of local content from local people. Generally, the balance between ‘push’ and ‘pull’ – or supply and demand – is heavily weighted towards non-local rather than local content.
UNESCO aims to facilitate the creation of local content by indigenous peoples, in order to preserve and promote the expression of their cultures. Through the use of ICTs, indigenous peoples will be trained to use ICTs to produce media content (be it for television, radio or new media), which reflects their needs, aspirations and views about the world. They will be able to share their identiy, language, values, customs and tradition with the rest of the world, delivered through their very own perspective. In this way, the heritage of indigenous peoples is recorded, preserved for the benefit of the generations to come.
