Ethics and the digitisation of cultural heritage

Ethics and the digitisation of cultural heritage

The digitisation of cultural heritage artefacts comes with countless opportunities. It improves accessibility and discoverability of the artefacts, enables their preservation for future generations, and facilitates their re-use in different contexts, to name a few. Despite those, there remain certain noteworthy ethical challenges summarised in this article.

Cultural sensitivity and digitisation

When selecting and interpreting cultural heritage artefacts, museums or galleries sometimes apply “Western” approach and biases, not recognizing or respecting the cultural work and the necessary context. This may harm the indigenous communities, for example, who may feel that they have been wrongfully represented or interpreted.

Similarly, in working with the cultural heritage, memory instituions (including galleries, libraries, archives and museums) may choose to apply metadata schemas that the “Western” world commonly uses to describe and arrange indigenous heritage. Again, this may not necessarily be accurate, reflective or respectful in relation to the cultural heritage in question.

It's also worth noting that some of the digitized cultural heritage artefacts may be considered or intended to be of limited use or access in the relevant community. By digitizing them and including them in a repository or reusing them, this quality and/or their uniqueness may suffer.

Ease of sharing and manipulation

Due to its very nature, digital content can be easily shared, combined, aggregated and modified online. This often raises concerns about ensuring that the content is authentic. Memory institutions are often seen to guarantee the authority and trustworthiness, ensuring authenticity of the assets which they provide access to. To maintain this unique role, it is therefore imperative that the digitised content which they provide access to is authentic and genuine.

There are also certain privacy concerns in relation to personal data of individuals contained in some cultural heritage materials–more specifically, there exists a concern that the digitisation of content containing individuals’ details may facilitate the undesired dissemination of such details potentially causing harm to one’s public image.For instance, a specific example has been referred to in relation to the digitization by an alternative press of lesbian erotic content from 1984 – 2004that bears historical significance but could be harmful for living persons exposed in the journal.

In addition, some have opined that in order to be able to fully and properly assess and appreciate an artefact, it is essential that the viewer has the option of assessing and interpreting it from different angles, in various contexts and using all their senses. When it comes to the outcomes or products of digitisation of certain 3D assets, such as historic sites, complexes and other architectural constructions, the viewer often has no choice but to follow a pre-determined, recorded view or path, making viewers unable to choose what they see. In addition, it has been noted that certain architectural artefacts or sites change in time (as a result of natural as well geo-political or current-affair events) which digitisation may not always fully account for, again leaving the viewer with an incomplete or inaccurate impression.

Accessibility and online engagement with the digital content

Accessing digitised cultural heritage content requires a range of skills, including certain language, communication, social and digital skills, as well as access to the technology enabling the viewing of the relevant content. At the same time, some of that content in its original form has originated from and can be seen to be entirely dependent on the people and communities who had historically created the heritage. Thus, it would be appropriate to allow such people and communities access to the digitised content or to encourage their active participation in it. However, some of those people and communities may not possess the skills and resources required and are not able to access and view the digitised content as a result, demonstrating the ethical challenge those communities may face in obtaining accessibility and achieving inclusion.

An ethical issue also revolves around unrestricted and non-moderated access to digitised cultural heritage content. Recent online communication trends (including via Web 2.0 and social networks) have enabled users to participate in shaping, interpreting, and disseminating digitised cultural heritage content online. This often presents challenges in relation to the ownership of and authority over the content, as some users may intentionally or unintentionally mislead others as to the origins or ownership of the content, or offer or promote various alternative contexts or interpretations. Equally as importantly, however, museums and galleries are often not ready for such active user involvement in communication, and generally take a rather paternalistic role in defining what is to be communicated and how. As a result, there remains a challenge in creating an inclusive and participative forum where parties can communicate openly and efficiently, whilst ensuring that participating institutions maintain their authority and trustworthiness.

New funding models

There are some significant costs involved in the digitisation of cultural heritage. In order to generate funds to cover those costs, museums and galleries increasingly apply business approaches that have become common place in raising funds in the private sector. This raises two ethical issues.

Firstly, selection biases. In selecting content suitable for digitization, museums and galleries may find themselves intentionally or unintentionally selecting artefacts that may appeal to potential funders, leaving out other content which may be equally as significant or valuable.

Secondly, the issue of limitation of access. In pursuit of profit, private funders may require exclusive access to the digitized content for a certain period. Such practices raise concerns especially where the projects in question have been partly funded by public funds.

Conclusion

Digitisation of cultural heritage comes with numerous benefits and opportunities that are certainly worth exploring. However, when exploiting cultural heritage assets in this way, such assets should be treated with respect to their context and the community they originate from. Approaching digitisation efforts whilst considering the ethical challenges discussed in this article would be a great start.

This article has been written in the context of preparatory works for deliverable D1.1 (Comprehensive guide of the benefits, opportunities, risks and gaps in the management of cultural heritage digitisation) of REEVALUATE, a European Union Horizon Research and Innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101132389. Full references are available upon request.

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