1.01. Are cultural practices becoming increasingly digitised?

The past decade has seen the growth of digital technology and its multiple uses around the world and has profoundly transformed the lives of individuals. Its effects on individual practices are studied by several national surveys, such as the Swedish Cultural Habits Survey (Kulturvanor) of the Encuesta de Hábitos y Prácticas Culturales en España¹, or even from the survey of cultural practices of French. This growing diffusion is based in France on the generalisation of equipment and broadband access². Olivier Donnat, a sociologist, worked for 35 years in the Department of Studies, Prospective Studies and Statistics (DEPS) of the Ministry of Culture. In particular, he conducted and commented on the surveys on the cultural practices of Frenchmen carried out every eight years, from 1973 to 2008. In 2010, in the synthesis of the 2008 edition of the survey, he already noted the emergence of a screen culture, caused by the combined effects of the dematerialization of content, the widespread use of broadband internet and the considerable progress of household equipment in computers, game consoles and multimedia phones."

In these digital uses, which became the majority in the daily lives of younger people, there is even a new category of individuals who have totally plunged into the bath of digital uses and belong to the universe of the all-digital. These individuals are two-thirds of those aged 23 or under and represent 15% of the French population. In 2020, Philippe Lombardo and Wolf Wolff studied the various French surveys conducted over the last five decades. They explain: "The universe of the all-digital, still very rare in 2008, becomes a significant category in 2018, bringing together nearly one in six (15 per cent) among the 15 years and over. Members of this group are characterized by the intensive use of digital technologies: they consume videos online (71 per cent of them daily), consult social networks (84%), play video games (39%). On the other hand, they read significantly little, occasionally go to cinema and rarely visit cultural venues – especially theatres and concert halls. For this population group, digital practices – numerous and diverse – seem to compete with practices of visiting cultural places.¹"

It is also interesting to note that the universe of all-digital is not unique to a territory and is found in both urban and rural areas.

Although the use of digital technology is widely spread and its invocation is generally censored, it is for whom digital is a charge more than an additional comfort. In a report dated July 2024, 23% of EU nationals stated that digital technology makes their lives more difficult on a daily basis. A significant part of Europe's population is even in a dilectronic situation, i.e. an inability to use digital tools. This level increases sharply with age and is more widespread among the poorest segments of society. It is also very different from one country to another. For example, when, in 2022, only 1% of the Norwegian population reported not having been connected to the Internet for three months¹, they and they are 13.9% in France (2021)²Despite a 3-point decline during the health crisis. Surprisingly, this share is almost as large as that of all-digital individuals. Bulgaria has the lowest Internet user rate, with 20% of the population never logged in, compared to 12% in Croatia.³.

So why are you interested in these statistics? Because it is essential to understand these transformations in order to reach all those audiences to whom a public cultural project should address itself. This is why it is so important for cultural projects to take stock of the developments caused by the massive arrival of digital technology, on the one hand, and to direct their address to the public accordingly. These public transformations require mediation, reception and public relations teams to change their practices accordingly to develop or maintain contact with the public regardless of the intensity of its digital practices. In fact, booking and registration practices remain heterogeneous within the public of an establishment, and when certain typologies of individuals only interact digitally with a cultural establishment, others maintain purely traditional uses, such as subscription by mail, attendance at entertainment counters or telephone information. It is from the perspective of cultural rights that, at the same time, the aim is to develop digital forms of mediation adapted to individuals fully immersed in digital tools and to find others for those who remain outside this digital world. This will enable a structure to develop communications via social networks, mediation with tablets or smartphones, virtual tours, online resource production, digital mediation in cultural venues. But it will also have to deploy other methods of mediation outside the digital world to integrate others.

A report by the French Conseil d'analyse économique¹, published in February 2022 in the wake of the health crisis, called for a "profound and collective transformation of cultural production methods in a globalised and digitalised society"². In pursuing this objective, it seems essential not to overlook the audiences who remain on the margins of these digital practices.  

• (EN) The Digital Decade (external link), enquête de l’Union Européenne sur l’impact du numérique dans la vie de ses ressortissants, mars-avril 2024
• (FR) "Inscrire le numérique dans un nouveau modèle culturel", article d'Emmanuel Vergès dans l'ouvrage 9 essentiels pour un numérique humain et critique (external link), Culture et démocratie, 2016
• (FR) La culture face aux défis du numérique et de la crise (external link), Olivier Alexandre, Yann Algan et Françoise Benhamou, Note du Conseil d'Analyse Économique, février 2022
• (FR) Le numérique, source de transformations pour les pratiques culturelles (external link) par Emmanuel Vergès et Marie Picard, The conversation, 2023
  
• (FR) Cinquante ans de pratiques culturelles en France (external link), Philippe Lombardo, Loup Wolff, Culture études n° 2, 2020     
  
• (FR)  Les pratiques culturelles à l’ère numérique (external link), Olivier Donnat, L'Observatoire, 2010
• (EN) Reaching digitally excluded audiences (external link), Christina Lister, 2021
  
• (EN) Fixing the digital divide: facts and stats (external link) Emma Stone, Good Things Foundation, 2022