A tool for quantitative research on the social awareness for the digitization of cultural heritage: A pilot application

Abstract

The use of digitization in the field of cultural heritage should aim exclusively to serve the needs of its sustainable protection. In that sense, the digitization process is identified as the innovative application of digital technologies to promote the fermentation of civil society with the ideas and values that are embodied in tangible and intangible monuments. Taking these social implications into account, it becomes obvious that the digitization of cultural heritage demands social awareness. The policies and principles of digitization should be based on social feedback, which would indicate in a measurable way the level of preparedness of societies to be engaged actively and sustainably in the procedure of protecting cultural heritage. The variables that could be related to the level of social awareness in the field of digitization of cultural heritage are the social need, the social resources and the social behavior – ethos. The social need refers to the existence of the social necessity of the creation of a stable and creative contact between the civilians and the objects of cultural heritage. Social resources are related to the collateralization of the assets for digitization in a social, technical and financial level. Finally, the social ethos concerns the openness and receptiveness of the society to develop a sustainable contact with cultural heritage through the use of digital applications.A proper way for the measurement of the above mentioned variables is the collection of quantitative data, which could be statistically analyzed. Thus, a specific questionnaire has been developed and used for the first time for a research over a sample population of 100 individuals, all living in Greece. The results indicated that people appreciate cultural heritage and wish to develop a stable relationship with it. Nonetheless, they connect primarily digitization with the development of tourism and economy and not to the sustainable protection of cultural heritage. They acknowledge also that digital applications could be useful for people with disabilities. These conclusions indicate that the questionnaire, should it gets applied on a larger scale, has the potential to offer useful information to define the characteristics of digital applications that would raise awareness of the public over cultural heritage, while aiming also at financial development.