#DigitalInvasions: a bottom-up crowd example of cultural value co-creation

Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to present #DigitalInvasions’ (#invasionidigitali), a project which has just finished its second edition, held on 24 April to 4 May 2014. Digital Invasions’ is an Italian bottom-up project of collective participation in creation and sharing of cultural contents in order to enhance and promote Italian cultural heritage, through the use of web and social media. This project is an example of new forms of a democratic, participatory and inclusive digital culture.

Prosumers and new ways of cultural heritage dissemination through UGC
Democratization of data and information, in the web 2.0 and social media era has allowed creation of a participatory knowledge that, mainly by using interconnection, social sharing and co-creation of content and cultural value, made it possible to exploit network’s potential.
This change of perspective was already heavily supported also by the European Union since its Dynamic Action Plan guidelines for the EU co-ordination of digitisation of cultural and scientific content (DAP 2005) on issues concerning users and content:
“Users need to benefit more from the networking of cultural knowledge, as the implementation of technologies enables the development of a European Cultural information space. They need to be facilitated to find easily and use cultural content and to contribute their own knowledge and experience, becoming active citizens in information societies”.
Also focusing on specific Key issues such as:
• Engaging audiences in re-use and content production;
• Mobilising cultural institutions to make best use of existing technologies to enable digital access by all citizens.

During the Web 1.0 phase, web was presented as an one-way, passive, static and anonymous medium, in which, according to scholars, “the online experience was more like the reading of a book than the sharing of a conversation” [Kozinets 2010a].

With the Web 2.0 phase, web has transformed in a participatory platform, shared, fluid and personalized. With a wide opening to the users’ contributions, even information and cognitive system has been literally transfigured, from a top-down, one-to-many and content-centered system to a bottom-up, many-to-many and user-centered one.
In this system, user self-generates digital containts – different from those produced by traditional media – defined user-generated contents (UGC), exponentially contributing to decentralization and democrati- zation, according to information openness model. According to this model, in fact, to create and manage the content and the information are no longer, or not just, the centralized authorities (experts, etc.), but various and disseminated stakeholders: users, contributors, prosumers etc. [Ciappei et al. 2010; Bonacini 2011; Bonacini 2012], able to interact easily with new mass digital technologies. In this 2.0 phase, user consuming culture has turned into a prosumer or a consumer who participates in a new kind of production defined prosumption [Bruns 2008].

The real Web 2.0 revolution lies on the role of user who has acquired knowledge, technical expertise and ability to interact with this platform. Nowaday, social and economic development of our modern society depends on this new awareness and capacity. Exponential evolution of digital content creation has led to a real cultural revolution, where ICTs have become increasingly dominant. Evolving from a mass consumption society, our society has been transformed definetively in a mass cultural production society – also defined software society, whose cultural output is what Lee Manovich calls software culture [Manovich 2011; Manovich 2013] – where UGC have become so abundant to talk about a “cornucopia of online consumer data” [Kozinets 2010b] and cul- tural production takes on aspects of mass collaboration (an emblematic model is Wikipedia).

So, we live in a digital culture, where bottom-up and top-down processes are simultaneous and users contribute in a variety of ways and in the meanwhile they are consuming information [Uzelac 2008]. Our culture economic model, based on a broad diversity and plurality of information and perspectives, is defined networked information economy [Benkler 2006]. In our mass production society and in its networked information economy, acting as prosumers of cul- tural contents, users act as providers of knowledge, exploiting simultaneously the social and participatory modes of internet communication, as a kind of socialcasting [Bennato 2011], whose distribution process refers to a community of people who decide autonomously to increase the contents’ circulation thanks to sharing opportunities offered by new technology and participative web platforms, with a strong cultural and symbolic matrix, since that flow of content occurs with the cooperation of people who enjoy the same content.

In our software culture, there are specific cultural processes (creating, distributing, receiving and sharing both information and knowledge), which are mediated by specific digital tools, software or applications, enabling prosumers to create, share and disseminate their cultural contents. According to Matarasso [2010], this process changes the way of thinking about culture and partecipation:
“The coining of the term ‘prosumer’ marks a growing recognition, not just that people can be both cultural producers and consumers (something that has always been the case) but also that conventional ideas about professionals and amateurs are increasingly meaningless. As museums and other cultural institutions open up curatorial and programming process to forms of co-creation, the knowledge of pro- fessionals is being modified by the experience and insights of their audiences”.

Communication in a digital context is more fragile than appears. Process requires sender and receiver using compatible technologies which evolve quickly, differently and continuously. Moreover, it re- quires them to boast a similar mindset or the ability, the wisdom, the will to deeply understand each other. Which may prove difficult when we come to Cultural Heritage that is, by nature, highly intangible and thus leaves room for extremely personal ‘interpretations’.
If, on one side, those interpretations may appear distant and of no real value for defining the specific cultural object they refer to, on the other side they represent an invaluable asset to better define that very cultural object and deeply understand the way it is perceived by the audience.
Engaging the audience in a closer relationship with the Cultural Heritage they are surrounded by may prove effective to co-create additional cultural value. Initiatives aimed at that can enable:
• A better understanding of the communication issues affecting Cultural Heritage;
• An increased awareness of the needs and difficulties related to the protection and valorization of Cultural Heritage;
• a sense of ‘participation’, so to actively maintain and enhance the value of any cultural experience. Digital media constitutes a challenge not only for museums communicating art, history, cultural heritage, but for all the staff of cultural institutions, organizations and businesses. The challenge, for museums, is to change their museums praxis re-inventing themselves “in order to embrace a prosumer culture” [Schick 2010].

Today, production of cultural content is really easy thanks to social and geo-social networking platforms and their use in mobility. In addition, the real-time sharing of a place, an object or a live moment, has a huge evocative and communicative potential, because authenticity, emotion, excitement and satisfaction are expressed in a non-filtered way and give this communication an unparalled effectiveness [Milano 2011], fostering forms of digital sociality. The amazing spread of social media (participatory by nature) and digital tools like smartphones and tablets makes this challenge increasingly inviting and lead us all to inevitably rethink communication altogether. The open-endedness of those media explain the possibilities for a two-ways communication processes and for the creation of a kind of content that is not merely ‘user-centered’ or ‘user-driven’ but, rather, fully ‘user-generated’ also at a Cultural Heritage level.

#DigitalInvasions: best practice of crowd cultural value co-creation
#DigitalInvations project (#invasionidigitali) is a strong and wide example of user involvement both in cultural value co-creation and content sharing of suitable to Cultural Heritage enhancement [Marianna Marcucci et al. 2014; Bonacini 2014]. This bottom-up initiative is unique in its kind, both for the consistency and virality of this phenomenon, and for its novelty and its direct and indirect effects on Italian cultural communication. At the base of #DigitalInvations’ great success are, of course, the profound change which has occurred in users’ role and the desire to share and partecipate cultural value, fostered by social platforms spread.
#DigitalInvations are ‘social media mobs’ of people who support Italy’s museums and cultural heritage by ‘invading’ them and then doc- umenting their cultural experience on blogs and social media. In this way, people can raise awareness, interest, curiosity around cultural sites and generate positive response from a wider audience and, potentially, investors.

This project is all about co-creating and nurture cultural value through proactive participation of visitors into the museums’ communication life-cycle. It is characterized by a fully bottom-up approach, where people organize independently single events all around the coun- try during a given time frame. Each ‘invasion’ is meant to create new forms of conversation about arts and culture, and to transform Italy’s heritage into something that is open, welcoming and innovative. Social and digital communication are key to the invasions: ‘invaders’ are bloggers, archeology amateurs, artists, photographers, Instagrammers, historians, communication experts, but also common people with the most varied backgrounds, united by a shared desire to promote their cultural heritage with social media. All of them boast a real passion for their country and its unique heritage, and own well established social media accounts. Inspired by a contingency, #DigitalInvations aims now to become a sort of ‘national territorial lab’ for new social and digital communication products and models, and a tool to enhance both visitor’s experience and museum/cultural site performance.
#DigitalInvations were immediately recognized as a best practice in transmedium approach applied to national heritage and its integrated ways of promotion, a kind of urban gaming useful to provide a different and collectively built vision of cultural places and objects, giving them a new life [Symbola 2013].