Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Measurement of Digital Cultural Products

This report looks at the issues, methods, practices and innovations surrounding the production of statistics on digital cultural content.

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics, in partnership with the Observatoire de la culture et des communications of the Institut de la statistique du Québec, organized an International Symposium on the Measurement of Digital Cultural Products, held in Montreal in the spring of 2016. During the event, some 50 researchers and experts came to discuss the issues facing statistical agencies and research centres since the advent of new platforms for the dissemination of digital cultural content and the changes it has had on the markets.

One of the Symposium key finding is that the scope of supply and demand for cultural products remains largely unknown in an era when digital technology has transformed the economics of culture. New partnerships, together with legal and regulatory measures and traceability tools, would be among the steps needed to promote transparency and innovation in the delivery of high-quality statistics on digital cultural products.

This report gathers the written contributions from various academic researchers and experts who took part in the Symposium.