A few countries are dominating cultural coverage, new report finds

The Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) has published its latest report on digital trends. The report shows the differences in arts coverage on the culture360.ASEF.org website in 2019.

The headline finding is that cultural coverage is not even between different countries. France, Germany, Japan and the UK dominated its content, while New Zealand, Spain and Italy barely featured.

Content published by country on culture360.ASEF.org in 2019
Content published by country on culture360.ASEF.org in 2019

As for arts disciplines covered, coverage was more evenly split – although visual arts (22%), festivals (13%) and performing arts (13%) predominated. Theatre, on the other hand, featured in just 2% of its content.

Arts disciplines covered on culture360.ASEF.org in 2019
Arts disciplines covered on culture360.ASEF.org in 2019

ASEF also found that “regularly updated and publicly accessible content on the arts sectors in Asia and Europe is not easily available.” It concluded that this is due to a, “lack of funding and lack of long-term strategy for sustainability.”

The federation also noted that a, “lack of information available in local languages creates language barriers and therefore lack of access to professional growth opportunities…and funding sources for cultural mobility.”

The full report can be read online at culture360.ASEF.org.

culture360.ASEF.org