Project description

User-generated content(UGC) is a collective term for a variety of digital practices on the internet across all art and media forms. Well-known examples include mashups, memes and fan fiction. The starting point for UGC is always the transformative adaptation of third-party works. UGC includes adaptations for a variety of purposes such as parody, homage, continuation, commentary , etc. Their publication on the web is mainly done via social media.

On the one hand, UGC are characterised by the combination of creative and communicative efforts with the aim of cultural, social and political participation. On the other hand, they are characterised by the fact that these practices are shaped by non-professional actors whose commitment is not aimed at economic profit. UGC is therefore both an area of everyday culture and a dominant form of expression of active participation on the Internet.

The starting point for DiCHOT's transdisciplinary team is the German legislator's initiative as part of the 2021 copyright reform to classify UGC as contemporary, original digital cultural heritage and, as a result, to grant them a copyright barrier towards freedom from authorisation ("pastiche", Section 51a UrhG).

As part of DiCHOT, the researchers are investigating the consequences beyond copyright law of recognising UGC as the digital cultural heritage of our time.

On the one hand, the aim is to develop digital teaching units on this topic for secondary schools in order to sensitise young people to this new view of internet culture as cultural heritage and, moreover, to what cultural heritage is and how the concept of it is changing. On the other hand, the DiCHOT project aims to establish a network that includes schools and other educational institutions as well as the German National Library and other memory institutions that are committed to web archiving and thus to the preservation of digital cultural heritage. Using the example of "UGC as youth culture", the aim is to work out how the often erratic digital Internet practice of social media can be adequately preserved and to gain experience of the extent to which direct stakeholder dialogue, as here with young people, can be used productively for youth culture in collection strategies.

As a case study, DiCHOT uses audio, visual, textual and audiovisual UGC related to music, which are created in the context of youth culture as part of the political awareness and commitment emerging among young people and shared on social media.

By showing that the digital transformation is above all a cultural transformation, DiCHOT contributes to understanding the digital transformation as a comprehensive social transformation process. The active, playful, creatively adaptive and often politicised communication of users on the internet via UGC is a prime example of this.

Project framework

Sponsorship

Volkswagen Foundation, funding line "Change! Fellowships" funding line(press release on the approval of 14 January 2025 for the 2024 round of proposals)

Partner

PD Dr Dr Frédéric Döhl, German National Library

Duration

1 June 2025 to 31 May 2030