The topic of digitisation has only been recognised as an area of cultural policy work in recent years.
In 1997, the first Computer Games Museum (https://www.computerspielemuseum.de/) opened in Berlin as a permanent exhibition on digital interactive entertainment culture. In 2011, the Computerspielemuseum in Berlin opened a new permanent exhibition.
Since 2009, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, together with two games associations, has awarded a prize for an educationally valuable computer game (endowed with 385,000 EUR, sponsored by the games associations).
In 2009, Gamescom (www.gamescom.de/), the world’s largest trade fair for computer and video games, was also held in Cologne for the first time.
In November 2012, the first beta version of the German Digital Library was launched at the address http://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de. This portal creates the basis for networking all German cultural and scientific institutions and their digital offerings in the medium and long term and for integrating them into the European digital library Europeana. The first full version was released on 31 March 2014. The DDB contains digitised holdings and indexing information from cultural and scientific institutions such as libraries, archives, museums, heritage offices, media libraries as well as universities and other research institutions. It provides central access to digital images of books, documents and files, paintings, statues, installations, monuments, films and music. It currently contains 41 million objects.
After an Enquete Commission worked on the topic of “Internet and Digital Society” in the 17th legislative period (2009-2013), the German Bundestag decided in February 2014 to establish a Bundestag committee “Digital Agenda”. Thus, for the first time, the German Bundestag has a permanent parliamentary body dedicated to current net policy issues. In August 2014, the Federal Government presented the “Digital Agenda” 2014 to 2017, the aim of which was to enable all citizens to participate in the opportunities of digitalisation and to set framework conditions for living, learning, working and doing business in the digital world. The “Digital Agenda” set the guidelines for the Federal Republic and bundles measures in seven central fields of action, including “V: Education, Science, Research, Culture and Media”. In March 2015, Dieter Grony was appointed as “Commissioner for Creative and Digital Economy”. In August 2018, a Federal Government Digital Council began its work in the Federal Chancellery.
In April 2019, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research presented a digital strategy and created new funding instruments for digital policy through the launch of major programmes – e.g. the “Digitalpakt Schule” (Digital Pact for Schools) for investment in digital education infrastructure with 5 billion euros and the “Nationales Forschungsinfrastruktu” (National Research Infrastructure).
In addition to the federal government, the federal states also have their own digital strategies.
The German Cultural Council has worked hard to ensure that games are recognised as part of the cultural sector. In 2020, it published a handbook on games culture ( https://www.kulturrat.de/wp- content/uploads/2020/12/HandbuchGameskultur.pdf).
In 2019, a pilot phase for federal computer games funding was implemented. The funding programme has since been made permanent. Since 2019, around 340 projects have been funded under the federal government’s games funding programme. The federal budget provides up to 50 million euros annually for this purpose. In June 2021, the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure created its own games department. This is intended to strengthen Germany as a games location and make it more visible internationally. In the new legislative period, responsibility for games funding was transferred to the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection.The corona pandemic has once again highlighted the urgency of the ditgital transformation in the education and culture sector and emphasised that digitisation and digital policy are key tasks for the future. In August 2021, the Federal Government Commissioner published a Perspective Paper “Cultures in Digital Transformation”, which shows both the current status and the need for future action. This also implements a coalition agreement of the 19th legislative period, which provided for “a strategy backed by substantial and financial resources for the future of cultural institutions and their digital transformation” (see ibid. p. 10). During the pandemic, the then Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy provided targeted support for companies, including those from the cultural and creative industries, in their digital restructuring. Incentives for digital transformation were also created within the “NEUSTART KULTUR” rescue and future package of the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media, for example with the programme line “dive in – Programme for Digital Interactions” (via the Federal Cultural Foundation). Numerous other funding actors have launched further specific programmes, e.g. “Fonds Digital” of the Federal Cultural Foundation, and cultural institutions, especially during the pandemic period, have developed new digital formats and the project has created a range of mediation services.
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