The CEDITRAA research project, short for “Cultural Entrepreneurship and Digital Transformation in Africa and Asia”, has been investigating since 2021 how cultural productions in Africa and Asia are created and what role digital media have played in their global dissemination. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has now extended the project – led jointly by Goethe University Frankfurt, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and Pan-Atlantic University in Lagos, Nigeria – for three years, and included an expanded research question.
The CEDITRAA research project addresses nothing less than a new world order in cultural production. While US-American cultural production dominated the world in the 20th century, new players have emerged in recent decades as a result of digitalization: In Asia, South Korea’s culture is gaining in importance, while in Africa, Nigerian film and music production has become one of the largest industries of its kind in the world. Since 2021, the joint project CEDITRAA, operated by the Rhine-Main Universities (RMU) partners Goethe University Frankfurt and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, together with Pan-Atlantic University in Lagos, Nigeria, has been investigating cultural entrepreneurs and the opportunities that arise for them as a result of the digital transformation in cultural production. The project will now receive another three years of funding to the tune of almost €1.4 million; this follows an earlier €2.1 million in funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research’s (BMBF) Regional Studies funding line. The RMU joint project will start on January 1, 2025. In addition to Goethe University and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, the strategic Rhine-Main Universities (RMU) alliance also includes TU Darmstadt.
As part of the second phase, the project’s 18 scientists are changing their perspective: having previously focused on cultural production, they are now turning to its distribution. Their underlying assumption is that the new distribution channels themselves constitute a factor in media production and that the question of how to control channels and distribution networks will determine whether there will emerge a shift in emphasis away from the traditional cultural industries. While this shows that artists and cultural entrepreneurs alike are already taking advantage of the benefits of digital infrastructures – like portals or platforms – during media production, at the same time a lot depends on who owns and controls this infrastructure. The central questions asked by the researchers include: Do TikTok and portals like YouTube, Netflix or irokotv, Spotify and Boomplay shape cultural formats? And how do globally active online communities emerge in the process of music production that are simultaneously locally shaped and rooted?
The participating researchers come from different disciplines: In addition to ethnology and African studies, Korean studies, sinology, film studies and economics are also represented – making the joint project both interdisciplinary and international. In addition, CEDITRAA also uses the existing research infrastructures of the Frankfurt-based Centre for Interdisciplinary African Studies (ZIAF) and the Interdisciplinary Centre for East Asian Studies (IZO) as well as the Georg Forster Forum (GFF) at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.
When it comes to securing data and results, CEDITRAA benefits from the cooperation with the Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, Europe’s leading institution for digital research and education platforms in the film sector. At Goethe University, CEDITRAA will also cooperate with the new Center for Critical Computational Studies C3S (https://www.c3s-frankfurt.de), where digital methods of researching social transformation processes will be critically tested.
