Cultural Diversity on the Net

Mira Burri-Nenova, World Trade Institute, University of Bern Law School, has published "User Created Content in Virtual Worlds and Cultural Diversity," as NCCR Trade Regulation World Paper No. 2009/1. Here is the abstract.

User created content (UCC) has often been celebrated as a grassroots cultural revolution that as a genuine expression of creativity, localism and non-commercialism can arguably also cater for a sustainable culturally diverse environment. The present article puts these claims under scrutiny and in a more differentiated manner seeks to identify the value of UCC within digital game environments considering the constraints upon players and upon creative play that these impose. The article subsequently tests whether UCC in its dynamic sense of a creative and communicative process can be seen as a channel for the promotion of cultural diversity and if so, what the State should (and could) do about this.

Download the paper from SSRN here.