Posts

DLM Symposium: Creating Modern Regulation – Shaping the Media Future

…in German: “Moderne Regulierung schaffen, Medienzukunft gestalten”. Hosted by Dr. Jürgen Brautmeier, Chairman of the Conference of Directors of the Media Authorities (Direktorenkonferenz der Landesmedienanstalten); keynotes by Günther Oettinger, Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, European Commission, and Prof. Monika Grütters MdB, Federal Minister of State for Culture and the Media. Yet not really anything new beyond the ongoing discussions on cross-platform regulation and modernized copyright. For details and documentation see the symposium’s website.

20150319 DLM-Symposium Speaker

Culture Brings Prosperity, According to ifo Research Report

Key findings of cesifo research paper “Music in the Air: Estimating the Social Return to Cultural Amenities” include:

  • Culture is expensive but worth it: Expenditure on cultural institutions have a positive effect on income in the region
  • The ifo researchers understand their results as an argument supporting subsidies for cultural institutions
  • According to their research on opera houses it is unclear, however, whether a country as a whole benefits from investment into individual region’s cultural sector

The report is available for download, with a summary in English.

A comment in the SZ hence warns cities and municipalities to cut the culture budgets under the influence of current financial pressure: These cuts may seem quick and easy but could have devastating indirect effects.

Fake Street Names On Google Maps

On Google maps, the Frankfurt University Campus Westend’s squares and streets seem to be officially renamed. Entries such as “Avenue to overpriced cafeteria” or “Road to the highway occupation” indicate students chose guerrilla communication to protest against the official new name scheme to be in effect soon. – Found on Frankfurter Rundschau

The Slow Death Of Theaters In Germany?

The theatre and orchestral landscape in Germany is unique: 140 municipal, state and regional theaters; 131 classical orchestras, plus some 220 private theaters and around 150 theaters and performance venues without a permanent ensemble. Cicero has analyzed the vast offering as well as its allegedly looming death, playhouses being caught between continuous budget squeezes, shifting political attention and paralyzing corsets of tradition.