“Poland’s current Minister of Culture, Piotr Gliński, a leading member of the rightwing governing Law and Justice party (PiS), is accused of attempting to take control of the [European Solidarity Centre in Gdańsk] in an effort to curtail its programming and replace its director with a ministry-appointed one.” The PiS government has tried to do this several times in the past few years at theatres and other cultural institutions, including the Museum of World War II, also in Gdańsk. – Hyperallergic
Category: issues
Trigger Warnings Do Not Work, New Study Finds
“Trigger warnings are, at best, trivially helpful,” writes a research team led by psychologist Mevagh Sanson of the University of Waikato. The paper finds they “have no effect, or might even work slightly in the direction of causing harm.” – Pacific Standard
Has Instagram Become A Path To A Creative Director Career?
While many people over a certain age may see social media influencers as the demon spawn of P.T. Barnum and David Ogilvy, it has emerged as a significant advertising tool. According to a CivicScience survey in December 2018, one-third of daily Instagram users in the U.S. said they had purchased a product or service based on a recommendation from an influencer or blogger on the platform. – Fast Company
CalArts Students Fight Skyrocketing Tuition From Two Different Angles
“Like their peers all over the US, students at California Institute of the Arts … face increasingly high tuition bills each year, and they’re reaching a breaking point. Students have both protested the tuition hikes and attempted to raise funds for the university, and the board has recognized their efforts and committed to doing something about it.” – Nonprofit Quarterly
What Does The Brexit Chaos Mean For The Performing Arts? (Very Little Good)
“Performing arts exports to Europe … are worth £360 million to the UK, but that and numerous jobs are under threat from a disorderly departure from the EU. Mark Shenton talks to senior theatremakers and festival organisers about what happens next for an industry they fear may become isolated and insular.” – The Stage
Paris’s Châtelet Theatre Reopens, With A Renovated Building And A ‘Robin Hood’ Mission
“One of [its] first acts will be to introduce a scheme for theatregoers to buy extra tickets for those who cannot afford them. … The theatre will also offer 10,000 €10 tickets a year to the under-25s, and there are also plans to take artists out into the community, particularly the more gritty areas of the city and its banlieues, to work with local groups, schools and colleges and encourage wider participation in the theatre and its productions.” – The Guardian
Local News Is Collapsing In America
In a previous world, perhaps one could imagine that a million bloggers would spring up to fill the void left by all the actual reporting jobs disappearing, but that clearly did not and is not going to happen. The explosion of national digital-only news outlets has come and gone. Many survive, but few do the kind of journalism that local papers did. It’s one thing to tweet from a city council meeting every once in a while, and a whole other thing to cover City Hall for a real newspaper. – The Atlantic
Large Rallies Against Sweeping New EU Copyright Law
Munich police said 40,000 protesters turned out under the motto “Save our internet.” Organizers said Berlin’s protest (pictured above) drew 30,000, with participants walking past the center of Germany’s collaborative Wikipedia online encyclopedia. Police put the number of protesters at 10,000. – Deutsche Welle
EU Passes Sweeping New Copyright Law. It Will Change The Very Nature Of The Internet
Under the law, internet platforms will be liable for content that users upload, a burden that will fall heavily on some of the most popular online services. Years in the making, the EU Copyright Directive has been heavily debated and divisive among politicians, as well as a cause of concern for the tech industry. One part of the proposal in particular — Article 13, which will govern the way copyrighted content is uploaded to the internet — has many in the tech community throwing their hands up in despair. – CNET
The Arts In LA Are Booming. Why? Geography, For One
One example: The LACMA, in an effort to reach underserved populations, announced plans to transform an 84,000-square-foot building in South Los Angeles into a center for a variety of community-targeted arts programming. “If you look at a map of L.A.’s public schools, the dots representing the neediest students are all through South Los Angeles,” MichaelGovan said. “You start thinking, where can the value of your collection and program be the greatest? When you’re behind a big fancy fence on Wilshire Boulevard, or out in the community?” – Inside Philanthropy