Cultural heritage management in the context of digital communication

Protection of cultural heritage and benefiting from this heritage for society is one of the issues that the international community and states pay attention to, especially in the 21st century. In line with the sustainable development perspective put forward by the United Nations, the emphasis on the importance of culture and locality in development is increasing. Protecting cultural heritage and raising awareness about it requires making use of various media and tools. Today, with the development of technology cultural heritage management and activities for transferring information about it have entered a digitalization process. In this research, the digital technologies that can be applied to the protection of cultural heritage and the digital tools that can be used in the promotion of the heritage and creating awareness are examined separately. While digitalized cultural heritage management requires new pratices in this field for the public, the duties and responsibilities of local governments are increasing. Within the scope of the study, it is aimed to reveal at what stage the local governments in Turkey are in the process of keeping up with this change in the world. By searching the websites of local governments; the level and competence of using digital communication tools/methods were examined. In this framework, the structure of local practices carried out in order to disseminate cultural heritage through the internet in Turkey has been revealed. Research includes the websites of the local governments of the cities with cultural assets in the UNESCO World Heritage List and the websites they have prepared for tourism. About 700 pages of 29 websites were searched by content analysis method and coding was done digitally through Maxqda software. The findings shows that; activities of local governments regarding movable cultural assets are quite limited. It is observed that activities related to immovable cultural assets are largely limited to religious buildings. Some structures such as battlefields, mounds and ancient cities are poorly protected and promoted. In the context of intangible cultural heritage, it has been evaluated that oral traditions, performances and handcrafts are not made visible. It has been evaluated that the use of digital display technologies, digital games and mobile applications for cultural heritage is not mature enough. It is understood that some of the local government websites, which were also examined with their design and technical features, do not meet the current requirements. The findings obtained in the study were discussed, and suggestions were presented regarding the solution of the problems in the field and the use of potential opportunities.