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Activity: Media save art award
Partners
Participants
Print journalists, and second, the general public.
Aim
- Increase the amount of media coverage heritage preservation receives;
- raise public awareness of heritage conservation.
Project description
In 1991 ICCROM, in collaboration with its partners, organized an international event to mobilize the media in favour of heritage and introduce the world of conservation to the general public.
The 'Media Save Art Award' was a cash prize initiated in response to research on media coverage of heritage conservation. In 1987 ICCROM analyzed the cultural heritage and preservation content in two Italian and two French national newspapers. The results were poor. Only 1.7% and 5% of articles in the respective arts and culture sections dealt with the preservation of cultural heritage. Even then, this coverage was often alarmist, tending to cover major tragedies, such as natural disasters causing the loss of priceless collections. The award was given to the best article from anywhere in the world in each of two categories.
For the first competition, in 1991, the two categories were daily newspaper and magazine. The articles had to address the preservation of cultural heritage, and had to be written for the general public. Articles published in specialist professional publications were not eligible.
At first, the awards focused solely on the quality of the articles themselves. However, over time journalists began submitting additional materials relating to public discussion sparked by their articles. Given that this type of public engagement was exactly what ICCROM hoped to stimulate, the Media Save Art Award embraced this shift, by making public engagement generated by an article one of the award’s evaluation criteria. In the three succeeding competitions journalists were encouraged to include evidence of public discussion and any other results – such as changes to legislation due to public pressure – with their articles. While sometimes a difficult element to evaluate, including public response broadened the scope of the competition, pushing journalists to actively engage their audiences.
Main achievements
- Since 1990, the 'Media Save Art Award' was held four times;
- in 2001, 395 articles were received from 56 countries;
- ICCROM published The Press and the Safeguard of Heritage. It includes a selection of 36 articles submitted to the competition from newspapers all over the world.
updated on:
8 August, 2006 |
