Ethical perspective on political-economic issues in the long-term preservation of digital heritage

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Authors

Lor, Peter Johan
Britz, Johannes J.

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Wiley

Abstract

The article provides an overview of the main ethical and associated political-economic aspects of the preservation of born-digital content and the digitization of analogue content for purposes of preservation. The term “heritage” is used broadly to include scientific and scholarly publications and data. Although the preservation of heritage is generally seen as inherently “good,” this activity implies the exercise of difficult moral choices. The ethical complexity of the preservation of digital heritage is illustrated by means of two hypothetical cases. The first deals with the harvesting and preservation in a wealthy country of political websites originating in a less affluent country. The second deals with a project initiated by a wealthy country to digitize the cultural heritage of a less affluent country. The ethical reflection that follows is structured within the framework of social justice and a set of information rights that are identified as corollaries of generally recognized human rights. The main moral agents, that is, the parties that have an interest, and may be entitled to exercise rights, in relation to digital preservation, are identified. The responsibilities that those who preserve digital content have toward these parties, and the political-economic considerations that arise, are then analyzed.

Description

This article is an expanded version of a keynote paper presented at the UNESCO Information for All Programme (UNESCO/IFAP) International Conference on the Preservation of Digital Information in the Information Society, Moscow, October 3–5, 2011.

Keywords

Ethics, Long-term preservation, Digital heritage

Sustainable Development Goals

Citation

Lor, PJ & Britz, JJ 2012, 'An ethical perspective on political-economic issues in the long-term preservation of digital heritage', Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, vol. 63, no. 11, pp. 2153-2164.