On October 27 and 28, the 2021 Chinese Cultural Computing Conference was held simultaneously in Beijing and Yunnan. Gao Shusheng, a first-level inspector of the Cultural Reform Office of the Central Propaganda Department and vice chairman of the Cultural Big Data Industry Committee of the China Public Relations Association, was invited to give a report on the conference. The following is a transcript of the report.
We have mentioned cultural digitalization 10 years ago, starting from the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period to promote this work, the implementation of cultural digital construction projects, from cultural resources to cultural production to cultural dissemination, and finally to cultural consumption, to achieve comprehensive digitalization.
When the Fifth Plenary Session of the Nineteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China talked about culture last year, it talked about two digitizations, one called the digital construction of public culture, and the other called the digital strategy of the cultural industry. This means that the digitalization of culture has risen from engineering projects to national strategies.
Cultural digitalization itself is the product of the integration of culture and science and technology, and to implement the national cultural digitalization strategy, we must rely on the support of science and technology. Below, I would like to introduce to you some difficult problems encountered in the process of promoting the implementation of cultural digitalization strategy and the construction of cultural big data from four aspects.
The first challenge is data correlation
Why ask such a question? Because after 10 years of efforts, the amount of data in the field of propaganda and culture is very large, for example, our news units have a lot of picture libraries, radio stations and television stations have a large number of media databases, and publishing houses and cultural institutions have a large number of databases. After digitization, many databases have been formed, and then a problem arises, that is, the islands of data. Many of the databases are self-built by each unit, and the amount is very large, but they are all islands, and the utilization rate is very low.
The original intention of data association is to connect this data together and share it, which is our starting point. How is this association achieved? Split into two aspects:
One is to achieve internal correlation, and cultural institutions that have data can correlate this data, which we call internal correlation. Internal correlation is mainly three steps. The first is classification. We are now categorized according to UNESCO's 2009 edition of the Framework for Cultural Statistics, divided into 6 categories. On this basis, we will do cataloging, and the cataloging mainly relies on the professional knowledge graphs of our various industries and fields to do cataloging. On the basis of completing these two tasks, the coordinates of the data are set, and then the characteristics of these data are described, which we call labeling, which is actually labeling. Implement internal associations in these three steps.
The second is to achieve external associations. Internal correlation is basically easy to do, but the most difficult is external association. We thought of relying on the cable TV network to connect the data centers of all cultural institutions and connect them together to form a production Internet.
As soon as I talked about the national cultural special network, I immediately thought of engaging in duplicate construction, but no. We can rely on existing cable TV networks, radio and television 5G networks under construction and interconnected platforms to achieve external linkages.
The national cultural private network has three functions: one is closed-loop operation, the second is logo resolution, and the third is the settlement system. These three functions we must have, if not, our external associations can not be realized.
Why closed-loop operation is to ensure the security of data.
Below I would like to focus on the identification resolution, our identity resolution is mainly based on an international standard led by China, that is, the international standard of information and literature associated with the identification as the basis, in the cable TV network to deploy the identification code registration and resolution system, so that the first step of identification resolution has been completed. This is equivalent to the cable TV network to carry out a new business, the national cultural private network access service, is to connect the data centers of various cultural institutions, to achieve interconnection, the ultimate purpose is to achieve external association.
The final goal of external association is to connect scattered cultural data with cultural data in different fields, such as cultural tourism, cultural relics, news and publishing, radio and television, film, and network culture. There are also different forms, such as text, pictures, audio, video association, and some are related to the source and entity of cultural resources, and finally realize the internal association and external association coordination, and finally form the associated data, which is an important result of cultural digitalization. Because this kind of associated data condenses the labor value of professional workers, it is said that if this related asset is to be assetized, it can be traded, so that this data can be realized and become an important source of income for cultural institutions.
In this process, we need a lot of technology, whether it is internal or external technology, especially in the transmission, security, storage of data, a lot of technology.
The second challenge is data processing
Each cultural institution first accesses the national cultural private network, and the second step is to deploy an underlying correlation integration system, which is also the second aspect of identity resolution just mentioned, that is, relying on our nationally led international standards, deploying such an underlying correlation engine and application software in various cultural data centers, and finally realizing interconnection.
After the two conditions are met, each cultural institution or several cultural institutions are combined to form a digital cultural production line. This cultural production line mainly solves the functions of deconstructing these data and associating these data, as well as deconstructing data and reproducing data, and finally forms two products, one is the cultural resource data formed through deconstruction, and the other is the cultural digital content formed by association, reconstruction and presentation, so that it enters the stage of data distribution and content distribution. In the end, it is actually a data supermarket, which can realize these data, and the production results of production units can be converted into assets, into products, and finally into shared things.
The production line must adhere to the integrity. How to achieve integrity? We mentioned four aspects: the first is that the data should be fidelity, the second creation should be rigorous, the third content should be closed, and the fourth interaction should be orderly. Only in this way can we achieve integrity. If we can't keep right, we can't talk about innovation, if we can't keep right, we can't win the trust of the people, and the vitality of this product will be greatly reduced.
Data processing can focus on two aspects, on the one hand, to mobilize everyone's enthusiasm; the second is to transform business processes, so that every traditional cultural institution can catch the digital express.
The third conundrum is panoramic presentation
Now there is also data, there are also people processing, there are also people transmitting, there are also local transactions, and finally the problem we are most concerned about is in the consumption link, what everyone sees is different from the past, if it is the same as in the past, then this digitization has no meaning. We are now, especially since the epidemic last year, are pushing online activities, online content is indeed a lot but there are problems, that is, a large number of content is now panned over, that is, the offline content is panned to the line, there are some museums, there are also some cloud performing arts, etc., these activities are more than in the past, but it looks inconvenient, does not fully reflect the new experience after the digitization, this aspect is poor. Cultural digitization cannot stop at the web, and everything will be fine by moving some things from the past to the web. Whether we can rewrite the history of the exhibition can make a fundamental change in the way of exhibition, for example, whether we can be scene-based, some things have been done now, but a large number of things have not yet been done. Including the form of the play, how can you see the same online as in the theater, and at the same time there is something one step closer to the theater, the space is still very large, we call it panoramic presentation.
The next step is to promote the new scene of digital cultural and cultural consumption, including online and offline, online attention to large screens and small screens, large screens are television sets, and small screens are mobile terminals. Offline attention to the cultural experience park, cultural experience hall and cultural experience hall, forming a cultural digital experience product can be reflected in all experience occasions, which is our ultimate goal.
The fourth challenge is data security
Each unit has had a lot of data over the years, but why hasn't it been taken out? After the investigation, we found that everyone is still a little worried, worried that it is difficult to identify who the data is after the data is taken out, and as a result, we also use a lot of technology, such as blockchain, etc., but everything depends on litigation, and this society cannot operate.
Can there be some front-loading and effective means to ensure data security?
The data security we think of now is mainly three doors: the first door is to build a national cultural private network, which is why we rely on the existing cable TV network to do this, because the Internet and the public network are physically isolated, the data is not lost, and it is impossible to steal; the second door is the way of data storage, the cultural institutions are most afraid of one thing is to take the data away, so we now put forward a basic principle, that is, all data centers even if they are connected, but still in accordance with the physical distribution, logical association deployment, Others need your data, you must be authorized to use; the third door is the identification analysis just mentioned, all the data comes out, it forms a unique identifier, can achieve traceability, but this is our passive means, the first two are the most critical.
The above problems involve a large number of technical problems, especially in recent years, when cooperating with Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, it has been found that there are still some basic discipline research problems, and I hope that more institutions and more experts and scholars can join the ranks, solve these problems in the process of cultural digitization, and jointly promote the implementation of the national cultural digitalization strategy and the construction of cultural big data.
END