Ricerc@Sapienza

This essay discusses the communication of cultural heritage in the digital environment adopting a
broad perspective and highlighting the need to understand the deep meaning of the shift from the
traditional to the digital environment. Adapting to the digital environment requires more than selecting
a format, a procedure or a piece of software: it is a complex process that involves many different
elements and changes our cognitive structures. Therefore, this essay explores the psychological,
ethical, political and social dimension of communication before focusing on the technical aspects, on
the basis of a fundamental assumption: communication of cultural heritage in the digital environment
fails if it avoids asking philosophical questions. We need to deal with standards, formats and
technologies, but first of all we need models and theories – rather, a multidimensional vision – if we
want to succeed in communicating the cultural heritage.