Sustainable Biocultural Heritage Management and Communication: The Case of Digital Narrative for UNESCO Marine World Heritage of Outstanding Universal Value

Clio Kenterelidou and Fani Galatsopoulou
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Clio Kenterelidou: School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Faculty of Economic and Political Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki—Greece, 46, Egnatia street, GR-54625 Thessaloniki, Greece
Fani Galatsopoulou: School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Faculty of Economic and Political Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki—Greece, 46, Egnatia street, GR-54625 Thessaloniki, Greece

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 3, 1-32

Abstract: The paper addresses sustainability, heritage, management, and communication from UNESCO’s Marine World Heritage (MWH) perspective, analyzing its digital narrative footprint through social media. It aims to understand how MWH is conceptualized, managed, and communicated and whether it is framed with sustainability and biocultural values facilitating interactivity, engagement, and multimodal knowledge. Hence, a content analysis of the Instagram accounts of the MWH of Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) sites and protected areas has been conducted. The study included evidence from their Instagram profile, posts, features, and reactions. The findings indicated the dearth of a management and communication strategy being shared among and across UNESCO’s MWH of OUV sites and protected areas, capturing the “lifeworld” and the “voice” of the marine heritage as unified. They also revealed that nature and human, and biological and socio-ecological ecosystems of MWH of OUV sites and protected areas are not interlinked in marine heritage management and communication featuring the whole and the entirety of the marine heritage site ecosystem. The lack of this expansion of meaning and engagement does not facilitate the shift of the route in the marine-scape, from discovery and being listed as World Heritage to human-nature interaction, diversity, dynamicity, and ocean literacy. The study contributes to setting the ground rules for strengthening marine heritage management and communication in light of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Ocean Literacy Decade (2021–2030).

Keywords: marine heritage; biocultural heritage; heritage management; heritage communication; digital narrative; social media; Instagram; UNESCO; marine protected areas of outstanding universal value; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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