Study design

This research arises from an interest in heritage preservation in the public sector and, in particular, from the awareness of the key role heritage discourse can play as a tool for social inclusion in urban policy and planning. It reflects on the contribution of new media to what could be called ‘the invention of heritage’ in the line of Hobsbawm's ‘invention of tradition’ (1983), showing how heritage is discursively constructed to provide not just an objective historical truth, but collective memories. The selected area of analysis is the contribution of new media communication to the making and remaking of a UNESCO World Heritage site.

UNESCO's protection of World Heritage Sites was inaugurated by the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, commonly known as the World Heritage Convention (UNESCO 1972), which elevated national symbols into items of ‘outstanding universal value’ and property of all mankind, thereby corroborating an essentialist view of the past (Paganoni 2015b). Since then the approach has changed, expanding the meaning of heritage from the protection of historic buildings and monuments towards a more general understanding of the wider context and preservation of tangible and intangible cultural forms. This wider approach was ratified first in 1992 by the World Heritage Committee's decision to include cultural landscapes in the World Heritage List (UNESCO 1992) and then by the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (UNESCO 2003). In particular, from what Article 1 of the 1972 Convention designated as ‘the combined works of nature and man’ (UNESCO 1972), the notion of ‘cultural landscape’ was deduced, a concept that embraces diverse possible interactions between people and the natural environment.

Against this background, the following analysis addresses the discursive practices leading to the inscription of a site on the World Heritage List, one of the most ambitious achievements for localities that aspire to global recognition of the symbolic value of their historic legacy.