Cultural Industries 4.0: how Digitalisation is Reshaping the Sector. Insights from a Systematic Literature Review

Industry 4.0 is heavily impacting on business models of Cultural Industries firms enabling new forms of engagement and collaboration, new distribution channels, as well as on the user experience by fostering new and higher-quality services for art exhibitions, online transactions, museums, education, promotion, etc. Despite that, the literature on the relationships between Industry 4.0 technologies and Cultural Industries, lacks a systematisation of topics, methods and constructs. This paper addresses this gap by utilising a systematic literature review (SLR) approach. A total of 303 papers were collected and analysed, by means of an LDA procedure, and three core topics were identified examining: 1) content creation and distribution channels; 2) visibility, protection and immersive experiences; and 3) accessibility and engagement on the cultural industries worldwide. The proposed framework highlights the highly fragmented nature of research on I4.0 and digitalisation in the Cultural Industries and gives interesting insights for further inquiry.