Youth digital participation is increasingly promoted by cultural institutions as part of broader shifts towards participatory heritage governance. However, limited research focuses on how such participation is structured, supported and evaluated across heritage organizations, particularly in relation to youth agency, institutional power dynamics and digital mediation. This paper develops and validates an integrated framework for youth digital participation through multiple case study analyses of eight heritage youth organizations. Data were collected from interviews with youth participants, coordinators and institutional representatives, supplemented by supporting documents, such as reports and digital media content. The findings validate and refine indicators across motivation, identity, capacities, agency, power dynamics, inclusion and impact. Emerging themes, including informal learning, youth leadership, trust and safety, accessibility, entrepreneurship and multi-dimensional mentorship, further extend the framework. This integrated framework offers a flexible analytical and evaluative tool for designing and assessing youth digital participation across diverse heritage governance contexts.
This paper examines how residents and visitors experience cultural assets in Rasht, Iran, following a major programme of culture-led regeneration linked to the city's UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy designation. Addressing a gap in research on Middle Eastern cities, the study uses mixed-method cultural mapping combining an online survey of 128 residents and tourists with fieldwork observations across key public and heritage spaces. The findings show that participants valued walkable regenerated areas, cultural continuity, and vibrant social interaction, particularly in central public spaces. However, the study also reveals uneven cultural investment, underused historic neighbourhoods, and tensions between officially promoted cultural identities and everyday cultural practices. The paper argues that cultural mapping offers a useful approach for understanding lived cultural experience and identifying gaps between regeneration policy narratives and everyday urban life in governance-constrained contexts.
This article examines women's labor within the management and various departments of four long-established film festivals that have shaped the national cinema canon in T & uuml;rkiye. It explores the gender distribution across curatorial, administrative and labor-intensive roles through a sectoral analysis of festival organizations. Adopting a historical perspective, the study traces changes in women's participation in festival operations and leadership over time. A total of 133 festival catalogs were reviewed, and interviews were conducted, both in person and online, with 10 female festival managers and employees. In contrast, in other festivals, their roles have typically been limited to operational positions rather than decision-making roles. Notably, the management of film funds by women in the past decade stands out as a significant contribution to the sector. However, gender disparities in the broader Turkish film industry are mirrored within festival structures.
