“Culture must serve as a compass to replace the Ego-logy typical of modernity with a true social and cultural Eco-logy” (Morin, 2005).

The term culture derives from the Latin verb colere, meaning “to cultivate.” Over time, its use expanded to include behaviors emphasizing care for the gods, from which the term cult originates, and to indicate a body of knowledge.

Today, culture can be generally defined as a system of knowledge, opinions, beliefs, customs, and behaviors that characterize a particular human group—a historical legacy that collectively defines the relationships within that group and with the external world. In short, culture can be understood as the overall “knowledge” of an individual.

Cultural heritage is a fundamental resource for intellectual development, intergenerational knowledge-sharing, and, as a common good, is inherently shareable. Heritage becomes meaningful when it is shared, when it grows within collective memory, and when that memory is enriched with new cultural and social uses.

Globalization, digitalization, and the growing spread of new technologies are changing the way in which cultural heritage is produced, presented, accessed, and used, opening up both new opportunities and challenges for sharing these resources.

According to UNESCO (2022), the total number of illiterate individuals worldwide is approximately 771 million (two-thirds of whom are women), and these individuals are at significant risk of poverty. The OECD reports that illiteracy is on the rise. These are pressing issues that make the digitalization of knowledge a strategic priority, alongside understanding how modes of reading and information consumption are evolving.

“In the United States, it took radio thirty years to reach sixty million people, television achieved this level of diffusion in fifteen years, and the internet did so in just three years after the advent of the World Wide Web” (Castells, 1996).

The entire history of mass communication media can be seen as a continuous transformation, without significant interruptions, from scarcity to abundance. It’s not merely a change in the volume of information being produced but in the type of information we are exposed to.

It is only a partial analysis to claim that this revolution has been, and continues to be, exclusively the domain of the digital world. It is also a revolution that impacts our values and our ability to discern—a human revolution that carries both strengths and weaknesses

Creating a new vision of culture necessitates both a shift in the governance of heritage and the adoption of a new educational model that employs a holistic approach across disciplines.

This would enable the development of a social model with the mission of achieving social, economic, and cultural sustainability. Such a model must originate within urban centers with the goal of evolving into a “Smart City.”

The development of digital skills plays a crucial role in fostering citizenship, understood as comprehensive social participation and active citizenship.

In this context, individuals should strive to become PROSUMERs (PROfessional consuMERs)—recipients of goods and services who do not passively consume but actively participate in various stages of the production process.

This underscores the need for primary agents for youth socialization, such as families and schools, to embrace the opportunities offered by digital media. They must explore innovative pathways for inclusion and socio-cultural development, placing digital tools at the center of these efforts.

The intersection of two complex systems—education and communication—requires careful reflection on the mechanisms that characterize the cultural, social, and organizational dynamics of both domains.

A technological pact is meaningful only if it does not undermine the educational pact.

As Pope Francis aptly stated, “we are not so much living an era of change as a change of era,” which necessitates a reevaluation of humans’ relationship with the environment, value systems, and, more broadly, culture.

The effects of this shift include the ongoing global economic crisis, the uncontrolled environmental impact of human activities, mass migration flows, and the entrenchment of extremist religious and political ideologies. The result is a state of chaos from which new frameworks will emerge, shaped first and foremost by a battle of ideas rather than actions.

Additionally, there is an urgent need to improve communication processes on sustainability-related issues, actively involving local communities in the formulation of dedicated policies.

The local level serves as the initial arena for implementing collaborations, with a bottom-up approach, aimed at defining joint sustainability policies.

Given that sustainability is inherently divided into four key areas—environmental, economic, social, and institutional—it is crucial to highlight how deeply interconnected these areas are.

In particular, social sustainability refers to the “ability to ensure access to fundamental goods (education, health, and safety) and conditions of well-being (peace of mind, enjoyment, social interaction) equitably within present-day communities and across future generations.”

Cultural Heritage and Environmental Sustainability

The natural and cultural environments form a continuum.

More precisely, the concept of environment should not be equated solely with nature but understood as the dynamic interplay between nature and human modifications.

To emphasize this interdependence, John Dewey, in Democracy and Education, asserted that the true environment for humans is the one that actively transforms them. He highlighted that the environment is inextricable from human existence, as it shapes the context of life and provides meaning to what surrounds us. Simultaneously, the environment represents the best, most useful, and most admirable creations of human ingenuity developed over time to address challenges and improve living conditions.

Thus, the environment is as much natural as it is cultural and symbolic.

Cultural heritage is, in essence, the fundamental “personality of a population, encompassing all markers that document human activity and achievements over time”.

As an expression of personality, it defines the unique character of the population that engages with it while highlighting differences from others, making it a critical asset for territorial development and, consequently, tourism.

Museum, archaeological, landscape, and monumental heritage thus represent tangible manifestations that, even from a tourism perspective, contribute to illustrating the complexity of the territorial offering.

Every citizen should feel responsible for the heritage and, by extension, the cultural identity that characterizes them within a specific territorial context. For anyone with institutional responsibilities in this regard, the concept of sustainability primarily refers to respecting the identity of places and the associated social, intellectual, and aesthetic structures when carrying out restoration, conservation, selection, and enhancement efforts.

Through innovation, technology must first and foremost become sustainable, focusing not merely on recovering the past for present benefit but on considering sustainable investment perspectives that serve future generations. This approach ensures that the tradition is not only preserved but also adapted to contribute meaningfully to the long-term cultural and social fabric.

Young people have always served as a privileged lens for studying change, and this is especially true in contemporary society, marked by rapid and radical social transformations.

In a scenario filled with the allure of countless choices but also fraught with challenges due to a lack of clear values and reference points, young people often struggle to freely envision their future.

Traditional institutions such as family, school, and politics no longer exert the guiding authority that once helped earlier generations derive shared meaning from the present and future. This absence has left today’s youth in a state of profound uncertainty.

It seems they avoid thinking about the future not because of unemployment alone but because of the collapse of ideologies and the emergence of global perspectives replacing local ones. This shift brings disorientation and destabilization, rendering the future virtually indecipherable.

These same institutions, in turn, make the new generations “invisible,” as they embody a “fluid” identity characterized by precariousness, indeterminacy, and disengagement.

What is urgently needed is a commitment to overcoming the “social peripheries” inhabited by NEETs (Not in Employment, Education, or Training).

While the future as a threat complicates the present, there are also different ways to confront change and varying capacities to mobilize resources to face challenges.

For example, a reflective mindset can encourage young people—builders of their tomorrow and holders of the right and duty to shape history—to think in terms of “future-responsibility” and sustainability for generations yet to come.

Youth projects are often individualistic, reflecting the postmodern ethos, but there is also an awareness of the importance of sharing needs and values.

This is particularly evident in decisions which, unlike mere choices, are irreversible and leave a significant mark on an individual’s life trajectory and that of the community.

What emerges is the substantial disorientation of young people—aware of the risks and limited resources bequeathed to them, yet also conscious that profound change demands “courageous” decisions.

Shared values, such as respect for the environment, represent an indispensable need-value that equips young people to face today’s challenges “with courage,” making these values a cornerstone of contemporary youth culture.