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Image Credit: SMP, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Digital Technologies Reshapes the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage
A new review article examines how digital technologies are increasingly being used to support the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage, from documentation and classification to education, restoration, and cultural innovation.
The article reviews 102 studies published between 2020 and 2025, focusing on digital approaches to intangible cultural heritage such as oral traditions, performing arts, rituals, social practices, traditional craftsmanship, and knowledge systems. These forms of heritage are often transmitted through people, practice, memory, and community life, making their preservation different from that of buildings, monuments, or artefacts.
According to the review, traditional safeguarding methods remain essential because they preserve the human and social context of heritage. Oral transmission, manual documentation, field observation, and community practice continue to play an important role. However, these methods can face difficulties when heritage knowledge is at risk of being lost, when inheritors are aging, or when documentation needs to be shared across wider audiences.
Digital technologies offer new ways to respond to these challenges. Conventional digital tools, such as audiovisual recording, 3D scanning, motion capture, databases, GIS, virtual archives, virtual reality, and augmented reality, can help document heritage practices with greater precision and make them more accessible to researchers, communities, and the public. These tools are especially useful for recording gestures, craft processes, performances, costumes, tools, and cultural spaces.
The review identifies five main stages in the digital safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage: data collection, organization, and documentation; classification and recognition; digital restoration; digital exhibition and education; and cultural innovation. These stages are not fixed or strictly linear, but they help explain how different technologies are being used across the safeguarding process.
Artificial intelligence is becoming especially important in later stages of this process. AI-based methods can help classify images, audio, texts, and movement data; identify patterns in large digital collections; restore damaged visual or textual materials; support interactive education; and generate new design ideas inspired by traditional heritage. Technologies such as machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, knowledge graphs, generative models, and large language models are increasingly being tested in this field.
At the same time, the review stresses that digital safeguarding should not be reduced to technical efficiency or visual novelty. The value of digital tools depends on whether they help preserve cultural meaning, support living transmission, and maintain links between heritage, communities, and context. AI can improve speed, scalability, and interaction, but it also depends on the quality of the original documentation and on careful human interpretation.
The article proposes a dual-path model for digital safeguarding. In this model, conventional digital methods provide the foundation by recording and preserving heritage with attention to authenticity and context, while AI-based methods add analytical, interpretive, and creative possibilities. Together, these approaches can support both preservation and renewal.
Overall, the review shows that digital technologies are becoming an important part of intangible cultural heritage safeguarding. Yet it also emphasizes that technology should serve heritage communities rather than replace them. The future of digital safeguarding will depend on balancing innovation with cultural continuity, technical development with ethical responsibility, and digital access with the living practices that give intangible heritage its meaning.
Published on: 28-06-2026
Edited by: Abdulmnam Samakie
Source: npj Heritage Science
