Introduction3
Significantly, the tools of social media also provide new ways to learn about
audiences through interacting with them directly, where curatorial and exhibition
development staff can act as stimulators and facilitators. Audiences can invest in
and contribute their ideas, with the subsequent interactions informing and shaping
their exhibition experiences. (Kelly 2009)
She further argues that social media change museums in a positive way:
they encourage the creation of exhibitions that provide richer experiences
for visitors through backstage access and catering for the unexpected; they
provide content that becomes more meaningful; they help connect with
young audiences and bring more opportunities for socializing between
museum staff and visitors and amongst visitors themselves (Kelly 2009).
Kelly’s remarks show that the museum community sees great potential in
these new tools. However, while remaining optimistic about the potential of
these technologies, this book seeks to present more fine-grained understand-
ings of the new forms of public engagement and participation that social
media may help bring about. The time is right to reconsider the true impact
social media have had on museum practice. The book’s aim is to discuss how
museums can truly engage with digital heritage, in contrast to the current
trend of using digital technologies merely to develop a greater market share
of audiences. Some assumptions about the potential of social media to foster
broader public engagement and participation (and to therefore be always
beneficial to museums, regardless of their type) need to be examined. Also,
the sustainability of digital heritage, in terms of how the work of muse-
ums online contributes to sustainable development and how social media
activities may be sustained over time, has emerged as a major concern.
Against this background, two broad questions serve as springboards for
this volume:
• What new flows of information, participation and public engagement
are emerging through museum websites and social media?
• How do museum websites and social media activities shape the poten-
tial of digital heritage as a tool for diversity, trust and sustainable devel-
opment for the museum, its communities and its cultural resources?
Public Engagement and Participation Online
Museums are taking on new roles as brokers of culture, seeking to
become sites that allow multiple interpretations of the objects they hold.
As museums shift their focus from the conservation of material cul-
ture towards their role as forums for the negotiation of knowledge, the
4 Museum Websites and Social Media
evelopment of appropriate forms of public engagement between them
d
and their various communities becomes a main concern. The issue is not
new. New Museologists raised similar issues in the 1970s; and the topic of
communication in more general terms has been on the agenda of muse-
ums since at least the 1960s. In 2000, the Third Report to the Parliament
from the Select Committee on Science and Technology in the UK cited
Dr Bloomfield from the Natural History Museum, who raised similar
concerns:
Public access to ‘knowledge resources’ is becoming increasingly important ‘as
people take a more democratic role . . . in the decision-making process’ (Q 239).
He [Bloomfield] sees putting such resources on the Internet, and achieving inter-
national standards to allow data from different sources to be searched and cor-
related consistently, as a major task for the next few years (p 63, QQ 239, 269).
(Technology 2000)
Bloomfield’s words point to public access as well as to issues of democ-
racy and participation in decision-making. This takes us into the concept
of public engagement, which is central to the discussion about the role of
the Internet in helping to fulfil a museum’s social mission. Public engage-
ment can be unpacked as ranging from communication, i.e. coming from
the organization towards its communities, to consultation, i.e. coming
from the communities to the organization, and to participation, a two-way
flow between organization and communities (Rowe and Frewer 2005).
Within these forms, the public becomes involved in agenda- setting,
policy-forming and decision-making processes (Rowe and Frewer 2005).
Lukensmeyer and Torres (2006) offer a critique of the effectiveness
of the various forms of public engagement, pointing out that ‘to simply
inform and to consult are “thin”, frequently pro forma techniques of par-
ticipation that often fail to meet the public’s expectations for involvement
and typically yield little in the way of new knowledge’. They also argue that
‘collaboration is an essential but often too narrow, time-consuming, and
expert-driven mode of participation to achieve the level of inclusiveness
and awareness necessary for reform’ (Lukensmeyer and Torres 2006).
Recent museum scholarship has also investigated in more depth public
engagement and forms of participation. Goodnow (Skartveit and Goodnow
2010) analyses participation and argues that it involves access, reflection,
provision and structural involvement. For her, access mainly refers to the
availability of channels for a given audience to reach the museum and
its collections if they so wish. Reflection describes attempts made by the
museum to include members of the community in its galleries by way
of making their stories part of the exhibition, without this necessarily
