The museum today faces complex questions of definition, representation, ethics, aspiration and economic survival. Alongside this we see burgeoning use of an array of new media including increasingly dynamic web portals and content, digital archives, social networks, blogs and online games. At the heart of this are changes to the idea of ’visitor’ and ’audience’ and their participation and representation in the new cultural sphere. This insightful book unpacks a number of contradictions that help to frame and articulate digital media work in the museum and questions what constitutes authentic participation. Based on original empirical research and a range of case studies the author explores questions about the museum as media from a number of different disciplines and shows that across museums and the study of them, the cultural logic is changing.

The museum today faces complex questions of definition, representation, ethics, aspiration and economic survival. Alongside this we see burgeoning use of an array of new media including increasingly dynamic web portals and content, digital archives, social networks, blogs and online games. At the heart of this are changes to the idea of ’visitor’ and ’audience’ and their participation and representation in the new cultural sphere. This insightful book unpacks a number of contradictions that help to frame and articulate digital media work in the museum and questions what constitutes authentic participation. Based on original empirical research and a range of case studies the author explores questions about the museum as media from a number of different disciplines and shows that across museums and the study of them, the cultural logic is changing.

Museums can work to reproduce ideologies and confirm the existing order of things, or as instruments of social reform. Yet objects in museums can exceed their designated roles as documents or specimens. In this wideranging and original book, Michelle Henning explores how historical and contemporary museums and exhibitions restage the relationship between people and material things. In doing so, they become important sites for the development of new forms of experience, memory and knowledge. Henning reveals how museums can be theorised as a form of media. She discusses both historical and contemporary examples, from cabinets of curiosity, through the avant-garde exhibition design of Lissitzy and Bayer; the experimental museums of Paul Otlet and Otto Neurath; to science centres; immersive and virtual museums; and major developments such as Guggenheim Bilbao, Tate Modern in London and the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C. Museums, Media and Cultural Theory is unique in its treatment of the museum as a media-form, and in its detailed and critical discussion of a wide range of display techniques. It is an indispensable introduction to some of the key ideas, texts and histories relevant to the museum in the 21st century.

The current “digital revolution” or “digital era” has affected most of the realms of today’s world, particularly the domains of communication and the creation, safeguarding and transmission of knowledge. Museums, whose mission is to be open to the public and to acquire, conserve, research, communicate and exhibit the heritage of humanity, are thus directly concerned by this revolution. This collection highlights the manner in which museums and curators tackle the challenges of digital technology. The contributions are divided into four groups that illustrate the extent of the impact of digital technologies on museums: namely, exhibitions devoted to new media or mounted with the use of new media; the hidden face of the museum and the conservation of digital works of art; cultural mediation and the communication and promotion of museums using digital tools; and the legal aspects of the digitalisation of content, whether for creative purposes or preservation.

Visitor engagement and learning, outreach, and inclusion are concepts that have long dominated professional museum discourses. The recent rapid uptake of various forms of social media in many parts of the world, however, calls for a reformulation of familiar opportunities and obstacles in museum debates and practices. Young people, as both early adopters of digital forms of communication and latecomers to museums, increasingly figure as a key target group for many museums. This volume presents and discusses the most advanced research on the multiple ways in which social media operates to transform museum communications in countries as diverse as Australia, Denmark, Germany, Norway, the UK, and the United States. It examines the socio-cultural contexts, organizational and education consequences, and methodological implications of these transformations.

Museums today find themselves within a mediatised society, where everyday life is conducted in a data-full and technology-rich context. In fact, museums are themselves mediatised: they present a uniquely media-centred environment, in which communicative media is a constitutive property of their organisation and of the visitor experience. The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication explores what it means to take mediated communication as a key concept for museum studies and as a sensitising lens for media-related museum practice on the ground. Including contributions from experts around the world, this original and innovative Handbook shares a nuanced and precise understanding of media, media concepts and media terminology, rehearsing new locations for writing on museum media and giving voice to new subject alignments. As a whole, the volume breaks new ground by reframing mediated museum communication as a resource for an inclusive understanding of current museum developments. The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication will appeal to both students and scholars, as well as to practitioners involved in the visioning, design and delivery of mediated communication in the museum. It teaches us not just how to study museums, but how to go about being a museum in today’s world. The book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access at www.taylorfrancis.com. It has been made available under a a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

MUSEUM MEDIA Edited by Michelle Henning Museum Media explores the contemporary uses of diverse media in museum contexts and discusses how technology is reinventing the museum. It considers how technological changes—from photography and television through to digital mobile media—have given rise to new habits, forms of attention and behaviors. It explores how research methods can be used to understand people's relationships with media technologies and display techniques in museum contexts, as well as the new opportunities media offer for museums to engage with their visitors. Entries written by leading experts examine the transformation of history and memory by new media, the ways in which exhibitions mediate visitor experience, how designers and curators can establish new kinds of relationships with visitors, the expansion of the museum beyond its walls and its insertion into a wider commercial and corporate landscape. Focusing on formal, theoretical and technical aspects of exhibition practice, this in-depth volume explores questions of temporality, attachment to objects, atmospheric and immersive exhibition design, the reinvention of the exhibition medium, and much more.