Studying Museum Communication for Citizen Engagement

Projektpresentation • Nordisk Museologi 2017 • 2, s. 148–155 Our Museum Studying museum communication for citizen engagement Kirsten Drotner Abstract: Our Museum was initiated in 2016. It is a five-year Danish national research and development programme comprising seven university departments at five universities and eight museum partners. The project aims to facilitate new forms of citizen engagement and inclusion by developing and studying how museums communicate with audiences in innovative ways. In this text the background, aims, hypothesis and organization are presented. Keywords: Museum communication, citizen engagement, collaboratory research between university and museums. Museums have always interacted with the world Museums’ own research priorities are still chiefly around them. Yet, it seems as if the scale and related to the substance of collections – be they scope of interaction has increased in the past art history or astronomy, archaeology, biology two decades. The almost universal presence or history. An interest in audiences is chiefly of museums online is an indication of this expressed in surveys on visitor throughput, development: an expansion of user-focused marketing efficacy or simple analytics of the museum communication that is often policy-led number of online clicks. A similar situation is and the visibility of museums in environments seen in museology departments and programs beyond the museum walls. The number of at universities. While museology and heritage museums have doubled worldwide 1992–2012 studies have become established features of (Temples 2013), and the new institutions are many universities, they develop remarkably often heralded as beacons of tourism and as little sustained research on the ways in which levers of local and regional cultural economies actual and potential audiences communicate (Falk & Sheppard 2006). Not least private with museums. Visitor studies remain the funding goes into the establishment of the new key inroad to theory-based studies of actual museums and into a transformation of existing museum-goers whether it adheres to the museum sites and settings. All these trends put traditional socio-cognitive approach (Bitgood increasing emphasis on fostering new relations & Shettel 1996, Falk & Dierking 2000, 2013) to actual and potential museum audiences. or to more recent trends focusing on visitors’ However, while museums’ interaction and meaning-making and learning practices communication practices with audiences (Hooper-Greenhill 2006, Bounia et al. 2012, gain in importance, the same cannot be said Dodd 2012, Pierroux & Ludvigsen 2013). for systematic research on these practices. Museums’ introduction of digital tools online Our Museum and onsite has sparked research on usage of experience, learning outcomes or the use of 149 these tools, but both museums and universities digital technologies – all of which are often at the primarily study the “digital turn” from a technology- core of innovative communication practices? led perspective, for example the application of This is because we want to hold on to the iPads or the use of blogs (Cameron & Kenderdine fact that public museums are key catalysts in 2010, Runnel & Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt 2014). generating a society’s understanding of itself, In a Nordic context, two Danish surveys on both past and present. Museums are resources universities’ museum research document that for people’s abilities to act in the world, and museum communication is now increasingly on the world, because museums offer people taken up, but mostly on a short-term basis, scripts to relate to the wider world. Still, as conducted by master or PhD students with is well known, not all groups harness these individual museums and with little aggregate democratic museum resources, and not all knowledge formation or sustained research museums understand what it takes to involve development as a result (Villadsen & Drotner new audience groups. To focus on museums’ 2011, Gransgaard et al. 2014). citizen engagement offers a unique pathway In other words, there currently exists to understand museums’ interaction with the a gap between considerable economic, wider world and, in more concrete ways, to political and practical developments in develop evidence-based tools for advancing museum communication and research-based such interactions in democratic societies. Our knowledge on these processes/progresses. This Museum’s overall aim, then, is to help advance gap means that museum communication and widen citizen engagement through remains under-theorised, the societal impact theory-driven empirical designs and studies of communication practices and projects of museum communication whose results remains under-documented, and innovation have transfer value beyond the research and of museum communication remains too little development programme. based on systematic evidence. Other studies, also in the Nordic countries of Europe, have focused on museums’ role for democratic participation and citizen Why focus on citizen engagement? engagement (Stuedahl 2011, Sattrup & Taking note of this gap between practice and Christensen 2013, Runnel & Pruulmann- research in museum communication, Our Vengerfeldt 2014). Similar aspects have been Museum was initiated in 2016. It is a five-year addressed by networks such as the Nordic national research and development programme Research Network on Learning Across comprising seven university departments at five Contexts, directed by professor Ola Erstad at Danish universities and eight Danish museum the University of Oslo (2011–14); by Culture partners. The total budget is c. 6 million EUR. Kick (2011–14), directed by professor Dagny We aim to facilitate new forms of citizen Stuedahl, Norwegian University of Life engagement and inclusion by developing and Sciences, and by the ongoing Cultural Heritage studying how museums communicate with Mediascapes, directed by professor Palmyre audiences in innovative ways. Pierroux at the University of Oslo. Our Why focus on advancing citizen engagement Museum helps advance these efforts in three and inclusion and not, for example, personalised capacities: we add a historical perspective, a Kirsten Drotner 150 design perspective and a systematic evaluation selected to cover important nodes in this perspective. development and to cover the diversity of communication modes. For example, one project on antiquarianism illuminates pre- What we do modern practices of communication and International museum studies largely under- interaction, while another project hones in on stand museums’ interaction with their open air museums and their performance of surroundings through a historical master living history. narrative that takes us from an emphasis Eight projects study key areas of contem- on citizen enlightenment, public education porary museum communication. The projects and betterment of the unruly masses in the are selected based on an inclusive definition early days of museum development on to a of what a museum is, since we surmise that situation today when individual experience such an approach best traces varieties in and consumer enrichment is at the core of communication practices and organisational museum communication (Hooper-Greenhill frameworks. So, art, natural and cultural 1992, Bennett 1995, Anderson 2004). While history museums are partner museums as well this trajectory may be correct on a discursive as a planetarium. Also, projects are selected level, we want to explore museum practices, from around the country and including small and we want to go beyond national museums as well as very large institutions. In this way, and similar icons that are often referenced as we are able to document institutional as well documentation in the master narratives. as substantive similarities and differences. Our thesis is that museums’ communication In empirical terms, the projects follow a practices, both past and present, are marked joint research ecology: from (co-)designing by balancing enlightenment and experience new communication initiatives, through as constant dimensions to be handled, rather documentation of their implementation, and than as elements to abandon or strive for. on to evaluating the results of these initiatives. To this effect, our key research questions are Many, but not all, projects involve the use as follows: Which dilemmas in handling of digital modes of communication such as dimensions of enlightenment and experience augmented reality installations and smart do we see in Danish museum communication phones. Since we are keen to understand in the past and today? And on that basis: How how museums practice communication as a can museums’ communication with audiences lever of citizen engagement, our focus is not be designed, developed and evaluated so as to on technological innovation as such, nor is widen and advance museums’ means of citizen it on museum communication as a form of engagement? marketing or branding. Based on these research questions, our research design encompasses a historical Who is involved and a contemporary strand of research. Five projects study the history of Danish museum Our Museum is funded by two Danish philan- communication, adding depth and richness thropic foundations, the Nordea-fonden and to existing histories (Floris & Vasström 1999, the Velux Fonden, along with the universities Larsen & Ingemann 2005). The projects are involved. Partner museums contribute with Our Museum in-kind funding, which means that museum by a group

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