This PhD thesis considers the culture of technology enthusiasm, principally through an ethnographic study of three UK enthusiast groups: the Telecommunications Heritage Group, the Computer Conservation Society and the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society. The thesis explores the various knowledges, performances and spaces associated with technology enthusiasm, focussing specifically on the relationships between enthusiasts, objects and museums, with particular reference to the collections of the Science Museum in London. This research is situated in the context of wider debates over museums, collections, conservation and access. Chapter 1 introduces technology enthusiasm as the subject of this thesis and highlights the relevant policy contexts. Chapter 2 provides an account of academic scholarship exploring the sociological literature on enthusiasm, fandom and serious leisure, recent work on technical and material cultures, as well as public history and museology. Chapter 3 explores the methodological strategy adopted in this thesis and reflects particularly on the researcher's encounters with enthusiasts and access to museums. Chapter 4 explores how technology enthusiasm is organised in groups, how societies communicate with their members through journals and online discussion forums and how an enthusiasm for technology is performed at group events. Chapter 5 examines the enthusiast's attachment to technology, the practices of collecting and hoarding, the place of technology enthusiasm in the field and at home and the afterlife of the enthusiast's personal collections. Chapter 6 considers the professional and the enthusiast in the museum context and explores their various relationships to technology's material record through ideas of expert knowledge and 'object love'. Finally, chapter 7 identifies the culture of enthusiasm and suggests future directions for research in this area.

This thesis explores the role of the UK Science Museum Group Explainer, a public-facing role with responsibility for engaging visitors and enhancing their experience of the museums within the Group. Arguing for new recognition of the performative complexity of this role, the research is driven by the view that its significance is currently undervalued within the science museum context. The thesis offers an original perspective on the contemporary Explainer, positioning it as the latest vital iteration in a performed science communication tradition that is here traced first, to the practices of Science Museum Guide Lecturers dating from 1924, and second, further back in time to nineteenth- century lecture demonstration practices at the Royal Institution, London. In so doing, it re-evaluates the role, challenging commonly held museum industry assumptions that the current iteration is simply a late twentieth-century customer service and education construct, and proposes a new history of its development and practice. The interconnected Performance Studies theories of embodied knowledge transmission and intertheatricality are utilised in conjunction with the performer-training concept of vertical transmission, to inform a new interpretation of the ways in which scientific public presentation practices can be seen to have been inherited or passed on. In this way the thesis suggests a line of performance transmission from the early nineteenth to the early twenty- first century. Highlighting performance elements within the contemporary role and its various suggested antecedents, the thesis proposes use of a new term, ‘performed explaining’, to uniquely describe their presentational forms, appropriately distinguishing them from the more ubiquitous twentieth-century museum industry term ‘live interpretation’. As a collaborative doctoral project the findings of this research are intended to be of particular significance to the SMG, but also the broader science museum and science centre industry. The thesis therefore concludes with recommendations for improving future practice in relation to the development of the Explainer role.

This thesis is a theoretically informed critical examination of the dual-legitimating role of science centres in contemporary North America through a case study of the Arizona Science Center (ASC), Phoenix, Arizona. By dual-legitimacy is meant the process by which an institution legitimates both the messages it delivers and its own authority to do so. The science centre is first distinguished from laboratory science practice, its non- science educational role emphasised, and its social role contrasted with that of the public understanding of science movement. The basic concept of legitimacy as an organising principle is argued for based on the thought of Ernest Gellner. The methodological issues of a single case study are considered in terms of generalisation and objectivity. An approach is advocated that is both multi-methodic and reflexive. A history of the science centre movement is provided that sees the science centre as a distinctive museum type, developing from a broad range of influences over the last three hundred years. The emergence of science centres in the late 1960s is related to social and political issues of the Cold War and an examination is given of the social significance of interactivity. This story provides the context for the development of ASC in the 1980s. This leads to the opening of a new science centre in Phoenix in 1997 and the meaning of its new building and the destination experience it offers are considered in terms of local legitimation among a variety of other institutions. An overview of the national science centre movement is provided and ASC is taken as a typical centre. The way ASC legitimates itself to potential visitors is examined in terms of the characteristics of its visitors and the messages it places in the media to attract them. A detailed examination is provided of the nature and meaning of ASC's offerings in art, exhibits, planetarium shows, giant-screen films, and demonstrations. It is argued that ASC offers different models of science and that much of its message is carried through being embodied by its visitors rather than cognitively understood by them. The result is that the science centre experience is a mixture of many elements with many aims, even though it carries what appears to be an ahistorical, asocial, apolitical message about science. An examination of some of the resulting tensions is given together with consideration of whether the embodied science of science centres ultimately achieves its goals.

There is currently minimal understanding as to how explainer training in Informal Science Institutions (ISIs) incorporates socio-cultural contexts. This thesis investigates this gap in the literature by examining the role of socio-cultural context in explainer training programmes within Informal Science Institutions, through the examination of three research questions. The research employs a mixed methods approach comprising 21 interviews, three international case studies, a questionnaire survey of 600 visitors and 41 explainers, in addition to observations of explainer-visitor interaction. From the international perspective, fifteen experts from 13 countries were interviewed. From the international experts’ viewpoint it was found that socio-cultural context influences the main roles of ISI explainers, and the knowledge and skills associated to success (knowledge of visitor, communication skills and knowledge of scientific content). Additionally, training programmes that provide opportunities for explainers’ active participation and collaboration were highlighted as important. The three case studies incorporated observation of eleven types of training session and questionnaires for explainers (n=55) over three ISIs: the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) in the USA, Petrosains – the Discovery Centre (Petrosains), in Malaysia and the Natural History Museum (NHM) in the UK. The three case studies reveal detailed information on how socio-cultural context can support explainers’ active participation and collaboration within a training context, as well as the role of techniques such as exploring theory, being an observer, practicing communication, being observed and feedback, and coaching by others within training settings. The case studies also expose the multiple participants who may be involved in training; educators, experienced explainers, peers and visitors, as well as the role of training delivery through discussion and interaction. In the specific context of Thailand 600 visitors and 41 explainers completed questionnaires, six Thai educators were interviewed, and ten explainer-visitor interactions were observed. The Thai educators indicated the role, knowledge and skills required of explainers in the Thai socio-cultural context, and how training supports the personal skill development of explainers. The Thai interview and explainer data also highlights some gaps in Thai explainer training at present, whereby interaction appears mainly between educators and explainers, overlooking the role of experienced explainers or peers. Additionally, organisational policy support directed at ongoing training more strongly featuring social interaction is discussed in terms of its potential shortcomings. At the specific at level of explainer-visitor interaction, visitors are evidenced to have positive attitudes towards explainers in general, though the social interaction between explainer and visitors suggest multiple perceptions of the explainers’ role; activities that are seen to be more likely to generate interaction and that the explainer-visitor relationship is developed through local activities and tools which could be more widely considered in the context of all explainer training. The thesis concludes that socio-cultural context shapes the explainers’ role, the conception of knowledge and skills required for explainers, and the design and delivery of training programmes for explainers in ISIs. The research contributes new knowledge in analysing a range of training practices for explainers in international ISI settings, and how these may be relevant to and potentially include a socio-cultural perspective. It is argued that the role of socio-cultural context in explainer training programmes raised by this thesis should be further explored by ISI educators, in order to divert from a set of practices that may be unduly influenced by a transmission approach.

Science discovery centres and science museums have been considered one of the most important institutions in the public understanding of science and technology (Lewenstein 2001). However, science discovery centres attract few teenage visitors. Visitation to cultural attractions has often been dominated by visitors with a higher socio-economic status and a higher educational background (Rowe 2011). It is nonetheless the case that few teenagers visit science discovery centres, regardless of their socio-economic background. Prior research into the motivations of adult visitors to museums has indicated that cultural factors, which may be correlated with demographics, but are not determined by them, can explain why some people visit and some do not (Merriman 1991, Hood 1983). Further research has suggested more nuanced explanations relating to personal identity issues (Rounds 2006, Falk 2006, Falk 2011) and agendas (Doering and Pekarik 1996). Much of the previous research that has been undertaken focuses on the museum cultural landscape and adult visitors. This research provides an investigation into teenage attitudes towards, and perceptions of, Techniquest Science Discovery Centre in Cardiff, with a focus on how they perceive informal science learning and the relationship between education and entertainment. The study used a mixed-methods approach (Creswell 2006) utilising an attitude survey (n=647) and a series of focus groups (n=39) with teenagers. Statistical and thematic analysis was applied to the resulting data. The research found that the majority of teenagers had complex interpretations of Techniquest, in which prior experience of it shaped perceptions of what it could offer them now. Although these interpretations encompassed a mixture of structural, personal, and situational factors, key to their interpretation was the memory of having had to negotiate various social roles when at the centre. These roles often challenged their personal entry agendas. The teenagers demonstrated a 'performative’ element (Goffman 1959, vom Lehn 2006) in their behaviour, which was based on social interaction with others and was also connected to how they ‘framed’ the situation (as education or entertainment or both). This was linked to an idea of 'identity maintenance', whereby they sought to preserve social and situational experiences that they had predefined. While it was found that many of the younger teenagers saw a more synergic relationship between education and entertainment, the older teenagers had a more complex and ambivalent view; they saw the science discovery centre as both a leisure destination and a school resource and identified some conflict between these two things. This study provides much needed data and analysis that can inform future practice and improve engagement with teenage audiences in science discovery centres.