This thesis examines the use of social media by museums aiming to establish collaborative relationships with the public. Social media platforms have been widely espoused as transformative in allowing diverse, new or previously excluded audiences to enter into egalitarian, participatory relationships with museums. This thesis deconstructs the concepts of participation and collaboration and identifies the various factors that constrain the extent to which social media enables participatory relationships between previously unequal actors. These factors include the historical disciplinary aims and cultural authority of museums, persistent social inequalities, and the motivations of social media followers. It elucidates crucial questions such as, are various publics enabled to participate on an equal level with each other and with museums? Who benefits from collaborative projects in general and which parties benefit from the use of social media in particular? What are the factors that limit the establishment of collaborative practice? And, conversely, what are the factors that define truly collaborative practice? This research examines museums' use of and discourses surrounding social media as well as social media followers' motivations for engaging with museums online. A large body of quantitative and qualitative data gained through in-depth web-based surveys is analysed, primarily using critical discourse analysis, and informed by other critical orientations including media archaeology and the sociology of expertise. The analysis indicates that museums consider social media to be a transformative, democratising technology. However, museums' acceptance of technologically determinist arguments significantly inhibits positive societal change and the extent to which collaborative relationships can be established with various publics. This research contributes significantly to the existing archaeological and museum studies literature by providing a theoretically and empirically informed critical analysis of the prevailing positive discourses surrounding social media and participation. It has important practical implications for museums in arguing that targeted, critically informed and ethically aware projects are necessary to achieve situations resembling 'collaboration'. It provides a significant body of data that will inform the formulation and continuation of collaborative projects in museums. Furthermore, it informs broader archaeological debates on involving various publics in archaeological practice. This thesis also demonstrates the importance and effectiveness of critical discourse analysis and related critical approaches for analysing large bodies of qualitative data.

This thesis consists primarily of a detailed account of an experimental exhibition installed at the Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia. The exhibit is termed "experimental" because it was an attempt to do something new in the field of visual education and thereby to provide one possible solution to the problem of the increasing gap between museum and theoretical anthropology. In recent years this problem has become so acute that many academics can find nothing good at all to say about the work of museum-based anthropologists, let alone collaborate with them, and vice versa. While this fact in itself does not necessarily constitute cause for alarm, it seemed to this student that a great deal could be gained from a rapprochement of the two branches, and after careful consideration that the exhibition hall was an excellent place to demonstrate this. To this end I designed an exhibit which uses the most important assets of any museum — its collections — in a new way: instead of the artifacts being ends in themselves, they are employed as means for conveying one of the current issues of theoretical anthropology — the concept of exchange, and the whole display is arranged to raise questions, rather than answer them, and to stimulate new thinking. In this way it was hoped to demonstrate the possibility of introducing into the museum some of the exciting ideas under study by the theorists, and at the same time to indicate the advantages of looking at some of these concepts from the point of view of the goods involved. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

Marketing has been part of everyday work in cultural institutions including museums since the end of the last century. Diploma paper is focused on the distribution (in the sense of marketing tool "Place") of museum services to the audience. The basics of museum marketing are outlined in the first theoretical part of the diploma paper. The second part is devoted to the role of distribution in museum marketing and to the analysis of new trends. This part is accompanied with the examples of best practices of everyday work of Czech and foreign museums. In the third part, the attention is focused on distribution of National Museum. First it describes its main insufficiency, afterwards it proposes the basic frame of distribution strategy for National Museum for the near future, when its main building will be closed down for reconstruction.

Nowadays, at the time of modern information and multimedia technologies, consumers preferences and reasons for visiting museums have been changing a lot. A museum cannot be only considered as a view of authentic objects with historical or other value, a museum must be rather understood as a place where visitors will get strong cultural experience from their visit, which will enrich their own life. If museums do not offer this experience, they will lose their competitive strength in comparison with other institutions. The aim of this Diploma Work is to analyse the present circumstances and to make a concept of the chosen regional museum development strategy.

<p> The aim of this investigation is to analyze the effects of incorporating scent-based elements in ethnographic exhibits. Specifically, it attempts to identify changes in patron response to a visual display, with and without a scent element. Groups of patrons were observed throughout their engagement with the exhibit, and interviewed post-engagement to generate data on information retention, opinion on content and empathetic response in relation to the exhibit. Findings suggest that the inclusion of scent did increase memorization of the limited facts reinforced through the scent element. However, there was no detectable difference between the groups on measures of overall comprehension of the subject matter, nor their empathetic responses toward the exhibited culture. The results of the study are discussed as a measure of the observer&mdash;observed dichotomy, and the argument is made that multisensory representation in the museum can aid in the facilitation of cross-cultural education.</p>

This thesis investigates the evolution of curatorial practice in Britain and the United States in the first four decades of the twentieth century through an analysis of the formative years of two museums, the Wallace and Frick Collections, and of two academic programmes, the Fogg Art Museum Course at Harvard University and the Courtauld Institute of Art at the University of London. Through these case studies, this study charts the emergence and development of a specialised curatorial knowledge base that was influenced by traditions of connoisseurship and criticism and shaped by discussions surrounding art history’s disciplinary parameters taking place in the museum, the press, the art market and the university. This investigation makes visible the processes through which art museum curators, keepers and directors collaborated in the creation and standardisation of their own expertise and contends that this quest was fundamentally intertwined with struggles for authority, agency and professional recognition. The manifestation of this expertise resulted in a renegotiation of institutional power dynamics and gave rise to a new type of art museum leader: the connoisseur-scholar, who performed an important function in the art museum’s transition from a space dominated by gentlemanly amateurs to one in which academically trained art historians increasingly assumed positions of authority. Asserting that the formation of this knowledge base cannot be separated from the academic institutionalisation of art history and curatorial training, this study demonstrates that individuals operating in the spheres of the art museum and the university were engaged in a dialogue through which the core values of these respective endeavours were realised. Detailing these processes and relationships and locating them within the context of a shift towards aesthetic idealism, this thesis provides insight into the historical origins of modern-day curatorial practice in Britain and the United States.

Much of the available literature on the impact of the architecture of museums of modern art has centred upon the 'spectacularity' of such structures and the regeneration effect on sites and/or cities triggered by their presence, often highlighting their agency in promoting mass tourist activity. However, apart from these widely debated facts, more complex circumstances regarding major shifts in the socio-cultural and political arenas may have influenced the identity, conception, design and implementation of these architectural structures within cityscapes and urban fabrics - circumstances which are often overlooked. Considering this complex contextual frameset, this work concentrates on a specific period of time, indicating the substantial renovation cities have been through since the industrialisation-boom of the 1950s, and ponders the relation between these physical and symbolic transformations and the consequences of this 'modernisation' process in the social-cultural panorama. Albeit assumed as a preponderant factor in cities' 'modernising' policies, this research does not aim to map the most significant or to construct a historiography of modern art museums. The objective is to discuss whether this 'modernisation' process is related to the transformations in the scope, form, function and identity of modern art museums in the last 60 years or so, highlighting the implications of the phenomenon that glorifies these architectural structures per se. But to what extent, or in what sense, has the set of socio-cultural transformations seen since the 1950s conceptually/concretely affected the architecture of museums of modern art? How did this particularly elitist building type emerge as such powerful element in both politico-economic and socio-cultural terms, becoming a major agent in transforming cities' identities since the 1990s? The Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro (Affonso Eduardo Reidy, 1953-1967); the Centre de Culture et d'Art Georges Pompidou, Paris (Renzo Piano & Richard Rogers Architects, 1970-1977) and the TATE Modern, London (Jacques Herzog & Pierre de Meuron, 1994-2000) were selected to illustrate these transformations. In fact, this work discusses these museums' relevance as architectural objects ; analyses whether they have contributed (or not) to set up a new agenda for modern art museums; and investigates if these (conceptual/concrete) transformations have corresponded (or not) to major shifts in paradigms in the arts, in social-cultural trends and in the architectural practice and thinking within the period.

This dissertation addresses the relationship between life, time and architecture. It places the notion of memory within a changing landscape that stimulates remembrance; manipulating physical, functional, and sensorial experiences. As time changes and memories blur; there is a nostalgic longing for the creation of place to be used as a tool which both captivates and exhibits history and memory – a mnemonic machine exuding adaptation over time. The conceptual exploration sets a platform for celebrating the beauty and delight found in the poetics of the dairy production process, employing architecture as a tool to physically manifest the mystifying realm of the engagement between man and beast. The proposed site is identified within the historical precinct of Zwartkoppies, on the original farmstead of Sammy Marks, located on the eastern periphery of Pretoria. Situated in the life of the everyday - the site offers a platform for transformative practice within a mutable and flexible landscape. Through superimposing a highly mechanised process within a historic and weathered fabric of industrial memory, the programme intends to highlight the notion of a model farm typology, allowing the farmstead to once again be activated as a platform for training and experimentation. / Dissertation MArch(Prof)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Architecture / MArch(Prof) / Unrestricted

In this project, a prototype for a virtual reality museum experience was developed. The virtual environment contains paintings and birds that the user can interact with to display information. A text panel or an image is displayed next to the object the user interacted with. The text or image displayed contains information about the object. A narration of the information can be played for some of the images and text panels. This enhances the experience of the museum compared to looking at an object in the real world. The virtual reality experience allows the museum to be more interactive and fun for the visitors. A few user tests were performed to test the usability of the experience. The tests found a few usability problems that have to be fixed before this experience could be part of a real museum. / I detta projekt utvecklades en prototyp för ett virtual reality museum. Den virtuella miljön innehåller tavlor och fåglar som användaren kan interagera med för att visa information. En textpanel eller en bild visas bredvid objektet som användaren interagerade med. Texten eller bilden som visas innehåller information om objektet. En inspelning av informationen kan spelas upp för några av bilderna och textpanelerna. Detta förbättrar museets upplevelse jämfört med att titta på ett objekt i den verkliga världen. Virtual reality-upplevelsen gör att museet kan vara mer interaktivt och roligt för besökarna. Några användartester genomfördes för att testa upplevelsens användbarhet. Testerna hittade några användbarhetsproblem som måste åtgärdas innan denna upplevelse kan vara en del av ett verkligt museum.

Uppgiften, den givna. Består i att utforma en tillbyggnad till Nationalmuseum från år 1866 belägen på Blasieholmen. Den tänkta byggnaden är till för att komplettera Nationalmuseums verksamheter med ett program för både publika och interna funktioner. Tillbyggnadens stora uppgift är att förse Nationalmuseum med det logistiska. Där konsten mottages och packas upp för att sedan transporteras vidare in i museets utställningssalar, en stor vikt läggs vid att konstens väg in i byggnaden får ej korsas av publika besökare. Tillbyggnaden omfattar funktioner som en offentlig studiesal för forskare som arbetar med konstarkivet och verkstäder, magasin, konserveringsateljéer och teknikutrymmen. Utöver det logistiska innefattar tillbyggnaden ett stort antal kontorsplatser både fasta och flexarbetsplatser för personal knuten till museets verksamheter. Utöver dom givna programfunktionerna har jag valt att utöka och försökt skapa en mer publik byggnad för att generera liv åt ett kajstråk som sällan någon nyttjar trots god tillströmning av folk ett sten kast bort utan att utsätta den logistiska biten där konsten måste fraktas ostört från tillbyggnad till utställningssalar utan att krocka med den publika delen. Jag har i mitt projekt hämtat inspiration från Slottet och Nationalmuseums symboliska trappor och utifrån dom tankebanorna försökt att skapa en sekvens som kan komma att bli ett minne för besökaren. Som tar start i tillbyggnadens foajé där man tar sig ner för en 180 graders ramp och kommer ut i ett avlångt rum som fungerar hörsal vid eventuella seminarium och kan även nyttjas som en utställningssal för exempelvis mer temporära och samtida utställningar, givetvis kan även samlingen konst på papper exponeras i tillbyggnaden. / The task, the given. It consists in designing an extension to the National Museum from 1866 pads on Blasieholmen. The proposed building is designed to complement the National Museum's activities with a program for both public and internal functions. The building's major task is to provide the National Museum with the logistics. Where art is received and unpacked and then transported further into the museum's exhibition halls, a large emphasis is placed on art's entering the building must not be crossed by public visitors. The building includes features such as a public study room for researchers working with art archive and workshops, warehouses, conservation studios and technology areas. In addition to the logistical include for building a large number of office locations both fixed and flexible workplaces for staff working with the museum's activities. In addition to the judgment given program functions, I have chosen to expand and tried to create a more public building to generate life to a kajstråk who rarely uses despite good influx of people a stone throw away without exposing the logistical piece where art must be transported undisturbed by extension to exhibition halls without bumping into the public part. I have in my project, inspired by the Royal Palace and National Museum symbolic stairs and from judgment thought process trying to create a sequence that may become a thing of the visitor. That takes start in the building's lobby where you get down to a 180-degree ramp and come out in an oblong room that serves auditorium at any seminar and can also be used as an exhibit for example, more temporary and contemporary exhibits, of course, can also be the art collection at paper exposed to the building.