A chance for change? New media and visitor meanings in the transforming museum

A Chance for Change? New Media in the Transforming Museum is an original study into the role of new media in visitor meaning making processes in the museum. This dissertation maps visitor meanings in two museum contexts; the ‘Crossroads’ exhibition at the Allard Pierson in Amsterdam and the Riverside Museum in Glasgow. Using an innovative combination of different quantitative and qualitative methods, visitor meanings are studied from multiple perspectives. Particularly creative is the use of two ethnographically-inspired techniques; the accompanied visit and photography-led exit interviews. From these two methods twelve types of meaning making are distilled which then serve as the main analytical tool in this study.
This dissertation aims to question an existing and popular rhetoric which attributes transformative power to new media. Can digital technologies be used to propel the old-fashioned museum into the future? This research concludes that new media, in itself, does not contain any transformative power. When used in a context which still adheres to modernist, traditional, museum values, the digital’s potentially useful affordances are not employed. In such a context, which may be found at the ‘Crossroads’ exhibition, new media is not able to contribute to a transformation. Yet, this study ends on a hopeful note. The Riverside Museum works from a strongly visitor-centred perspective and does not adhere to a technologically determinist rhetoric. Their use of digital technology allows its affordances to contribute to a more visitor-centred environment. In other words, new media may still offer a chance for change.