In the last few years more and more museums have embraced the engagement and promotion possibilities offered by social media. The presence in these platforms can be regarded as another way of pursuing a socially oriented public service many museums make a point of honour of including in their mission statements. It is believed to be uncontroversial to state that making content available without any restraint (besides the ‘minor’ issue of Internet connection) contributes to more inclusive, sympathetic and socially resilient communities.
Some express the fear that making content freely available online will make potential visitors feel that there is no need to physically visit a museum. Nonetheless, it is reasonable to assume the existence of (a minority?) segment of the public that will always want to visit the ‘real thing’ even if it has had the opportunity (and also because of that) of previously browsing online content. An online sharing and divulgation strategy should be seen as serving a double purpose: a) to deepen access by the public to cultural offer and b) to invest in the creation of future audiences. Another discussion is to determine if this tendentially universal availability of online contents should remain free of charge or, rather, if interested audiences should pay for access. Regarding small and medium-sized institutions, where budget constraints are more of a burden, the answer to this question may be selectivity; while some contents can be made available free of charge, access to other will require some sort of payment.
It should be noted that to promote is to defend cultural heritage, to sell merchandising is to divulge, to offer meaningful educational experiences is (also) to entertain and to use social media is to try to engage wider audiences. All these (and more) roles are undeniably interlinked and modern Museums have to harness the full potential of creating synergies amongst the different goals pursued, mostly as today’s budgetary constraints dictate the need to attract new sources of revenue. Ideally, all museums should be ‘safe’ from financial restrictions. In reality, the contemporary trend in Western countries is to maximize gains and downsize expenses. Even if it is believed that there are limits to both, which ultimately might endanger the endurance of any given institution, to holistically consider the above mentioned goals will no doubt provide a chance to internally adapt aims and strategies.
As a result, a shift in conventional public perception of museums is likely to occur if, out of necessity, more ‘less traditional for museums’, innovative and wide-reaching activities take place. Hence, economic strains may in fact also have a beneficial side effect since it will force to rethink and change longstanding habits and even question the overall mission of a museum and employed strategies. In one simple pragmatic idea: to adapt to current circumstances while attempting to demonstrate that museums are institutions that matter much more than just revenues and losses. While this last idea might be self-explanatory to museum professionals and most of their audiences, it is put forward that demonstrating it to the wider public and to both elected and non-elected officials will be one of the major battles these institutions face in coming years, at least in most Western countries.
It is suggested that the internet and namely social media platforms constitute today a tendentially democratic communication method to reach the majority of the public. The expression “tendentially democratic” is used since the number of individuals using the Internet has been growing exponentially in the last few years. However, its use is of yet to be so completely overspread for the name “World Wide Web” to make full sense. There is obviously global inequity in internet access, moreover considering low income segments of the population which quite often cannot afford it. For instance, in Portugal, the huge majority of non-internet users are the elder and the illiterate/those that did not complete primary education. These profiles closely relate to low income. Nevertheless, the tendency is that more individuals gain Internet access as the 566.4 per cent total world growth rate of internet use in the period 2000/12 seems to suggest.
One should not be as naive as to think that social media is completely free of any constraints or that it is not fully inserted in global market dynamics. On the contrary, it has carved its particular niche in today’s capitalistic societies, amassing huge amount of personal data from its users and exploiting it to economical advantage, namely when trying to get page owners/managers to pay for outreach. Moreover, social media can be (and is) also used to further uphold social control. This happens not only when powerful enough Big Data analysis tools are employed, usually only available to governments and large corporations, but also by making newsfeeds self-resounding and less diverse since the majority of content ‘selected’ for us tends to follow our points of view. While it is also up to users to ‘educate’, to the extent possible, one’s news feed algorithm by engaging (Liking, Sharing, Commenting, etc.) contents with opposite views, most people will prefer an illusory sense of belonging and ideally not dealing with confronting opinions.
One of the ways to keep in check or even counter this use of social media is to create vast amounts of information scattered by multiple sources and located at several locations. On the one hand, the more (contradictory) information is created more difficult is to analyse it to extract economically useable consumer trends. On the other, control over social media publications is exerted by page managers or owners. The more pages there are, the more sources of information are available for the public to filter according to personal accuracy and reliability criteria. Obviously, this filtering is conducted according to specific interests, social belonging and prejudices and, more importantly, by powerful algorithms of which users have little control over.
This constitutes a change from the previous existing situation in which the public filtered through the already sieved information made available by the relatively less numerous or diverse traditional media platforms (newspapers, radio, television or cable news) that often reported (and continue to report) in a more controlled or even biased fashion. It is argued that the emergence of multiple sources of information resulting from the rise of social media platforms enriches this process while having the potential to strengthen social cohesion and the proactive role of citizens in our, again, tendentially democratic societies.
As counterintuitive as it might seem, the risk of cacophony when using multiple platforms is overshadowed by the advantages of visibility and thus promotion and divulgation in an environment where a myriad of similar institutions are all competing for attention. In fact, a certain cacophony might be beneficial, especially in the case of a relatively small museums located in a less populated areas as the odds of reaching vaster audiences are increased.
Perhaps the role social media can play in the promotion of cultural institutions and in, within this context, help countering late capitalism dynamics is portrayed here in an excessively optimistic fashion. In fact, it is not an acquired fact that all (or many) cultural institutions will be able to endure as such and to continue carrying on with their core activities by resisting the growing marketisation of culture, which, in the medium and long-term, may endanger financial health by leading to an unbalanced dependence on less ‘traditional’ and potentially less reliable income generation strategies. Moreover, these mostly financial constraints may hinder the promotion of the universal value of cultural diversity, thus weakening the role cultural institutions can have not only as keepers of different sources of (personal, communitarian or even ethnic) knowledge and memories but mainly as eveners of social inequality and as the meeting point where different traditions and cultures can gather. However, due to the potentially challenging and questioning nature of most, if not all, collections they keep and can share, museums are in a privileged position to make a stand against something of which social medial is as well the main vehicle: the ‘stupidification’ and promotion of ignorance sought by different key players in the current world scenario, mostly hiding behind free market dynamics. It is thus a matter of trying to change client-based mentalities in the broader cultural sector as elsewhere by attempting to engage, question and confront audiences in such a way complex and more demanding issues become easier to grasp and, more importantly, the seed of curiosity is planted, independent thought processes are fostered and empathy towards diversity is stimulated. It is proposed that, if judiciously used, social media has (also) the potential to be an unprecedented wide-ranging part of such a stand.
The surfacing of multiple social media platforms and mass adhesion by a significant part of the population as meant that the rhythm in the production of all kinds of information has increased exponentially in these last few years. It is suggested that museums, as keepers of human memories, have a major role in contributing to store, guarantee and facilitate widespread access to these overwhelming amounts of data for scientific research purposes but also for educational, leisure and entertainment aims. It is suggested that the creation and making available of online digital content by any Museum will also contribute to have material accessible to write future comprehensive but diverse accounts of their history, activities and outreach.
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