ABSTRACT
Since the 1970s and ‘80s, innovations in museum communication have been driven by trends in digital technologies and more recently, social media, spearheaded by curatorial and marketing departments and their respective interests in engaging publics through new forms of dialogue and participation (Heusinger, 1989; Pierroux, Krange, & Sem, 2011). From stand-alone multimedia kiosks to mobile tweeting, tagging and posting on Twitter, Flickr and Facebook, digital and social media have interrupted the external flow of information from museum to visitor and world at large but also internal communication among museum professionals: curators, educators, new media specialists, exhibition designers, marketing and public affairs departments (Gates, 2010; Kelly & Russo, 2008; Pierroux, 2001). Importantly, as social media and diverse types of digital interactives have been increasingly introduced alongside traditional textual practices in art museums, they have also entered into the larger, enduring discourse regarding the relationship between text, image, gallery space, and work of art in meaning making processes (Adams & Moussouri, 2002).
