ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how social media is used to support the aspirations of museums to become more participatory institutions through an empirical study of communication between Facebook users and a municipal history museum. The study focuses on user responses to posts featuring historical photographs from the museum’s collections captioned with the question, “Do you see where this is?” Users’ comments on the museum’s posts suggest they understand the posts as a context for pursuing three communicative activities: identifying the location pictured; soliciting and sharing historical information about the location pictured; and reminiscing about the location pictured. In contrast to studies of museum–user communication, the analysis demonstrates that communicating with other users as well as the museum is an important aspect of all three activities. The chapter argues that supporting everyday engagement with museum collections through social media is a valuable form of participation for both individuals and institutions.
