Museum Pandemia
and why transmedia thinking may be one possible solution
What does the word pandemic really mean? Going by official dictionaries pandemic would be an outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects an exceptionally high proportion of the population. So far, so good! What is perhaps more telling and meaningful for the times we are living is the similar vocabulary that goes beyond the word pandemic. Pandaemonium, for example, would be the capital of Hell in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The word would roughly translate from the Greek as “All Demons”, but can also refer to mean an “all-demon-place”. What is most telling in this respect is the meaning of pandemonium in the latin and other languages — ‘pandemonio’ is used to decribe a place of confusion. In English we would use the word pandemonium. Incidentally, Pandemia is also the title of a 2006 post-apocalyptic teen novel depicting a scenario in which a global epidemic spreads all over the world due to modern transportation methods, eventually causing a universal state of emergency.
In the museum world we might be talking of a pandemic pandemonium. For the new netizen, forced to look through a keyhole, the view from the sitting room is nothing short of a pandemonium. The bottle neck of platforms and information might have caught users unawares and bewildered as they grapple to understand what to look for and engage with their knowledge luggage as their point of departure. I have still to read a good study of the impact COVID-19 has had on the collective subconscious and how publics reacted to this new reality. What is coming across consistently in webinars and online discussions is the stark reality that from a user-end perspective, the museum landscape might have achieved nothing short of a funnel effect.
We do know that museums, rightly so and as expected, have registered a significant rise in online usage brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest statistics published by the Network of European Museums Organisations (NEMO) draw from a survey to which 650 museums in 41 countries have so far replied (statistics cover the period up to 3 April as the survey is still ongoing).
This chart presents the increase registered by 40% of museums participating in this survey. Of those 40%, slighty over 40% registered a slight albeit noticeable increase. Only a small percentage registered the exceptional response that the media, and the rush to be way more present online, has given the impression. In the rush to reach out, the impact seems to be less than expected. It would also be interesting to know which museums feature in the close to 20% registering well over double the pre-COVID-19 users. Curiously enough, response coming from 650 museums for the 20–40% increase and the 60–80% increase is nil.
Over the past few weeks, museums have aspired to and fought for a greater share of browsing time that has increased significantly in the short term. The demand is certainly there but competitors are much more equipped and prepared than museums are, at least at this point in time. That not all social networks are now being used in the same way is known and has been succinctly summarised in a wide array of contributions on social media. I choose to flag one written by Arik Hanson for business2community which also flags change in usage. How museums will adapt to this change in usage is yet to be seen.
Then what about transmedia?
In simple terms, transmedia is a reaction to the disjointed approach many institutions and corporations oftentimes take when engaging with their publics.
Transmedia storytelling is defined by Henry Jenkins as a process whereby integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes it own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story. Jenkins presented his ideas on transmedia way back in 2003, but the thinking can be traced all the way back to Walt Disney and his ambition to create a multi-platform narrative universe.
There is no set formula for transmedia — it has much to do with choosing the best way how to tell a particular story to a particular audience in a particular context depending on the particular resources available. For transmedia thinking, all media, be it old or new, holds relevance and can be put to good use.
What can museums learn from transmedia thinking?
Transmedia thinking can help museums create exhibition and outreach projects, programming and other events that are engage in the physical as much as they do in the virtual, developed in dual or even mutinodal modes. This thinking would help museums consider traditional publics and museum netizens as being one and the same albeit acknowledging and considering the fact that audiences would be shifting from one medium to another in varying degrees and for varied reasons.
I am not trying to reinvent the wheel here. The use of transmedia in museums is a reality even though it has emerged in relatively recent times. Museumnext has featured transmedia thinking last January and some museums have tried it out in temporary exhibition projects over the past two years. In 2018, Kajsa Hartig wrote a most interesting blogpost on digitalfirst thinking which, in a sense, anticipates this need. Incidentally, I was reminded of transmedia thinking in the decision, taken by the Polin museum in Poland, to go for radio transmission in order to reach its publics rather than rely exclusively on website and social media. I am sure there are more …
What I am suggesting is to engage with transmedia thinking at concept stage, and let this thinking mode shape your content right from the beginning to make sense for audiences and publics that the project seeks to reach out to. This thinking would help identify and pin down a pre-determined selection of media whereby each can provide perspectives and variables that make for a much richer experience.
The analogies we may be looking at would include the ways and means how a film production informs and complements a better understanding of the novel from which it draws. Film and publication are two diverse forms of media each having interpretative potential that the other does not have. Each medium can make its very own contribution to the way the story unfolds which can be nonetheless complimentary to the forms of engagement other media can provide. Choosing one for the other would make for a limited experience. Engaging with both would make for a more complete and enriching experience. I would suggest three things to follow or consider as a start in order to maximise on trnsmedia thinking
- It will certainly make a big difference if your project brainstorming kicks off with the understanding that your institution needs to engage with publics and audiences that oftentimes shift from physical to virtual. This thinking would make outreach initiatives easier to develop.
- Your netizens are as important as your physical visitors. More often than not they might be one and the same public, especially if we go by the fact that digital is oftentimes the first port of call for publics in search of information.
- Your medium might not have to be social media or some other hi-tech platform. Going by empathy it might be a radio communication, a telephone call or a traditional letter. What matters is not the technology used but the ways and means how to reach your public.
More on Transmedia Stortelling 101 and Transmedia Storytelling 202 on these links.
The works of art featured in this blogpost are by William Heath Robinson (1872–1944). Robinson is an English cartoonist, illustrator and artist, best known for drawings of whimsically elaborate machines to achieve simple objectives.
