Museums, Challenging Heritage and Social Media During COVID-19

Authors

  • Cassandra Kist University of Glasgow

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v18i3.3539

Keywords:

Challenging Heritage, Social media, COVID-19

Abstract

In this opinion piece I reflect upon museum social media trends during COVID-19 and consider what it could mean in terms of future online engagement and the (mis)alignment of practices with institutional social missions. In opposition to the recent focus on uplifting museum content and activities online, I investigate an overlooked question regarding the role of challenging heritage on social media during the pandemic. I end with a call for the sector to consider the complexities of including or excluding challenging heritage from current museum online activities and in turn, the opening or foreclosure of critical reflections at a pivotal time in history.

Author Biography

Cassandra Kist, University of Glasgow

Cassandra Kist is a PhD student in the faculty of Information studies at the University of Glasgow and is a Marie Currie Fellow in the Horizon 2020 EU Training Network POEM (Participatory Memory Practices). Her research is investigating how museums do and can use (social) media as an engagement tool in ways that aligns with their social missions. She is particularly interested in the relation between social initiatives and challenging narratives on museums’ social media.

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Published

14.10.2020

How to Cite

Kist, C. (2020). Museums, Challenging Heritage and Social Media During COVID-19. Museum & Society, 18(3), 345–348. https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v18i3.3539

Issue

Vol. 18 No. 3 (2020): Special Issue: ‘Isolation as a collective experience’: Museums’ first responses to COVID-19

Section

Articles

License

Copyright remains with the author(s) of the article. This article can be re-used according to the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0  licence.