Museum+Digital+Transition

Subjectivity Through Self-Education: Media and the Multicultural Citizen at the National Museum of the American Indian. Dan Magerr

Brady, M. J. (2011). Subjectivity Through Self-Education: Media and the Multicultural Citizen at the National Museum of the American Indian. // Television & New Media //, // 12 // (5), 441-459. doi: 10.1177/1527476410385478

This article takes a look into the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, (NMAI) which is located in Washington DC. In this article the author looks into the use of media in the Smithsonian Institute particularly with kiosks and how visitors interact with them. The author explains the understanding between new media technologies and the museum audience who is predicted to be mostly non native American visitors.

Many non-native American have very little background of Native American culture. “It is through the museum and its various technologies that largely non-Native visitors are asked to shed their stereotypical misconceptions. Part of the museum’s objective is to increase understanding in its visitors and encourage ‘multicultural dialogue,’” (Brady 442-443). With these new technologies, it opens up interaction between the audience and the exhibit almost as if it were a portal. It brings the audience into the Indian world. For example the NMAI has technologies such as digital kiosks to bring more engagement to the audience. This allows for more freedom in learning and can create a more interesting learning experience. They have more control over three basic questions of research, what, when, and why. While this can create free choice learning and be very engaging to the audience it can also limit them. With free choice learning the visitors are selective of the information they choose and can overlook research possibilities. “among the most important differences between post-1945 museums and those previous to it are increasingly mobile populations, the fact that exhibition is taking place in an era of decolonization rather than colonial expansion, the recognition of the rights of indigenous and diasporic people globally, and more pluralistic public spheres,”(Brady 445). We live in an era of digital expansion and with these digital tools it creates more of an emotional response in museums today. Some criticism of digital technology is that it takes away from the unique culture of that time. We don’t see the information as a whole and find it more fluid, multiple, and overlapping. It takes away from the understanding of the cultures tradition. Yet the positives are that museums believe people would use the traditional ways of learning exhibit information in tandem with the new digital media. Ultimately the use of digital media in museums is varied from visitor to visitor by personal preference. They either are comfortable with the normal traditional learning experience or the new digital media learning experience. What we do know is that virtual kiosks will probably be a predominate part of museums in the future with the younger generation because visitors can feel more of an experience as they are learning.