Museum communication and storytelling: articulating understandings within the museum structure

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper seeks to define museum communication as a useful concept and process by applying storytelling as a way of identifying museums’ interpretation, relevance and meaning-making focus. Although museums are very familiar with these terms, their impact on how museums communicate has rarely been defined. The paper offers a theoretical definition of museum communication and seeks to implement this in museum practice through the concept of storytelling and the way it influences internal and external museum communication. Defining a clear museum communication requires defining individual practices and approaches at museums as well. For the individual museum this can be approached by stating a clear museum communication definition but more importantly through empirical elements of storytelling. How museums define their communication and form narratives will impact both internal and external practices.