EARLY MUSEUMS

• Early museums were designed to be imposing places, frequently resembling cathedrals, in which the visitor felt awe and reverence (Lewis 1980; Home

1984; Urry 1990).

• Their concern was scholarship and curatorship, not presentation;

• The display of objects, not the communication of ideas (Lewis, 1980).

EARLY MUSEUMS

• Their collections were expected to speak for themselves and there was little attempt to make them understandable to visitors - indeed Lewis questioned whether museums of this period were ever intended to educate the populace.

HERITAGE INTERPRETATION

• Heritage sites do not readily explain themselves and need to be made intelligible to their visitors.

• Heritage interpretation: an activity dedicated to making heritage places understandable and meaningful.

• The role of interpretation at a heritage site is to provide visitors with an opportunity to learn by various forms of interpretive media.

HERITAGE INTERPRETATION

• Hammitt (1984) defined interpretation's role as that of 'familiarizing' users with a resource's facilities, opportunities and management policies; this familiarization is clearly a form of informal education.

HERITAGE INTERPRETATION

Research at heritage sites (Herbert, 1989; Light, 1991 b; Prentice, 1993) indicate that, interpretation is important:

• A large majority of visitors notice interpretive media;

• Generally upwards of 50 per cent examine them carefully and read what they look at;

• A large majority consider that interpretive displays have helped them to enjoy their visit;

• Visitors are almost unanimous in agreeing that interpretation has increased their understanding of the site.

HERITAGE INTERPRETATION

• Tilden, the 'father' of interpretation, was not so much inventing a new activity, but systematizing and formalizing, with considerable eloquence, a set of ideas and practices already in existence in both America and Europe.

HERITAGE INTERPRETATION

• Tilden defined interpretation as 'an educational activity which aims to reveal meanings and relationships through the use of original objects, by first-hand experience, and by illustrative media, rather than simply to communicate factual information' (1977, p. 8)

HERITAGE INTERPRETATION

• Tilden stressed that the aim of interpretation was not instruction (formal education between teacher and pupil) but provocation, and the revelation of the larger truth lying behind any simple statement of fact .

• Interpretation was an activity that should 'capitalize on mere curiosity for the enrichment of the human mind and spirit' (1977, p. 8).

HERITAGE INTERPRETATION

• The need for interpretation to be relevant and accessible to the people who use it, is a principles of good interpretation.

• One product of good interpretation is the enhanced protection of the resource: 'through interpretation, understanding;

• through understanding, appreciation;

• through appreciation, protection' (Tilden, 1977, p. 38).

Reasons for Visit

• A degree of learning also appears to be increasingly important to the consumers of heritage sites (Light and Prentice, 1994 ).

• While for many people heritage sites may simply represent a pleasant day out, many others may seek a better understanding of what they encounter.

• A range of research findings suggests that informal learning is both a motive for, and

Reasons for Visit

To relax 20% To be entertained 14%

To be informed To be educated

45%

17%

Uncertain 4%

• Requirements of visitors to ancient monuments in Wales (Thomas (1989); Herbert (1989).

Reasons for Visit

• People will seek to identify with some activities and groups, and to distinguish themselves from others (Walsh, 1992). One way of doing this is by the accumulation of 'cultural capital' appropriate to the image or lifestyle with which they wish to identify.

Reasons for Visit

• Museums and heritage sites have high cultural associations and visiting them is linked with being 'cultured'. Thus, Merriman suggests, visiting museums and heritage sites is a way of acquiring cultural capital.

Criticism of Interpretation

• Critics of the heritage industry argue that at many heritage sites and museums the influence of the market has meant that an educational role has been subordinated to entertainment and the satisfaction of visitor expectations (Lumley, 1988; Walsh, 1992).

Criticism of Interpretation

• Increasingly at heritage sites, the interpretation is dominating the resource being interpreted, in contrast with earlier practice, which treated interpretation as secondary. As Stevens (1989, p. 103) noted, 'the media is becoming the message.'

Criticism of Interpretation

• Screven (1986) and Ames (1988, 1989) argued that interpretive media may so overwhelm the message that for visitors the main memory is of the interpretive 'experience' and little more .

• Walsh (1992) suggested that the emphasis on 'media as spectacle' may drown out any educational message.

Criticism of Interpretation

Underpinning these critiques are the assumptions:

• The role of interpretation is education; that this role has been subsumed beneath an emphasis on entertainment, or drowned by overpowering display techniques;

• that education and entertainment are incompatible.

Criticism of Interpretation

• Vergo (1989) suggested that even the most overtly entertainment-oriented presentations will have, in the broadest sense, some educational value, even if it is only the widening of horizons and experiences.

• Instead of being dichotomous it is likely that education and entertainment can be closely linked:

• It is recognized that the educational impact of a presentation can be enhanced if it is entertaining and stimulating (Fleming, 1986; Screven, 1986; Ames, 1989).

Criticism of Interpretation

• Rather than speaking of EDUCATION or ENTERTAINMENT, it may be helpful to talk of the two being intertwined, perhaps as Urry's notion of 'edutainment' (1991, p. 51), a combination of popular education and commercial entertainment which characterizes modern heritage sites.

Criticism of Interpretation

• Ames (1988, 1989) suggested that where the two are combined, entertainment will usually prevail.

• Similarly, Sinks (1986) commented that there is a danger of losing sight of educational objectives which are not always easily defined and measured.

• Many museums may not even try to educate their audiences for they are preoccupied with other concerns, such as making money (Fleming 1986).

Interpretation vs Authenticity

• Various authors (Wright, 1985; Hewison,

1987; Jenkins, 1992; Walsh, 1992) have accused the heritage industry of presenting a superficial, unchallenging and ultimately false version of the past .

• Sites, aiming to ensure visitor satisfaction and market share, are concerned to give their customers what they want; they are disinclined to challenge or disturb them.

Interpretation vs Authenticity

• Hewison (1987) has argued that nostalgia has been central to the rise of the heritage industry, and that an underlying motive for visiting heritage sites is escapism.

• Visitors want a version of the past which conforms to their expectations, this is what the heritage industry sells them (Brigden, 1982; Kavanagh, 1983).

• The pressure of the market is to provide cheap thrills, rather than authoritative interpretation: as a result truth is the casualty (Cossons, 1989).

Interpretation vs Authenticity

• Many heritage sites are presenting a safe, sanitized, easily consumable and uncontentious past, with a strong element of entertainment .

• Hewison's asserts that 'heritage is bogus history', and that 'many of its products are fantasies of a world that never was' (1987, pp. 144, 10).