Communicating heritage in museums: outlook, strategies and challenges through a SWOT analysis

ABSTRACT

In the frame of education and heritage communication, we present an analysis of the museum from a communication theory standpoint. The main purpose of the study is to examine the museum’s communicative function through the people involved in it, the exhibitions, activities undertaken and the users’ perceptions of communication processes. The study design is based on a theory of heritage communication and its application in the museum sphere. A case study methodology was applied, focusing on the Museum of Huelva (Spain) as a socio-educational institution. This led to the design of several information-gathering and analysis instruments based on a table of categories, which provided multiple perspectives and visions of what the museum means in all its aspects. The outcomes point to the formulation of proposals for improvement which address heritage divulgation in the museum from a multidirectional, inclusive, interdisciplinary and holistic perspective, providing a SWOT analysis as synthesis.

KEYWORDS:

• Heritage education
• communication theory
• museums
• social studies education
• symbolic-identity heritage
• critical standpoint

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Myriam José Martín-Cáceres, Assistant Professor of Social Studies Education in University of Huelva (Spain), member of the research group DESYM and Heritage Education and Interpretation Workshop. She has an experience of over 10 years of studies on heritage education, 8 research projects and 25 publications on this topic. She has participated as speakers in various international conferences. You can view information about the work of this author in: https://uhu.academia.edu/MyriamMartin and http://scholar.google.es/citations?user=XZKztH0AAAAJ&hl=es

José María Cuenca-López, Professor of Social Studies Education in University of Huelva (Spain), member of the research group DESYM and Heritage Education and Interpretation Workshop. He has an experience of over 15 years of studies on heritage education, 18 research projects and more of 70 publications on this topic. He has participated as speakers in 30 international conferences. You can view information about the work of this author in: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0190-5739, http://scholar.google.es/citations?user=oemsHesAAAAJ&hl=es, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jose_Lopez55 and https://uhu.academia.edu/jcuenca

ORCID

Myriam José Martín-Cáceres http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1199-3899

José María Cuenca-López http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0190-5739

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Spain, [grant number BSO2003-07573]; and the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain, [grant number EDU 2008-01968], [grant number EDU2011-27835] and [grant number EDU2015-67953P].