Category: Interpretation

The uses and limitations of target audiences and segmentation

Target audiences are meant to do two things: guide our practice as we become more visitor focused, and increase visitor numbers. I’ve come to believe that in both areas, target audiences actually do more harm than good – at least the way we’re currently using them. In general, audiences are segmented by the following: age, … Continue reading The uses and limitations of target audiences and segmentation →

Commemorating the First World War: A delicate balancing act

Last week the media and Twitter were full of news about the impending centenary of the start of the First World War - including images of exhibits and, yes, ‘reenactors’. When I saw what I believed to be ‘yet another WWI image’ I was just about to switch off mentally, when with a start I … Continue reading Commemorating the First World War: A delicate balancing act →

The moral obligation of interpretation

In Britain, we’re experiencing interesting social and political times at the moment [1], which raises the question again what role museums, heritage sites and by extension, interpretation should play in response to this [2] – if any. I’ve argued previously that it is a dangerous myth to think especially of museums as apolitical spaces – … Continue reading The moral obligation of interpretation →

Heritage and Healthy Societies Conference: Impressions

I spent last week at the Heritage and Healthy Societies Conference, hosted by the Center for Heritage & Society at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I tend to go to practitioners’ conferences, so this was great with its mostly academic focus on research. Here are a few impressions I brought home with me [1]: The … Continue reading Heritage and Healthy Societies Conference: Impressions →

Interpreting Country Estates: Somewhere between heritage and aesthetic

I outed myself at work this week when I declared that I actually don’t want any interpretation at a lot of the National Trust-style country estates. We were talking about places that have no other story than one family’s wealth and privilege. The new-ish trend has been for a few years now to explore the … Continue reading Interpreting Country Estates: Somewhere between heritage and aesthetic →

Interpretation and Journeys Into the Past

According to my visitor interviews to date [1], the key benefits visitors get from visiting a heritage site are ‘being in the place where history happened’, ‘imagining what it was like’, and ‘[expressing] national or personal identity’[2]. This made me think of the title of David Lowenthal’s book: The Past is a Foreign Country [3]. … Continue reading Interpretation and Journeys Into the Past →

Why We Need Good Interpretive Planning Processes

Two things recently have made me think again about what should be included in a ‘good’ interpretive planning process.  One was hearing at a meeting that first should come the decisions about the content, and then we’ll ‘add on’ the interpretation, suggesting an understanding of interpretation as, well, an add-on, a media solution. The other … Continue reading Why We Need Good Interpretive Planning Processes →

Are we inclusively excluding people from museums and heritage sites?

I’ve recently read English Heritage’s consultation on under-represented heritages [1] and it got me thinking, yet again, about target audiences. Here are some of the points that struck a chord with me: We don’t want [insert under-represented heritage here] sites In fact, one respondent called this idea ‘horrible’ (p. 10).  In other words, they didn’t … Continue reading Are we inclusively excluding people from museums and heritage sites? →