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Fall 2021 Panel:
Hosted by the Social Media Narratives Class
A Major Museum’s Social Media A major museum’s social media at this time sits between multiple departments reflecting its importance within the overall structure of the institution and the many demands, needs, and expectations of it. In any given week a museum’s social media will act in roles or perform functions spanning a museum’s departments: Visitor Experience, Interpretation and Learning, Curatorial, Membership, Development, Marketing, and Store. Equally, there are varying definitions of what priorities are, how to communicate them properly for a museum, and what success looks like in terms of each project. With all these directions and varying ideas, museums often struggle with support and alignment around social media approaches, especially with finite resources and staff. The events of the last year, starting with remote work due to COVID creating a sudden and complete shift to digital, to reckoning with racial justice issues, have brought needs for alignment into sharp focus with social media often at the forefront. As the pandemic begins to recede (in North America at least, to a degree) new digital efforts from museums, social responsiveness, and accessibility, are likely to stay, marking some positive outcomes from an otherwise very dark period. However, questions continue to remain and challenge institutions about the multivarious role of social media in the museum: is it an educator? A spokesperson? A marketer? A billboard? A retailer? A personality? How are its priorities and values communicated? And who makes these decisions? |
Panelists
Meredith D. Clark
Shaohua Guo
Mark C. Marino
Jeff Nunokawa
Élika Ortega
Abraham Richie
Katrin Tiidenberg
SAIC ATS Class in Social Media Narrative Host: SAIC ATS Part-time Faculty: Judy Malloy |
Abraham Ritchie is the Social Media Manager at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. He holds a BA in Art History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MA in New Arts Journalism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His views and writing on art has been featured in the Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, Newcity, and others. Abraham has presented his work in social media for the MCA at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Museums, and been part of the host committee for the Museums and Web Conference.