Communicating Cultural Heritage: The Role of New Media
Large museums try to make extensive use of new media to communicate with their public, but with only limited success. Apart from providing practical information about hours, locations, and shows, museum websites chiefly serve the needs of experts, and do little to prepare ordinary museum-goers for their visits. In this talk, I will report on research done in collaboration with the Roman Forum, the Galleria Borghese, and the Palazzo Barbarini in Rome and the archaeological site of Pompei, and in particular on a study of visitors to the Vatican Museums.
Francesco Antinucci is Director of Research at the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology of the National Research Council (CNR) of Italy. His research interests have been centered on perception, reasoning, and learning: their development in infancy and their evolution in phylogeny and primate psychology. In recent years his research has centered on the interaction between cognitive processes and the new interactive technologies of multimedia, digital networking, and virtual reality, and particularly in the use of technology to communicate cultural heritage in museums and archaeological sites.