A conceptual framework for audio-visual museum media

In today's history museums, the past is communicated through many other means than original artefacts. This interdisciplinary and theoretical article suggests a new approach to studying the use of audio-visual media, such as film, video and related media types, in a museum context. The centre of interest is how history and authenticity is mediated at history museums and how museum visitors perceive this use. In this article, focus is moved away from technology and specific types of installations to concentrate on what museums do with technology. Building on disciplines such as media science and museum studies, existing case studies, and real life observations, the suggested framework instead stress particular characteristics of contextual use of audio-visual media in history museums, such as authenticity, virtuality, interativity, social context and spatial attributes of the communication design.