Experiencing the Digital World: The Cultural Value of Digital Engagement with Heritage

Abstract

Since the late 1990s the potential of the digital world for generating new ways of engaging with heritage, broadly defined, has been a key focus of academic work and cultural practice. At times, the emphasis has been on how the internet can provide a "shop window" for the sector, and how this might be translated into physical visits to sites. Elsewhere, scholars have argued that the digital sphere can provide a dynamic space for two-way engagement with heritage culture, aimed at providing a complementary experience to physical visits through a range of phenomena (e.g. user-generated content, online communities, crowdsourcing projects). Questions have also been raised about how to measure the value of this activity and what we mean by value in this context. We bring together literature on digital engagement, interactivity and participation within heritage, case studies of current practice, and a survey of heritage professionals to focus on six key areas: 1. Financial resources2. Relative value of the digital experience3. The location of culture value4. Cultural value and time5. Enhanced value through participation6. Cultural value, space, and placeWe present strategies that heritage organizations of different scales might consider incorporating into new digital resources, while also suggesting further areas for research. Primarily, we suggest that there is substantial untapped potential to better understand the experience of end users by harnessing the vast amount of data that is available within heritage institutions, but which organizations frequently do not have the resources to exploit.