The essential role of communication and education in museums for social transformation

Museums are facing a new reality that requires them to break the paradigm in their educational and communicative functions of heritage. The reality of the planet with its environmental crises, the struggles for gender equality and age non-discrimination, as well as the empowerment of audiences thanks to social networks, are an action that requires a new way of facing the demands of museum audiences.

When in 2022, in Prague, the museums of the world met to redefine their own concept at the general assembly of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), they did so with the conviction that the time has come to assume the changes that society expects. Gone are the days of institutions that were only dedicated to collecting, conserving, exhibiting and interpreting the world's heritage. Today's museums are committed to strengthening their relationships with their different stakeholders. Promoting inclusion, equity, diversity and, above all, museum sustainability requires not only a comprehensive vision of the importance of museums, but also a leadership that successfully addresses these needs.

Museums must strengthen their educational actions, not only those linked to the knowledge of the exhibitions they open in their spaces, but also take advantage of this context to become protagonists of the need to promote a change in citizen awareness on issues such as responsible consumption and the problem of climate change, as well as to generate a social transformation in the approach and discussion of this new reality. Strengthen awareness-raising initiatives with equally powerful communication strategies that, on the one hand, ensure institutional transparency that continues to offer museum audiences the assurance that these institutions are safely guarding the heritage of all. And, on the other, to generate relations of interaction with audiences, inviting them to actively participate in museum processes, to make them their own and to feel, more and more, that museums listen to them and attend to their needs for culture, art, education and information.

Because museums, as social entities, are truly transformative, and along this path we want to invite researchers who wish to address communication and education in museums in a broad and interdisciplinary way and reveal how these museum functions become the driving force of social change. The suggested topics to be addressed, but not limited to these, are:

● Tools to overcome age barriers in the museum's technological exhibition initiatives

● Digital communication as an instrument to extend the museum's expository and awareness-raising narratives

● Museum stores and their role in raising visitor awareness of the planet's environmental problems

● The generation of edutainment resources in museums

● Video games as elements of interaction with new and old audiences

● Museums and sustainability: Social change promoted from the communication and educational areas

● The decolonization of museums: the role of strategic communication.

 

Language of submission and publication: English and Spanish

Authors can see the submission guidelines and recommendations in this link: 

https://edulab.es/revEDU/about/submissions