"Išmemorialinti", uždaryti ar palikti: Venclovų namų-muziejaus veikimas interneto erdvėje

LTVenclovų namai-muziejus – bene daugiausiai diskusijų Lietuvoje sulaukiantis muziejus. Ne tik aptariama muziejaus veikla ir jame saugomo rinkinio muziejinė komunikacija, bet kvestionuojamas ir pats tokio muziejaus reikalingumas, apskritai vertė šiuolaikinei visuomenei. 2022 m. vasario – kovo mėnesiais atliktas Venclovų namų-muziejaus veikimo interneto erdvėje tyrimas atskleidžia pagrindines su muziejaus komunikacija susijusias ir diskusijų keliančias problemas, kaip kultūros paveldo komunikacijos erdvės, komunikacines klaidas. Atliekant analizę pateikiamos šiuo metu pasaulyje aktyviai vykstančio muziejų ekspozicijų ir komunikacijos dekolonizacijos proceso bei nustatytų esminių Venclovų namų-muziejaus komunikacinių klaidų bei jų priežasčių paralelės. Tyrimas apima muziejaus veikimo internete semantinę analizę, socialiniame tinkle „Facebook“ kylančių diskusijų ir iš dalies struktūruotų interviu su diskusijų dalyviais kokybinę turinio analizę. Pagrindiniai žodžiai: komunikacija, kultūros paveldas, muziejų dekolonizacija, muziejus, Venclovų namai-muziejus. [Iš leidinio]

ENAfter the restoration of independence in 1990, Lithuania faced political, economic, social and innovation transformations that took the country from being a post-Soviet republic to a full member of the European Union. At the same time, society faced many challenges (globalisation, the development of information and communication technologies, migration, demographic changes), which, according to some sociologists, allow us to talk about the formation of a digital culture and network society (Castells, 2005; van Dijk, 2006). Therefore, when examining the operation of the museum nowadays, we should pay attention not only to the institutional development of museums, but also to the contexts of technological development and social change in society. These contexts allow us to talk about a change in communication in the museum sector, when the communication of the natural and cultural heritage becomes the main function of a museum, giving meaning to other functions (the collection, research and preservation of the heritage). This encourages a rethink of the activities of the museum by highlighting their communicative importance and strengthening aspects of the museum’s active operation in society. This research takes a theoretical approach that is typical of communication and information sciences, and allows a museum to be perceived as an institutionalised heritage communication space (Šermukšnytė et al., 2019). Through communication, the knowledge of historical science and the heritage are ‘presented and begin to function not only as ‘objects from the past’ or ‘representatives of information about the past’, but as elements of the present leisure culture, creative industries and tools for identity construction, political communication, information wars, etc. The object of this study is the Venclova House-Museum.In recent years, the museum’s activities, the narrative of the exhibition and its public communication have received criticism, often relating to the circumstances of the museum’s founding. The aim of the study is to analyse how the Venclova House-Museum, as a heritage communication institution, functions in the digital space, which is an integral part of museum communication in the network society. So far, the Venclova House-Museum has been analysed fragmentarily in several different studies; however, the museum’s communication in the digital space has not been explored. The main methodology of the study focuses on identifying and interpreting the results of the museum’s online activities and related trends. From the point of view of communication science, the outcome of a museum’s activities is the impact on the target audience, which is why the study uses the methodological approaches of quality in use and visitor experience. The research methodology includes four strands of analysis: (I) the visibility of the museum on the internet; (II) the museum’s communication on Facebook; (III) discussions about Vilnius museums on Facebook; and (IV) semi-structured interviews with active participants in discussions about their experience with the museum under analysis. The research process consists of two parts: the collection of empirical data, which led to the compilation of the dataset; and the analysis of the data collected. Data on the Internet and social networks is collected using the museum’s official name and specific key words and queries. In the study, Facebook was chosen as the most popular social network in Lithuania, and the main communication tool of the Venclova House-Museum on social platforms.For collecting and preserving data on the museum’s online visibility, the following actions were carried out: (I) a study of the museum’s online visibility was carried out using the Google Trends tool; and (II) a study of the museum’s online visibility was carried out using the SEMRUSH tool. The following steps were carried out to collect and preserve data on the museum’s Facebook activity and discussions: (I) the manual collection of Facebook data from open profiles, groups and pages using Facebook search and the Google search engine; (II) the identification of people to be interviewed by combining a lexical analysis of Facebook content and the ‘snowball’ method; (III) the timing of remote interviews, informing interviewees about the research, and the objectives of the interviews, in accordance with the principles of research ethics; (IV) conducting semi-structured interviews remotely; and (V) transcribing interview recordings and importing the text files into MaxQDA. The analysis of the Facebook and interview data was carried out using a qualitative content analysis approach and MaxQDA software. The study of the online visibility of Vilnius museums allowed the identification of three different models of their communication in the digital space: (I) small museums with strong internal links and relatively closed communities, not oriented towards mass visitors; (II) museums oriented towards mass visitors, with a model of operation similar to republican and national museums in Lithuania, which make a great effort to mobilise large, open communities; and (III) mixed museums, closer to the first group (community museums) on some variables, and to the second group (mass-visitor oriented) on others. The communicative functioning of the Venclova House-Museum corresponds to the third model. [...] Keywords: communication, cultural heritage, decolonisation of museums, museum, Venclova House-Museum. [From the publication]

• Naratyvų labirintuose: Lietuvos ir Ukrainos muziejų patirtys / Rūta Šermukšnytė, Vasilis Banachas, Ivanas Choma, Irina Hnidik, Serhijus Koniuchovas, Salvijus Kulevičius, Julija Kurdina, Romanas Kuzminas, Rimvydas Laužikas, Jaroslavas Lisejko, Polina Verbicka, Odeta Žukauskienė. Vilnius : Vilniaus universiteto leidykla, 2019. 213 p.
• Tarybinių laikų ir tarybinių rašytojų įmuziejinimo paradigmos / Nastazija Keršytė. Atminties institucijų rinkiniai / sudarytojas Arvydas Pacevičius. Vilnius: Vilniaus universitetas, 2012. P. 237-254.