Even Better than the Real Thing? Digital Copies and Digital Museums in a Digital Cultural Policy

This article investigates how a digital turn and digital copies have influenced ideas, roles and authorities within a national museum sector. It asks whether digital mu-seums and their digital reproductions expand and/or challenge a traditional cul-tural policy. Two specific cases are highlighted to...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ole Marius Hylland
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Linköping University Electronic Press 2017-09-01
Series:Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journal.ep.liu.se/test3212/index.php/CU/article/view/103
Description
Summary:This article investigates how a digital turn and digital copies have influenced ideas, roles and authorities within a national museum sector. It asks whether digital mu-seums and their digital reproductions expand and/or challenge a traditional cul-tural policy. Two specific cases are highlighted to inform the discussion on these questions – the Norwegian digital museum platform DigitaltMuseum and Google Art Project. The article argues that there is a certain epochalism at play when the impact of a digital turn is analysed. At the same time, some clear major changes are taking place, even if their impact on cultural policies might be less than expec-ted. I propose that one of the changes is the replacing of authenticity with accessi-bility as the primary legitimating value of museum objects.
ISSN:2000-1525