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CULTURE and culture at the Royal Ontario Museum: Anthropology Meets Marketing, Part 1
Author(s) -
McCracken Grant
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
curator: the museum journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.312
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 2151-6952
pISSN - 0011-3069
DOI - 10.1111/j.2151-6952.2003.tb00084.x
Subject(s) - ethnography , perspective (graphical) , sociology , anthropology , culture change , consumer culture , media studies , art , advertising , visual arts , business
ABSTRACT The museum in the contemporary era imports from the nineteenth century a venerable idea: that the first responsibility of a public art museum is to enlighten and improve its visitors, morally, socially, and politically. Yet visitors often seem to have arrived from another planet, bringing with them their own cultural meanings and agendas. A series of two articles presents ethnographic data, anthropological analysis, and a marketing perspective to suggest why the visitors' points of view may seem vertiginously strange to museum personnel. This article, Part One, characterizes the conflict between host and guest as the outcome of two competing models of culture: “preferment” and “transformation.” In a subsequent issue of Curator , Part Two will examine the influence of consumer culture on these models, and offer strategies for rapprochement.