Museums on the Internet in response to the „culture shock” of the COVID-19 pandemic Cover Image

Muzea w internecie w odpowiedzi na „kulturowy szok” pandemii COVID-19
Museums on the Internet in response to the „culture shock” of the COVID-19 pandemic

Author(s): Mateusz Maria Bieczyński
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Museology & Heritage Studies, Media studies, Library and Information Science, Archiving, Preservation, Communication studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: museology; COVID 19; digitization; art on the web

Summary/Abstract: The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the cultural sector worldwide has been severe. From the beginning, it became clear that the changes resulting from the restrictions would not be without an impact on the operations of museums and galleries. According to UNESCO’s May 2020 projections, 10% of the museums affected by the pandemic were not expected to reopen. This included a huge number of 8,550 museums that might never open. The collision of cultural institutions with the new reality was described as “dramatic” and called a “culture shock.” Museums had to react quickly to the unexpected. Covid-19 highlighted many organizational and infrastructural weaknesses throughout the sector. One of them was the absence or only a small presence of museums on the Internet. Meanwhile, it was the Internet that, in the face of the “forced closure” of public buildings, became the only possible channel to maintain the continuity of the business of making collections public. As a result of the transformation of many previously planned cultural events into their virtual versions, the digital transit of museums seems to be the main effect of the pandemic’s impact on museum institutions in the field of their cultural activities.

  • Issue Year: 2023
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 121-144
  • Page Count: 24
  • Language: Polish