{"id":5745,"date":"2026-04-27T09:08:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T07:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hacnumedia.org\/?p=5745"},"modified":"2026-04-14T13:25:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T11:25:56","slug":"digital-mediation-in-museums-a-widespread-yet-understudied-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hacnumedia.org\/en\/digital-mediation-in-museums-a-widespread-yet-understudied-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Mediation in Museums: A Widespread Yet Understudied Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

More than 250 pages and around thirty institutions and experts interviewed. With its study on digital mediation in museums published in January 2026, the cultural agency Correspondances Digitales makes a strong statement. Here are the key takeaways. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

After gaining major visibility during the COVID-19 crisis, where does digital mediation stand today? At a time when eco-responsibility has become essential for museums, how sustainable is digital technology? And as public funding for museums declines, is digital deployment still a priority? Against this backdrop of overlapping \u201cpolycrises,\u201d Antoine Roland, founder of the cultural agency Correspondances Digitales, launched a large-scale study on the sustainability of digital mediation in museums<\/a>, under the scientific direction of Olivier A\u00efm<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

The study was commissioned by the Heritage Observatory at Sorbonne University and serves as the inaugural research project for its Opus Source think tank<\/a>. Antoine Roland and his team (Sofia Saa<\/a>, Vincent Mathiot<\/a>, Charlotte Baug\u00e9<\/a>) met with about twenty museum professionals. \u201cWe spoke with leading professionals representing a diversity of regions, institutional scales, governance models, and collections,\u201d the expert explained in an interview. The research also drew on about ten interviews with representatives from professional networks such as OCIM<\/a>, AGCPPF<\/a>, ICOM<\/a>, as well as France\u2019s Ministries of the Armed Forces and Culture and several regional cultural agencies (DRAC).These interviews were further enriched by insights from four academic researchers: information and communication sciences scholar Jessica de Bideran<\/a>; museum management specialist Fran\u00e7ois Mairesse<\/a>; computer scientist and archival digitization expert Bruno Bachimont<\/a>; and information and communication scholar \u00c9va Sandri<\/a>, who provided what Antoine Roland describes as \u201ca more technocritical perspective on the pressures driven by digital technology.\u201d Together, these contributions build as comprehensive a picture as possible, mapping current initiatives before analyzing their long-term sustainability. <\/p>\n\n

Classifying Forms of Digital Mediation<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

The first section of the study focuses on a panorama of in-gallery digital<\/a> offerings. \u201cDepending on the type of museum, the approaches vary widely,\u201d Antoine Roland explains. \u201cAvailable resources\u2014especially staff capacity\u2014as well as funding mechanisms such as sponsorship or co-production differ significantly from one institution to another.\u201dWith this baseline established, the innovation expert develops a classification of digital mediation initiatives. Depending on how it is used, digital mediation can function as a visitor welcome and guidance tool; extend access to additional resources, particularly to overcome spatial constraints; explain complex phenomena or recontextualize objects; reconstruct artifacts in their original context; create playful interactions with visitors; or offer multisensory experiences. \u201cHow do we recreate the smells of the 17th century? Or conduct sound archaeology by restoring lost sounds?\u201d Antoine Roland asks. One example is Odeuropa<\/a>, a European project dedicated to collecting digital data on our olfactory heritage. The Mus\u00e9e du Quai Branly, meanwhile, has designed a sound-based visitor pathway<\/a> to add an additional layer of meaning to its collections. <\/p>\n\n

Digital tools can also be used to personalize visitor journeys based on available preference data. However, Roland expresses reservations about this approach. \u201cIt undermines cultural democratization. If visitors are only given what they already expect, it raises questions about the role of museums.\u201d Virtual reality, he adds, sometimes leans more toward artistic creation than mediation. \u201cIt can, for instance, involve an artist\u2019s immersive interpretation of a work,\u201d he notes\u2014such as the immersive project Obsession des Nymph\u00e9as<\/a>, developed in 2018. <\/p>\n\n

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