Summary
For this study, I propose to investigate virtual museums that use technologies such as video immersion and touch screens. I want to examine the effects of immersive versus interactive exhibitions on the viewers. The model informing this research design is the interpretive paradigm. I propose that the most paradigmatically appropriate theories for approaching this inquiry are social presence and experience economy. Accordingly, this research proposal offers a detailed description of the research site, context, paradigmatic focus, methods, theories, and scope and limitations of the proposed research. I believe that this study will promote an understanding of the potential of interactive and immersive exhibits to stimulate museum attendance and improve engagement with art.
Site
Museums have shown a remarkable ability to digitize their services despite being a haven of relics. This digital revolution has recently been epitomized through the creation of a specialized exhibition genre characterized by immersive and interactive technology that creates an illusion of time and space. Essentially, an immersive exhibition represents the fundamental features of a reference world and simultaneously integrates the viewer in this three-dimensionally multi-sensory environment. The goal is to absorb the attendee in a surrounding that feels real, intimate, and happening in real-time. A critical part of this immersion process is viewer participation. Museums make exhibits interactive by allowing their guests to engage actively with the displayed items and activities through hands-on experience. Artists now use augmented reality, virtual reality, sound technologies and other new media processes to wrap and make viewers more engaged.
Context
Museums’ power and continued relevance hinges largely on their ability to inspire and educate their attendees. Inspiration and learning can arguably be achieved effectively if an exhibition triggers dialogue. In other words, museums are active learning spaces, but they can only serve this role by adopting a more audience-centered approach. This study will provide important insights regarding whether these digital exhibition genres could also help museums minimize many physical and regulatory barriers to attending an exhibition. This knowledge is crucial as a foundation for navigating existing or future barriers to physical attendance. Overall, this research aims to deepen understanding regarding how immersive and interactive exhibitions could increase attendance and make a museum experience more intimate, personal, memorable, and inspire debate.
Paradigmatic Focus
Given its suitable ontological, epistemological, and axiological focus, an interpretive paradigm is proposed as the basis for this study. Ontologically, the interpretive paradigm considers the researcher and reality to be inseparable. Inferably, the person investigating how virtual museums affect viewers has preexisting knowledge regarding the technology and its use in the exhibition space. The inquiry hopes to answer one central question: How do immersive and interactive exhibitions affect museum attendees? By its nature, this question can be answered effectively by exploiting the epistemological perspective of interpretive paradigm, which views knowledge as subject to abstract description of meanings, drawn from people’s experiences.
A typical museum draws an audience from a diverse background, whose experiences of the virtual museum are further influenced by their social backgrounds. The axiological leaning of interpretivism also makes it desirable because it binds the subjective research, reflection, and interpretations to specific values. Indeed, the interpretive paradigm emerges as relevant in the proposed study because it will allow the researcher the liberty to ethically collect, analyze, and interpret how viewers experience immersive and interactive exhibitions from the varying perspectives of those audiences.
Methods
The proposed study will use different qualitative research methods to understand how immersive and interactive museums affect their respective viewers. These research approaches are discussed below.
Interpretive Phenomenology
This approach is deemed necessary because it recognizes the reality that a researcher is a part of the research process, and it is impossible for them to bracket their prior knowledge and experiences regarding the subject matter. The phenomenology approach will thus allow the investigator to employ in-depth interviews to uncover the meanings and interpretations museum attendees make of their immersive and interactive exhibition experiences. This way, the researcher may be successful in understanding the whole viewer, rather than just the specific circumstance(s) that underpinned their choice to use a virtual museum.
Ethnography
The proposed study will also utilize ethnographic research methods. This methodological choice is informed by the understanding that museum goers are defined by a certain culture. Understanding shared beliefs, behaviors, customs, and norms among a given group of viewers could help the researcher understand how the audience behave in response to immersive and interactive exhibitions. The proposed study will thus involve observing attendees in the natural museum setting as they use immersive and interactive technology. Observation would enable the researcher to understand the economic, political, psychological, and social factors that influence virtual museum attendees and how they function.
Case Studies
The proposed study will also use case studies to answer the research question. This approach is deemed necessary because of the multiple parts of the research problem. Notably, the study seeks to understand how immersive museums compare to interactive exhibitions in terms of their effects on viewers. Case studies will allow the researcher to identify and examine different respondents’ perceptions of one type of exhibition before moving to another. Additionally, it will allow the flexibility to decide the mix of data gathering approach, exhibition technology, or theories to focus on while interacting with the participants or relevant museum data.
Theory
The information the proposed study will yield will be examined through the lenses of two theories. The first concept will be the social presence, which articulates the relationship between the quantity of living or synthetic beings existing in a media and its degree of social presence. This theory will help the researcher interpret the subjective experiences of the respondents regarding how the ability of immersive and interactive technology to manipulate their social environment affects their experience.