Towards Inclusive Digital Museum Innovation

Towards Inclusive Digital Museum Innovation is a cross-disciplinary research network primarily between the UK and South Korea exploring inclusive approaches to the digital transformation of arts and heritage organisations.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected our lives in many ways, including how we learn about new things and how we choose to spend our leisure time. Digital leisure, like digital games, has diversified and attracted more players during times of social distancing, with benefits for their mental health and well-being (Barr & Copeland-Stewart 2021). Museums that have vastly expanded digital programmes for the public over the last three decades have further accelerated digital approaches to engaging remote audiences. In a post-pandemic society, digital has become the default even for our leisure.

This project connecting the UK's world-leading academic museum studies at UCL IoA and South Korea's outstanding strengths in the digital sector and game studies at KAIST GSCT, offers a unique platform for museum professionals to reflect on the distribution of digital resources, exchange knowledge and experiences of current digital practices in the museum sector, and review their digital strategies and development plans to contribute to further equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in society.

Although emerging digital technologies (e.g. AI, ML, VR/AR, robotics) have created exciting opportunities for museums, it is undeniable that neither museums nor technologies are neutral. We have already noticed the increasing social awareness of historical and cultural biases in museums, as well as of the technological and human biases in digital technologies and the digital industry. Certain groups of people in our society have been left behind by digital innovation. Digital inequality is a valid concern across the world. Digital ethics must not, therefore, be overlooked when discussing digital transformations of museums and developing new digital initiatives. Digital inclusion is not something to check at the end of the digital development process, it should be an integral part of that process from the initial planning stages on. Otherwise, digital methods will only amplify the inherent biases of museums while perpetuating the exclusion of underrepresented groups in society, for example, people with disabilities and people with marginalised ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

This project provides opportunities for museums to look at their digital initiatives and discuss practical actions to take to implement inclusion in digitally enhanced ways. Over 18 months, museum professionals, academics, activists, and social enterprises will join the network for a series of thematic workshops exploring the three key themes, namely Technology, Culture & Ethics, the Digital Divide, and Inclusive Technology. Public engagement events online, including casual talks will provide further opportunities for different stakeholders to take part in fruitful discussions. A final international conference in London open to the wider public will share the accumulated knowledge and examples of digital museum innovation. A website built for the project will be used to form a community of practice (Wenger, 1998) regarding inclusive digital museum innovation, facilitating the knowledge exchange that is the foundation for the development of a joint research proposal between UCL IoA and KAIST GSCT.

This project takes advantage of the two countries' strengths in digital innovation and their cultural and creative industries to make not only an academic contribution to the identification and development of themes and topics around digital inequality and the social responsibility of museums in the digital age, but also practical contributions to museums and other collecting institutions.