Social media, participatory design and cultural engagement

Abstract

This paper reports on the application of Participatory Design methodology to an experiment in social media production. Staff at the Australian Museum are developing new content genres, creative tools and techniques in order to produce original cultural multimedia based on - or inspired by - the Museum's extensive collections. The ultimate aim of the project is for the Museum to act as a social media hub for external communities of interest to co-create their own narrative-based interpretations of the Museum's content, leading to an individualized cultural experience for physical and online visitors alike. A participatory content creation method has been developed for this project, which features iterative design cycles marked by social prototyping, evaluation and strategic formulation. These cycles are repeated until desired performance is achieved.