Tartu
Next is Mary Morbey, speaking on the changes to museum representations through information and communication technologies. She focusses on two iconic national museums: the Louvre in Paris and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. This study is framed by concepts of cybercolonialism and cyberglocalism, and involved theoretical exploration as well as on-site observation and interviews. The key approaches to ICTs are the view of cyberculture as a new frontier in an American tradition, and a kind of techno-orientalism in which the Net replaces other objects so inscribed, and the two sites reflect these respective trends.

The first Hermitage site was developed in 1995, with an updated site released in 1999 in collaboration with IBM (and modelled after the site of the National Gallery in Washington). The development of a site like this can be seen as remediation in a Bolter & Grusin framework, which reframes older media forms as contained in a museum for delivery through the new medium of the Web. Hermitage staff were initially uncritical of this process, but became increasingly uncomfortable with the Western framework which pervades the site. For example, there is an IBM logo on the site (and originally it was on each page in the site) which links to a generic IBM e-business advertisement site - and this business orientation sits oddly with the museum objectives: the museum is commodified and cybercolonised. The 'Russianness' of the museum hardly shines through here. Further, there is a question of reciprocity here: while ICT staff at the museum are excited about using a state-of-the-art Website shell, there are also questions of whether Russian content may be minimised in favour of IBM objectives. IBM can be seen to shape representation, to change ICT uses in viewing content, and to introduce its own language choice and usages, in the process naturalising U.S.-based approaches to ICT in the Russian environment (for example, the English used on the site is American English, on the instigation of IBM, even though the Hermitage's own translation staff work in British English).

By contrast, the Louvre Website can be seen as a case of cyberglocalisation, which was developed as a shared project of Louvre staff and supported by three ICT companies. The site is a cultural medium rather thna a historical tool; it exists in French and English, with Spanish, Japanese, and later Chinese to be added soon. It enables interaction for visitors where they can choose and develop specific tours through the Louvre (and currently the Da Vinci trail is the most popular, for obvious reasons). The space of the site itself resembles the space of the museum. This means that a cyberglobal vision of openness and communication shapes the Louvre Website; it is a cultural medium that engages interactively with French as well as international visitors.

Cultural vs. Rhetorical Influences on Identity Perception

Constance Kampf is the last speaker for this session, wondering if some of the changes made in Website representations are built around cultural or around rhetorical differences. This is particularly important in studying minority Websites, as these also face majority cultural norms while their minority cultural norms may be less developed. Culture is then seen less as a set of established values than a set of behaviours which are also influenced by rhetoric. Culture is an active process of meaning-making, and in that sense is not so different from rhetoric, as it is in the rhetorical situation in which meaning is made.

According to Artistotle, rhetoric is a way of understanding the available means of persuasion, and based on the concept of enthymeme in the same way that logic is based on the syllogism - an enthymeme is a syllogism with unarticulated assumptions, then. Behaviour can be approached from a selection of perspectives: those of the individual, the group, or society overall, and Constance suggests a move from a value-centred model (where cultural values are the central point around which attitudes and beliefs, and then behaviours are located) to a behaviour-centred model, where behaviour is at the intersection of values, of attitudes and beliefs, and of rhetorical ideologies.

Attitude, then, is a predisposition for a preferential response to a given situation: central ideas are situated in ideologies or systems of ideas which influence latitudes of acceptance or rejection on behalf of the audience. Further, ideology, and thus the rhetorical dimension of attitude, overlaps with culture through the concept of identification, and identification is a transformative process, as is intercultural communication.

Through information available on the Web, there is a hope that rhetorical distance, which is situated in ideology, can be overcome. This would mean that the mainstream image of a minority culture would move away from a misidentified stereotype, and closer to a more direct and realistic identification. The next generation of American Indians must finally transcend the barriers of communication and provide sufficient information on Indians so that the next generation of white Americans can have a more appropriate and less stereotyped view of this group, rather than continuing their 'fantasies' of Indians. Constance did a study of Kumeyaay Websites and their development of an identity of their own through such sites (indeed, this nation only adopted the Kumeyaay name, changing to this term from their own language from a previous name in Spanish).

Technorati : CATaC2006, Hermitage, IBM, Louvre, Website, culture, cybercolonialism, cyberglocalism, identity, minorities, museum, rhetoric
Del.icio.us : CATaC2006, Hermitage, IBM, Louvre, Website, culture, cybercolonialism, cyberglocalism, identity, minorities, museum, rhetoric