Melissa Bontempo

Online Museum Communities- Challenges and Possibilities Melissa Bontempo

The objective of this study is to determine how museums might incorporate the use of online publishing and communication technologies as a tool to initiate and foster connections with their audiences. This research is designed with the expectation that it will contribute to knowledge regarding how such communication technologies are understood and received. The ultimate goal is to help museums and cultural institutions develop comparable interactive capacities that encourage dialogue and more deeply engage the communities they serve. In this study, a review of literature and extant online communities will be used to inform the development of a prototype online museum community that demonstrates how such an interface might extend an institution's education, public relations, and community outreach capabilities. A refined online museum community prototype based on this research may be of use to museums and cultural organizations aiming to construct an online community environment that both reflects the institution's character and furthers its educational objectives.