THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS

NEW MEDIA, THE PRESS, AND THE MUSEUM

A symposium at the University of British Columbia (UBC), May 2-3, 2008. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Co-sponsors: The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation The Museum of Anthropology The Liu Institute for Global Issues The Association for Canadian Studies Co-Chairs: Mike Ananny (Stanford University, Trudeau Scholar), Kate Hennessy (University of British Columbia, Trudeau Scholar)

ABSTRACT [Complete description] Successful public institutions reflect their communities' moral tensions.  That is, they serve their societies most effectively and humanely when they have the creative capacity to break away from the administrative application of policies and traditions, and instead publicly imagine and realize new social arrangements.  They take risks, invent programs, challenge constituents and – mostly importantly – find ways to ensure that they remain dynamic and responsive to the publics they serve. Today we can see such dynamics in how two public cultural institutions – The Press and The Museum – adopt and adapt new media.  Both institutions have historically shaped and reflected our collective identities with journalists and curators telling us what's new, what's old and why it matters.  Increasingly, though, new media are challenging these dynamics – radically redefining how “experts” tell “us” what's “new”, what's “old” and what's meaningful as public consultations are replaced with collaborative, technology-supported practices. This symposium asks what kind of social arrangements emerge from such practices, what values they instantiate, what power constituencies have to influence professional traditions, and what elements of such traditions we want and need to survive the contemporary challenges of new media.  The Press, The Museum and their engagement with New Media are, in essence, generative case studies that let us better understand how to reconcile professional expertise and public participation.  By creating institutions that balance such tensions we might ensure that we – both representatives of public culture and their increasingly empowered constituents – have the critical and creative capacities we need to realize the practices and technologies that reflect our imagined societies.