Museum Exhibitions, Cultural Heritage and Visitors : A communication study on visitors’ experience in the context of museum exhibitions using the Raffles exhibition at the British Museum

Abstract: This thesis is a study of how communication takes place in museum exhibitions. The curatorial teams send themessages and the visitors are the receivers. The author uses the British Museum’s free admission special exhibition, Sir Stamford Raffles: collecting in Southeast Asia 1811-1824, as the case study. The study is done through visitor surveys and interviews with British Museum staff and its visitors. The author has also studied museological literatureand theories to strengthen and have a closer understanding of the topics and themes brought up in the study. The study and discussion on politics and identities in cultural heritage have been addressed in previous studies and so has researches on visitors’ behaviours when visiting museums and/or galleries. With the review on previous studies and the survey and interview research model, this study examines the communication flow in museum exhibitions. In interviews with the curator and the head of interpretation of the exhibition, challenges and thoughts about the process of designing the exhibition are presented. With the comparison with the results from the visitor survey, the author can then compares the results from both parties and echo with the research question of the thesis, on how communication takes place in museum exhibitions; between senders and receivers. This research is not meant to be a decider that makes a statement that all exhibitions fit this framework, but rather be considered as a model that future designers can take into consideration when planning for an exhibition. This is a two-year master’s thesis in cultural heritage and sustainability.