Social Media as Contact Zone: Networked communities and art gallery communication


(diagram by Julian Hartley)

Julian Hartley is a PhD student at the Centre for Museology, University of Manchester doing a practice-based PhD on the relation between people’s use of social/participatory media and the production of associations and meanings around content of the Whitworth Art Gallery (WAG). Julian aims to investigate the processes for producing social places where cultures meet, clash, and grapple’ (Pratt, M. 1991. ‘Arts of the Contact Zone’. Profession 91: 33–40, p. 33), a ‘contact zone’ where the WAG and online networks interact in reciprocal communication.

Find out more about Julian’s research on his reflexive research blog ‘Me, art gallery and others