Major museums worldwide are starting to use social media such as blogs, podcasts and content shares to engage users via participatory communication. 1 This marks a shift in how museums publicly communicate their role as custodians of cultural content and so presents debate around an institution's attitude towards cultural authority. It also signifies a new possible direction for museum learning. This article reports on a range of initiatives that demonstrate how participatory communication via social media can be integrated into museum practices. It argues that the social media space presents an ideal opportunity for museums to build online communities of interest around authentic cultural information, and concludes with some recent findings on and recommendations for social media implementation. • • • • • Towards Participatory CommunicationMuseums are increasingly open to cultural diversity, local knowledge, and popular memory. Social constructivist approaches to communication have helped museums to connect with the memories, identities, and understandings that visitors bring with them (Hein 1998; Watkins and Mortimore 1999). The same approaches have enabled the deconstruction of grand narratives and have affi rmed the role of audiences in social learning. These debates have tapped a form of community intelligence and have created

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Museums present different contexts for learning, particularly when compared with places such as schools, universities and libraries. They have been described as freechoice learning environments visited by a broad range of people. Museums have the opportunity to shape identities -through access to objects, knowledge and information visitors see themselves and their culture reflected in ways that encourage new connections, meaning making and learning. However, across the world museums are finding themselves competing with other leisure and learning experiences in an increasingly global world. The long history of audience research in the cultural sector demonstrates the interest museums have had in their visitors over time. This paper outlines the development of audience research in museums, the context within which it operates, and describes the processes of audience research through a series of case studies drawn from the work of the Australian Museum Audience Research Centre. It is argued that the shift in museums from mission-led program development to balancing content and audience needs through a transaction approach requires a broader research-focused agenda. While traditional ways of conducting evaluations are necessary and useful, to remain viable audience research needs to be more strategic, working across the sector in new ways and utilising new methods. How programs impact on users and facilitate learning about a wide range of key issues that museums are concerned with is a leadership role that audience research can take across both the cultural sector and other free-choice learning contexts. To achieve this, a communities of practice approach is suggested as a potential framework for audience research in the contemporary museum.

George Brown Goode, a former Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian in the late 1880s, said that the nature of museum work is not only knowledge creation, but also knowledge dissemination, and, ultimately, learning: ''The museum likewise must, in order to perform its proper functions, contribute to the advancement of learning through the increase as well as through the diffusion of knowledge'' (1991, 337). Elaine Heumann Gurian noted that: ''The use of the Internet will inevitably change museums. How museums respond to multiple sources of information found on the Web and who on staff will be responsible for orchestrating this change is not yet clear. The change, when it comes, will not be merely technological but at its core philosophical' ' (2010, 95). The catalyst for this change-and for accelerating the pace of change-is Web 2.0.

Social media such as blogs, wikis and digital stories facilitate knowledge exchange through social networking. Such media create a new forum within which dispersed audiences - including youth, regional and rural communities - can engage with museums to actively debate notions of identity, and voice these reflections online. Social media can impact on formal and informal learning within the museum and the effect that this may have on notions of cultural identity. This represents a shift in the ways in which museums: act as trusted cultural online networks;distribute community knowledge; andview their role as custodians of cultural content.Museum communication systems such as exhibitions, public programs, outreach and education seek to provide complex cultural interactive experiences. Social media challenge existing communication models, and few museums have clear strategies for engaging communities in content creation. This paper will investigate some of the issues surrounding the use of social media in museum programs and will argue that there are strong epistemological reasons for using social media to add value to museum programs.