Heritage encounters on social network sites, and the affiliative power of objects

[Introduction] 

What is happening with museums and cultural heritage on Facebook? How do social network sites mediate between the ‘unassailable voice’ of cultural heritage institutions (Walsh 1997) and the polyphonic and dissonant views of source communities, amateurs, and publics? Which powers does tangible cultural heritage hold within the disembodied, intangible realm of social network sites, at our postmodern  time when the primacy of objects as reliable carriers of significance is challenged (Bal 2003; Hein 2007; Conn 2010)? What kinds of identities are constructed in the encounters of diverse communities with different kinds of “objects” in the pervasive, non-custodial environment of social network sites, or “in the wild”?

Drawing from Greek Facebook sites, the “exhibits” opening our investigation offer evidence of the diversity of encounters with tangible and visual cultural heritage as it is manifested in archaeological monuments, historic places, artworks, artefacts, and photographs, as well as in the activities of institutions that act as its custodians, gatekeepers and communicators of cultural heritage, such as museums...