Experiencing the digital world: The cultural value of digital engagement with heritage

Since the late 1990s the potential of the digital world for generating new ways of engaging with heritage, broadly defined, has been a key focus of academic work and cultural practice. At times, the emphasis has been on how the internet can provide a ‘shop window’ for the sector, and how this might be translated into physical visits to sites. Elsewhere, scholars have argued that the digital sphere can provide a dynamic space for two-way engagement with heritage culture, aimed at providing a complementary experience to physical visits through a range of phenomena (e.g. user-generated content, online communities, crowdsourcing projects). Alongside such discussions, questions have also been raised about how to measure the value of this activity and what we mean by value in this context. This paper brings together key literature on digital engagement, interactivity and participation within heritage, case studies of current digital heritage practice, and an online survey of heritage professionals to focus on six key areas: 1. Financial resources 2. Relative value of the digital experience 3. The location of culture value 4. Cultural value and time 5. Enhanced value through participation 6. Cultural value, space and place By exploring these themes we present strategies which heritage organisations of different scales might consider incorporating into new digital resources to enhance their public offering, whilst also suggesting further areas for research. Primarily, we suggest that there is substantial untapped potential to better understand the experience of end users by harnessing the vast amount of data available within heritage institutions, but which organisations frequently do not have the resources to exploit.