Search results

Despite being the intellectual foundation on which the notion of heritage is built and a critical element in all programmes aimed at heritage protection, interpretation as a concept and practice is not well understood or used.

The paper explores the reasons for and consequences of heritage interpretation as a concept and practice not being well understood using case studies within the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) heritage arena in East Asia.

The paper shows how heritage interpretation impacts both positively and negatively on nation-building within states and the shaping of international relations between states. It identifies heritage interpretation approaches that might help to achieve reconciliation between peoples recently engaged in international conflicts. These concerns are not confined to East Asia but apply across the world.

The discussion draws together the three principal forms of heritage in UNESCO's global project: heritage places, protected under the World Heritage Convention; living or embodied heritage, safeguarded under the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention and documentary heritage preserved under the Memory of the World Program. Suggestions are made as to how the organizations and agencies charged with heritage protection should and could modify their interpretation policies and procedures to help remediate existing negative impacts and avoid creating new tensions in future.

The increasing availability and popularity of ways to capture personal memories using technologies such as digital cameras is beginning to alter the way in which personal memory images are produced, retained and circulated. Unlike the analog technologies, it is now possible to create an immediately available presence on the Internet. When examined from the perspective of voice, this phenomenon expands the potential of creating personal history narratives that could be collated together to produce a non‐institutional history of an era. This paper explores the ways in which the digital technologies can facilitate the production of such histories and what the technologies could do the sense of presence of an individual in the realm of the virtual.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how keeping the records of social networking sites (SNS) communication for secondary analysis institutes a new type of memory practice, one that seeks both to capture shared public memories and form new cultural understandings.

Using a framework of documentary and memory practices the study conducts a qualitative content analysis of SNS communications collected from Facebook, GooglePlus and Twitter during a national event. It combines a content analysis of the communications with the analysis of their materiality and form to investigate potential contributions of SNS to social and cultural memory including their subsequent custodianship.

The study finds that the message architecture and metadata of different social networks is comparable and collectively evidences differing aspects of social events to document their unique discourse. Findings demonstrate the contribution SNS is making to social memory and a framework for understanding how SNS in being incorporated into cultural memory practice is presented.

This is one of the few studies that analyses a range of messages from differing SNS in order to understand their impact on cultural memory and the documentary practices of memory institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the construction of national heritage through the interpretation of sites and events, with a particular focus on hot interpretation at difficult heritage sites. 

This paper examines the processes of difficult heritage interpretation at the Memorial Hall of the Nanjing Massacre over the past 30 years, and examines the resulting political implications.

Aligning with contemporary national social and political agendas, heritage interpretation at the Memorial Hall actively serves as an authorised educational tool. Despite the hot interpretation techniques used to stimulate the emotional impact of visitor experiences, this particular traumatic past has been utilised in nation building practices that legitimise specific histories and form a national image on an international stage.

Heritage interpretation of difficult history will benefit from open dialogue and assessment of the past from multiple perspectives. This requires all stakeholders to work together to develop interpretation strategies that acknowledge and prioritise the needs of post-conflict societies. Without this form of open dialogue and reflection, the official claims of heritage interpretation achieving reconciliation between conflicted peoples remain superficial. 

This study offers a novel contribution to the discussion of heritage interpretation. The results shed light on the cultural processes surrounding state interpretation of traumatic pasts for specific political uses. The study suggests ways in which heritage sectors and authorities can achieve social goals, such as public education, reconciliation and peacebuilding, through such processes of heritage interpretation.

Serbian Generation Z originates from South-east Europe. They are a part of a nation that has always been divided between the East and the West and has experienced a constant transition (economic, cultural and political) for the last couple of decades. In Serbia, Generation Z has been under the same influences as elsewhere in the world – globalisation, technology and rapid development of the Internet have greatly influenced it and it could be said that the influence has not ceased to exist. Nevertheless, apart from the aforementioned, the representatives of the Generation Z in Serbia have faced some additional challenges during their childhood, and this distinguishes them from all the other European representatives of this generation: family (still being the backbone of Serbian society), religion, wars and their collective memory of it, as well as economy-related turbulences. The research presented in this chapter was carried out with a goal to show the attitudes, opinions and characteristics of this generation. The chapter provides not only an insight into the mentioned phenomena but also some recommendations for parents, teachers, companies and politicians, as well as suggestions for future research.

The Russian poet, Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev (1886–1921), was arrested in 1921 on the false charge of conspiracy and was shot. The Soviet Union's existence ended as abruptly and unexpectedly as did Gumilev's. No major political structure in modern history has collapsed so rapidly. Left is the scarred memory of an enormously rich history. Libraries are the souls of memory. Russian libraries face an extremely important role as the skins of the past are shed for a new soul.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse visitor perceptions of the Lincoln Magna Carta exhibition, in the context of an experiential servicescape perspective.

Data come from a questionnaire carried out with visitors to the Magna Carta exhibition in Lincoln Castle, UK. The approach was framed by the student as producer perspective, that is about re‐engineering the relationship between academics and undergraduate students.

It is found that three main problems exist in terms of the servicescape. These are guidance signage, the small, dark inauspicious surroundings of the exhibition itself and the level of visitor interactivity present.

This is only a small‐scale project of one Magna Carta exhibition. Research with more visitors would help to further validate the findings and conclusions of this paper and also assist in other representations of the document in other sites.

Suggestions are made for improvement to a number of experiential servicescape elements. These improved representations also need to be planned for adequately in the new staging of the document, when Lincoln Castle receives planned additional funds from the Heritage Lottery.

This paper draws attention to the fact that the Magna Carta is a shared part of a global cultural identity, where the marketing of the document represents a great privilege.

In this paper, the experiential servicescape framework is used in an original way to critique aspects of the current exhibition and to propose new ideas for representing the Magna Carta. The paper is based on original data that makes a novel contribution to the debate regarding research and learning in higher education.

Experiences of high quality games between top-class sports teams could influence sports fans’ decision to attend the domestic sports games. For example, soccer fans who watched the World Cup games between the best national teams are likely to be disappointed with the performance of their domestic league teams after the World Cup event, while more people might be attracted to watch a soccer game because of their increased interest in soccer games. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the international sports event (i.e. the World Cup) influences the demand of the domestic sports league games in the non-hosting country.

To test these antithetical hypotheses, the authors collect the Chinese Super League game-level data from 2004 to 2011. For analysis, the authors propose two empirical models rigorously developed based on previous sports marketing theories.

The findings are surprising compared to previous studies for the hosting countries or countries that performed spectacularly during the World Cup tournaments. The authors find that the international event negatively influences the attendance of domestic games. Specifically, it gives salience to the competitive quality of a match and helps enhance the impact of star players. Furthermore, the authors find evidence of dynamic effects of the international event.

The study contributes to the previous sports literatures by expanding our understanding of the effect of international sports events. Particularly, the results shed light on international events’ impact on the domestic sports league demand in more general conditions based on its influence on people’s behavior, rather than focusing on the effect caused by facility development or dramatic performance during the international event.

The paper discusses the state of library preservation as the main problem of library management in Russia during the times of transition to digital environments. Today, Russia's extensive library system is undergoing a paradigm change toward the implementation of information technology (IT) to develop public access to information, that is perceived to be vital for the growth of the country. The first principal projects to elevate Russia to the ranks of the technologically advanced started as recently as 1990s, and, although having had some success, the country's digital resources remain grossly inadequate to support the growing public demand for information and education. Despite its state of retardation, the problems of preserving digital sources in Russia are evident to concerned specialists in the fields of informational science and archive work. Although these and other related problems are not addressed widely enough, they have gradually surfaced as an undeniable priority for the international preservation community. There is a promise to continue the necessary training and education that will link the national Russian library system with more collaborative projects and with leading international organizations.