Abstract (eng)
Consensus-oriented museum communication (COMC) is aimed at consensus between museums and their communication partners. What is at the core of this theory is that the various aspects of museum communication taken together are expected to lead to consensus. Since visitors neither perceive a museum through one single channel nor see it in relation to its channels but rather grasp it as an entity, museums may avail themselves of different media and access points to achieve this overall experience. COMC as a network of different communication partners and communication platforms creates the basis for establishing museums as important institutions for its communication partners and for fulfilling the social mission assigned to them.
Influenced by the Theory of Communicative Action (Habermas), the consensus-oriented public relations (Burkart) and diverse approaches of the fields of public sphere theories, integrated corporate communications as well as online communi-cation, the following prerequisites of COMC have been worked out: conversational communication, integrated communications, accessibility, and the universal claims. These prerequisites are closely entangled with the qualitative features of COMC which are are trustworthiness, respect, transparency, inclusion, and participation. Based on a qualitative empirical study the appearance of these features and their influence on the operational objectives of COMC—trust, long-term relationships, the museum as a discussion space, and relevance for society—have been evaluated in the case of one state museum.
Ultimately, a holistic overall experience of the museum space, based on trust as well as mutual understanding, is at the focus of COMC and tries to create a space of inclusion and collective knowledge creation, whether all of it is anchored in the real or digital world.