By exhibition media I mean any of the display forms used in an exhibition. These may
include, for example, cased objects, dioramas, display panels, television screens,
interactive computer devices and so forth. As media research has increasingly come to
argue, different media ‘afford’ different kinds of audience relations and may also carry
particular connotations (see, for example, Silverstone 1994a). Some questions about
exhibition media relate to sociality—for example, whether they can be used in
cooperation with others or not. And some raise questions of space—for example,
whether they remain static and have to be moved around or not. These I leave to the
sections below. Here, I address the linked matters of properties of media such as genre,
authority, attention-getting and authenticity