Is authenticity more important for heritage site, museum and local environment visitation (physical and social), or, are most people and certain demographics equally satisfied with artificial replications and online images, videos, and abbreviated texts?
Are personally posted images and videos of museum collections, artifacts, and sites a good source of advertisement and marketing? Do they act as an effective advertisement for more physical in-person visitation, or, replace a desire for physical visitation?
My opinion, visitation of artifact in site and museum affect on people's mentality and they are aware better of artifact details.however, artificial replications and online images, videos, and abbreviated texts have advantages such as save the time and money and people visit the artifact from the various angle of the camcorder.
According artifact is the resource of people's identity, emotion and collective wisdom, they act as an effective advertisement.
I view that quality, attractive images and videos can enhance physical visitation to museums and other sites. But, too many images may spoil marketing campaign and limited number of powerful images are crucial. Short videos may work well in this context. They may be a possibility that certain market segments may replace physical visitation when too much details are given by large number of images.
Hi again,
Another interesting question!
The answer is rather complicated, commensurate with the complexity of the question. There is, of course, no substitute to personally visit a monument and experience the feeling it offers first hand and in-person. But (there's always a "but") when doing research on multiples monuments, and from far away, it is not feasible to visit all of them numerous times. Hence, Virtual Reality type settings (either through the net, or through other means, books, articles, videos, photos, etc.) about them afford the researcher the next best thing possible. It is a sub-optimal (second best) solution, since the opportunity cost of personally vising all of them is prohibitively high.
As to the question, whether Virtual Reality means take away from the individual accessing these means the desire to personally visit the monuments, this again depends on the person who has an interest in getting to know more about a monument. Often, the opposite does occur: once exposed through Virtual Reality means to these monuments, the desire to personally visit them increases. But again, that depends on many idiosyncratic factors (on the part of the individual) and on the genuine attractivity an archeological site generates to the public.
Thanks for the opportunity you've given to this community to respond to a set of very interesting questions.