Museum Analysis

Can a Museum be classified as Interactive Intertainment? Yes and No. I say this because whether or not a museum fits into the category of Interactive Entertainment is dependant upon what type of museum it is. Art museums are borderline because, entertainment can be defined to be something that fulfills a need but, Art Museums create a new need beyond entertainment. Even with this, Museums still offer an effective way of providing Informal learning. Think about it this way, people in general can get a much better understanding of something when they can see it, smell it, or touch it. A museum can fulfill these needs. This especially holds true to younger students who catch on to things much faster when they actually can see what is being discussed instead of just reading about it.

Museums are one of the few medias that offer Edutainment. Edutainment is two words combined Education and Entertainment. When properly combined these are one of the most joyful places to visit for a person with an open mind. The information one can take in from a place such as this is limitless. For example The Museum of Space & Science in Miami, Fl not only offers educational exhibits, but they offer areas of entertainment as well in between the exhibits or at the actual exhibit themself. By doing so, this is a form of Edutainment. The person will entertain themself and at the same time learn something new while doing so.

Museums span a wide variety of categories ranging from art to science filling in all the gaps in between. For instance someone interested in celebrities might be enticed to visit a wax museum. This type of museum can also be categorized as Edutainment because not only does the person entertain themself, but they educate themself on the celebrity and the process behind making the wax model. An example I think that would fall into the category on Non-Interactive Entertainment for museums would be a History Museum. Most of these museums are just straight fact based tours which do not offer alot of Interactivty or Entertainment. These are solely educational museums, for the most part, and less focused on entertaining. This is probably due to the age groups that visit these museums. People who visit history museums are generally the elder population who lived through the time period. So it can be said that museums can also be categorized into age group specific.

In conclusion, I believe Museums are a good form of Informal Learning. They offer both Entertainment and Educational, Edutainment, aspects that can be appreciated by a large age group of people. Other forms of Informal Learning are Libraries or the World Wide Web. But unlike Museums, Libraries are solely for educational purposes only. They do not meet the requirement of fulfilling the need for entertainment. Although this is true, libraries still might be classified as Interactive Entertainment for some people, because some people might actually find them to be an exciting place to visit. The world wide web though serves an an educational/entertainment tool. Like museums, it can fulfill the need for Edutainment and allows for Interactivity.