When The Museum Becomes Media

For a long time, as a social institution, the museum’s main function isdisplay and communication, which have become the museum’s socialsignificance in public concept. At the same time, the museum’s function isone of the key points of Museum studies. Therefore, there is a trend ofemphasizing functions and ignoring the objectives in the museum circles.Alt hough in t he soc ializat ion pr oc es s of M us eum, s ome sc holar shave noticed the similarity of the museum and the media, but in most cases,t hey just do s imple analogy between t he mus eum and tr adit ionalnews media. I n fact, t he museum and t he media have t he deeperinherent connection in a sense of sociological significance. In the second halfof the twentieth Century, with the rise of the criticism of philosophy insociology field, the study of social phenomena reaches to the unprecedenteddepth and breadth. In the guidance of self-centeredness, ontology and themonism, the traditional socialization route of the museum has bee nbroken. In the world view of social philosophy, museum’s socialization is afalse proposition. Born in the background of social structure reform, themuseum still experiences such a long process of "socialization", whichcertifies the paradox of the museum itself, and which brings in many query ofskeptics. In view of above situation, combined with the theory of arthistory, history, cultural history and narratology, this paper takes the socialphilosophy as the research background, reveals the museum’s essentialattribute of the media during the structural transformation in the public sphereby analyzing the public discourse right contention between the museum andthe public.