What is Heritage Interpretation?

In order to evaluate and make suggestions for the improvement of Korean cultural heritage interpretation, as well as develop any new methods of practicing heritage interpretation, we must first understand what heritage interpretation even is. In addition, there must be factors by which heritage interpretation can be evaluated, to see whether a given interpretation is living up to its potential and to have a framework upon which to research new methods for interpretation. This section reviews prior research on heritage interpretation, from both scholarly works and guidelines presented by heritage institutions, to come to an understanding of what heritage interpretation is. Based on a distilling of the key concepts found in the many definitions, principles, and main themes presented in these scholarly works, this section presents the ideals which prior research suggests heritage interpretation should strive to embody into five broad categories. It also defines various phrases relating to heritage interpretation which will be used throughout the remainder of the thesis.

Understanding Heritage Interpretation

The concept of heritage interpretation has been discussed by many past and contemporary scholars. It has changed over time in line with changes in our understanding of heritage and the role it plays in society. This section, therefore, introduces prior research on the topics of heritage and heritage interpretation in an attempt to settle upon a common understanding of these broad, contested, and ever-changing concepts.

What is Heritage?

The concept of heritage is, on one hand, taken for granted, and, on the other, highly contested. As Harrison (2013) puts it, “heritage today is a broad and slippery term” (5). Heritage is generally considered to be a natural or cultural (i.e. man-made) object or practice which is deemed to be of value to preserve and pass down to future generations. Harrison notes “that heritage is invoked as a positive quality, [] assumes some relationships with the past, [] relates to ways of categorizing and classifying ‘things’ and traditions in the world,” “often implies a sense of threat… and various other qualities that set it apart from the everyday,” and “is distinctive as a concept in the broad number of different categories of things it might be found to describe” (7). Value judgments about what constitutes heritages are often taken for granted, but some scholars have raised questions about who gets to determine such value and the ways in which heritage is preserved and passed down.

Smith (2009) argues that “there is, really, no such thing as heritage” (11). She states that “‘heritage’ is not a ‘thing’, it is not a ‘site’, building or other material object,” but rather, it “is a cultural process that engages with acts of remembering that work to create ways to understand and engage with the present, and the sites themselves are cultural tools that can facilitate, but are not necessarily vital for, this process” (44). She also defines heritage as “a multilayered performance – be this a performance of visiting, managing, interpretation or conservation – that embodies acts of remembrance and commemoration while negotiating and constructing a sense of place, belonging and understanding in the present” (3). This perspective is shared by Giaccardi, who argues that “heritage is today about far more than museum artifacts and historic buildings, and how they are to be preserved and communicated. It is about making sense of our memories and developing a sense of identity through shared and repeated interactions with the tangible remains and lived traces of a common past” (2012, 1).

Smith argues that this understanding of heritage is undermined by what she coins “Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD).” This discourse takes for granted the idea that “it is only [experts] who have the abilities, knowledge, and understanding to identify the innate value and knowledge contained at and within historically important sites and places,” (29-30) which “disempowers the present from actively rewriting the meaning of the past,” (29). Within this framework, “heritage is not defined...as an active process or experience, but rather it is something visitors are led to, are instructed about, but are then not invited to engage with more actively” (31). This rhetoric also precludes “subaltern and dissenting heritage discourses” (35), especially of indigenous peoples and minorities, but also of the general “non-expert” public, as well. In other words, what constitutes heritage and its value to society is predetermined by experts – determinations of which all others become passive consumers, unable to actively engage with or create their own meaning. For example, scholars like Saeji (2012) have suggested that the very act of designating intangible heritages, especially, as cultural heritages causes them to undergo a process of “taxidermification” in which precisely because they are deemed “property,” the “living heritage” becomes frozen as a skin of its past self. By turning it into a “cultural property” of the state, it is no longer free to be a living cultural practice of and for the people as it once was. As Giaccardi also states:

“We socially construct heritage in the context of our own lives and imaginations to interact meaningfully with our past and shape our vision for the future. This fundamental understanding emphasizes that heritage meanings and values are not attached to artifacts, buildings or sites. Neither are they frozen in time. They are the results of repeated and ongoing interactions in the lived world of ordinary people” (2012, 2).

Yet, in the realm of Korean cultural heritage, the Authorized Heritage Discourse is king. In Korean, the name of the Cultural Heritage Administration (Munhwajaecheong) literally means the “Cultural Property Administration.” This evokes a strong sense of (national) ownership, physicality, and fixedness. According to a 2016 CHA report, the CHA's Cultural Property Advisory Committee (Munhwajae wiwonhoe) is 81 percent male and 75 percent academics (CHA 2016, 53). Though the numbers presented in this report differ slightly from those currently on the CHA website, it is safe to assume that the percentages are similar. Although not on the report nor stated directly on the CHA website, the age of the advisory committee members is likely on average high, and there appear to be no non-Koreans on the committee. This demonstrates that in the eyes of the CHA, old, Korean, male, academics are the authorities on Korea's cultural heritages, and by extension, the designators and interpreters of those heritages. As shown in later sections on the current status of Korean cultural heritage interpretation, it is clear that the public is considered a passive audience to these experts' claims of value. This may not be surprising considering Korean society at large but is important to keep in mind nonetheless as it aligns with Smith's claims about AHD.

These conflicting conceptions of what heritage is and who the guardians of heritage are is mentioned here because they have a direct influence on the practice and objectives of heritage interpretation. Whether heritages and their value are determined by “experts” with the public as “passive audiences or tourists” of that heritage, or whether they are alive, evolving, and can be practiced by a public who are active and engaged meaning-makers, changes the agents and role of interpretation. For the purposes of this thesis, an understanding of heritage (and of interpretation) which makes space for both of these perspectives will be pursued. This is due to the fact that the current AHD orientation of the CHA will not change overnight, but there is nonetheless a need to begin to lay the groundwork for facilitating universal (i.e. non-expert, non-state-directed, and also non-Korean) engagement with heritage meaning making.

What is Heritage Interpretation?

Various scholars have attempted to define heritage interpretation. The most seminal of these definitions is that of Tilden in his book Interpreting Our Heritage (1950). His definition, along with those of others, has been organized into the following table. In addition to these definitions, some of the authors or organizations listed above also included various lists of principles of heritage interpretation (Beck and Cable 2011; ICOMOS 2008; Tilden 1950).

Table 1 Definitions of heritage interpretation

Author	Year	Page	Definition
Tilden	1950	33	An educational activity which aims to reveal meanings and relationships through the use of original objects, by firsthand experience, and by illustrative media, rather than simply to communicate factual information.
Edwards	1976	in Hirica 2005, 16	Interpretation possesses four characteristics which make it a specialist discipline. It is an attractive form of communication, it offers concise information, it is conducted in presence of the object, and its aim is to help the visitor to understand the meaning of the heritage object.
Dean	1994	in Hirica 2005, 16	The act or process of explaining or clarifying, translating or presenting a personal understanding of an/the object.
Heritage Interpretation Association	1996	in Hirica 2005, 17	The art of revealing in situ the meaning of the natural, cultural or historical legacy to the public visiting these sites in their leisure time.
Padró	2002	in Hirica 2005, 16	A method for presentation and communication of heritage, with the objective of promoting its use for cultural, educational, social and tourism purposes.
de las Heras	2002	in Hirica 2005, 16	A method which offers readings and options for an active use of heritage, employing a wide range of presentation and animation resources.
Hicira Handbook	2005	15	...a working method which facilitates presentation and social use of heritage and serves to provide a reading and options for its active use by means of many presentation and animation resources. Interpretation is based on cultural and/or natural evidence, either material or immaterial, found in a given location, and seeks to promote these features in their original context. To this end, the aim is always in situ recovery and the greatest possible contextualisation of heritage resources. The idea of the object as having value in itself in isolation from its function and setting, is rejected.
ICOMOS	2008	2	Interpretation refers to the full range of potential activities intended to heighten public awareness and enhance understanding of cultural heritage sites. These can include print and electronic publications, public lectures, on-site and directly related off-site installations, educational programmes, community activities, and ongoing research, training, and evaluation of the interpretation process itself.
Beck and Cable	2011	xvii; xxi	An educational activity that aims to reveal meanings about our cultural and natural resources. Through various media—including talks, guided tours, and exhibits—interpretation enhances our understanding, appreciation, and, therefore, protection of historic sites and natural wonders. Interpretation is an informational and inspirational process that occurs in our nation’s parks, forests, wildlife refuges, zoos, museums, and cultural sites; Interpretation is a process, a rendering, by which visitors see, learn, experience, and are inspired firsthand.
Shaliganova	2012	17	…interpretation is not a simple transfer of information about the site – it aims at showing connections and relations between objects, artefacts and visitors, provoking thought and motivation to explore the site further.
Staiff	2006	loc. 106	Heritage interpretation is a social and cultural process because, like all forms of interpretation, it cannot be limited to functional definitions, practical manuals, communication techniques, informal learning, planning approaches, multi-media performances and so on.
National Association for Interpretation (US)			A mission-based communication process that forges emotional and intellectual connections between the interests of the audience and the meanings inherent in the resource.
The Association for Heritage Interpretation (UK)			Interpretation enriches our lives through engaging emotions, enhancing experiences and deepening understanding of people, places, events and objects from past and present.
Interpretation Canada			Interpretation is a communication process designed to reveal meanings and relationships of our cultural and natural heritage through involvement with objects, artifacts landscapes and sites.

Scholars have argued that the process of heritage interpretation itself is what imbues the heritage with value. Smith states that “…heritage is created by interpretation. Not only what is interpreted, but how it is interpreted and by whom, will create quite specific messages about the value and meaning of specific heritage places and the past it represents” (2009, 80).

Therefore, any assumptions made about the scope of heritage interpretation, the main actor of heritage interpretation, and how it should be done directly influence the message being sent. In the definitions above, we can observe some such assumptions being made. Many definitions assume that the public are passive and unknowing “visitors” or “audiences” who need the value and meaning of the heritage to revealed to them by “experts,” not making mention of the public themselves being creators of heritages’ value or interpretations themselves. The definitions furthermore assume that the ‘audiences’ receiving the interpretation are in-person visitors to heritage sites, which implies that heritage interpretation does not occur off-site or online. However, some scholars and institutions mentioned above do imagine a broader and more inclusive definition of heritage interpretation, including Staiff (2016), Hirica (2005), and ICOMOS (2008), when their definitions are considered in the larger context of their work.

When we consider the conceptions of heritage and heritage interpretation as presented in Smith (2009), Giaccardi (2012), Staiff (2016), Kalay et al (2008), Cameron and Kenderdine (2007), Harrison (2013), and more, we can see a “new wave” approach to the discipline. The approach challenges the “traditionalist” perspective. Where a traditionalist approach to heritage interpretation was expert-led and prescribed in a top-down manner which situated the public as passive learners of knowledge, this new approach embraces the collaboration of the public in the process of heritage interpretation, allowing them to be active in the creation of meaning as they explore the world of heritages on their own terms. We also see a new emphasis on heritage interpretation being a part of a larger process, not an end in and of itself, which takes place not exclusively at physical sites via analog mediums of transmission, but is an amalgamation of the in-person experience and the virtual, off-site, and online realms. This new wave scholarship has also recognized that this so-called “democratic” (see Staiff 2016) heritage interpretation is facilitated by digital technologies, the Internet, and social media, which allow citizens to access and share information (via a wide variety of media) themselves, thus facilitating a more visual, discrete (as opposed to narrative), social and exploratory approach to interpretation, which was not possible in the past and thus limited heritage interpretation to largely narrative text and audio forms. This new wave scholarship does not necessarily dismiss the powerful role of on-site, person-to-person, narrative forms of heritage interpretation, nor do they reject the opinions of “experts.” Rather, they emphasize that we should be wary of limiting ourselves to such an understanding of heritage interpretation when we live in a digital, global, and connected society. They argue that the possibilities of heritage interpretation have expanded greatly due to digital technology and the Internet, that these possibilities need to be acted upon rather than clinging merely to past methods, and that the voices of non-experts and marginalized groups need to be incorporated into the heritage discourse.

Table 2 Traditionalist and New Wave perspectives on heritage interpretation

Traditionalist	New Wave
Expert-led	Collaborative, civic
Top-down, prescribed	Bottom-up, explorative
Passive, educational	Active, creative
One-time only	Process over time
On-site, in person	Off-site, virtual
Analog	Digital, online
Narrative	Discrete
Text/audio	Visual

What can be seen in all the definitions and scholarly works referenced above is that heritage interpretation is a process which involves increasing awareness and understanding of “heritage,” however “heritage” is defined. While it may be difficult to more specifically define what heritage interpretation without making too many assumptions (and, in line with what Staiff as quoted in the table above, maybe interpretation should not be limited to a single definition), there are various recurring and broadly applicable themes about the nature of interpretation and what it should strive to accomplish which can be seen throughout these definitions and their sources. These themes will be introduced in the following section.

The Ideals of Heritage Interpretation

Throughout the literature on heritage interpretation, various perspectives on the qualities heritage interpretation should strive to embody have been presented. Some sources even include specific lists of principles for interpretation (Beck and Cable 2011; ICOMOS 2008; Tilden 1950). However, there are certain limitations to the specific principles outlined when it comes to using them as an evaluative tool for interpretation; Most only consider only the “traditionalist” on-site, analog interpretation and assume heritage interpretation to be an expert-directed process of educating a general public. Prior scholarship which embraces the “new wave” approach to heritage interpretation – taking into consideration the possibilities of the digital and online, and consider arguments, such as those made by Smith (2009), Giaccardi (2012), Staiff (2016) and others, regarding the need to let the general public (especially marginalized groups) participate in the meaning-making of heritages – generally do not include any criteria for judging the quality or effectiveness of interpretive resources. Even in the case of ICOMOS (2008), despite a noticeable shift toward a citizen-centric approach to heritage interpretation, its principles cannot easily be used as criteria for non-analog methods of heritage interpretation and its scope is too broad, focusing more on heritage management than on interpretation itself. Therefore, this lack of suitable criteria for evaluation and innovation of heritage interpretation resources meant that new criteria would need to be developed.

Therefore, in response to this shortcoming, criteria for evaluation and innovation were developed using the following method. First, prior scholarship which included both traditionalist and new wave notions of heritage interpretation was reviewed, with the various definitions of heritage interpretation, principles of heritage interpretation, and other key points regarding the nature and objectives of heritage interpretation extracted from the works. Then, the key words and phrases of these various definitions, principles, etc., were identified, and based on these key words and phrases, the definitions, principles, etc., from the various prior scholarship were grouped based on similarities. At the end of this process, the various definitions, principles, etc. were found to be groupable into five categories which characterize what heritage interpretation should strive embody: clear/accurate, personal/tailored, contextualized/holistic, facilitates engagement, and sustainable/innovative. It was in this way that five ideals of heritage interpretation presented in this thesis were generated.

For lack of a better term, these five categories will be referred to throughout the thesis as the “ideals of heritage interpretation,” as they are something that heritage interpretation strives to embody. The benefit of these ideals is that they are not restricted to one definition of heritage interpretation, thus applicable to analog heritage interpretation methods, while simultaneously being able to take into account the influence and possibilities of ubiquitous digital technology, Web 2.0, and social media. They can also be applied to not only the interpretative resources themselves but also the process of interpretation and interpretive resource creation. Thus, these ideals can be used as a yardstick to evaluate the success of current Korean cultural heritage interpretation, and also to evaluate the potential of data-based heritage interpretation. The following sections will explain each ideal in greater detail, including how the ideal has been presented in prior scholarship and examples of various aspects of the ideals.

Clear / Accurate

Is the interpretation understandable?

A prerequisite of success in achieving interpretive objectives is that the information being presented is clear to the audience. This means that the facts presented are, of course, true, that the information is not misleading, and that it is presented it a way that easy to understand. If incorrect or misleading information is presented to the audience, or if the way the information is presented makes the meanings and relationships conveyed therein difficult to decipher, then, of course, an audience cannot truly understand the meanings and significance of a heritage, and thus cannot make a real, personal connection to it. Therefore, this criterion must be guaranteed before all others.

This need for understanding, driven by clear messages and accurate information, has been raised by many heritage interpretation scholars. They argue that heritage interpretation is about revealing meanings and facilitating understanding, and how it is based on scholarly and scientific research and evidence which the public expects to be accurate. Scholars also emphasize that ensuring that the audiences are correctly perceiving the information which is being presented is key, which necessitates a clear message in a language of which the audience can make sense. These messages about understanding, clarity, and accuracy in heritage interpretation are presented in the following table.

Table 3 Select quotes from prior scholarship relating to the clear / accurate ideal

Author	Year	Page	Definition
Tilden	1950	33	[Interpretation is] an educational activity which aims to reveal meanings and relationships, rather than simply to communicate factual information.
Dean	1994	in Hirica 2005, 16	[Interpretation is] the act or process of explaining or clarifying, translating or presenting a personal understanding of an/the object.
Hicira Handbook	2005	15	Interpretation is based on cultural and/or natural evidence, either material or immaterial, found in a given location...
ICOMOS	2008	3	[An objective of interpretation is to] communicate the meaning of cultural heritage sites to a range of audiences through careful, documented recognition of significance, through accepted scientific and scholarly methods as well as from living cultural traditions.
Beck and Cable	2011	xxiv	Interpretation texts must be understandable for those who receive them.
Shaliganova	2012	74	Perception is essential because messages are subject to multiple interpretations, and heritage interpretation needs to ensure that the messages are understood in the way they were intended. Sometimes in communicating with an audience, things are said that were not meant or the point is not transferred effectively; miscommunication cannot be avoided.
Shaliganova	2012	74	Another important issue is languages – it is really difficult to be attentive to the information which is provided in a language one does not know.
Dean	1997	in Shalaginova 2012, 71-72	A mission-based communication process that forges emotional and intellectual connections between the interests of the audience and the meanings inherent in the resource.
The Association for Heritage Interpretation (UK)			[Interpretation involves a] deepening [of the] understanding of people, places, events and objects from past and present.

To break this ideal down more, first, heritage interpretation needs to be accurate. Any claims made need to be based on provable facts (and if the veracity of a claim cannot be ascertained, then this uncertainty also must be conveyed), and they need to be presented in a way which is not misleading. This is especially necessary for Korean cultural heritages, which as will be seen in the following sections, often involve claims which have a high potential to lead the audience to false conclusions. The danger of inaccuracy is magnified when heritage interpretation is done in a different language than the native language of the heritage site. There are often terminology or concepts which may be entirely mistranslated by unskilled translators, or which otherwise lack a direct cognate in the target language, and thus necessitate some degree of imperfect translation, which may result in loss of nuance or lead the audience to misunderstand what is being conveyed.

In addition to accuracy, clarity of the message is also vital. Even if the facts and the translations are accurate, if they are conveyed in a way which is difficult for the audience to understand, the message transmission will be less successful. This means that information needs to be conveyed in language which is clear; for example, there may be terminology which are accurate and used widely by scholars, but if the target is a general public who is likely unfamiliar with such terminology, the accuracy of the term no longer matters because it is meaningless to the potential audience. Related to this is the form in which interpretive information is presented; Sometimes a narrative (in text or audio form) may not be the best way to present information, such as the layout of a structure or historical dates which could be more clearly conveyed in a diagram or timeline, respectively, than in narrative text or audio.

In addition, a lack of consistency or inclusion of extraneous information may be distracting to the message being sent. Inconsistency can be seen in the areas of word choice, content, and format. Though, as will be shown in following sections, inconsistency is an issue for the original (i.e. Korean language) interpretations, it is naturally exacerbated in translation, due to the fact that the way a word is translated (or even Romanized), what content is omitted or added for the “foreign” audience, and punctuation styles, etc., varies from translator to translator. This relates to the imagined audience and what information is appropriate or extraneous (and therefore unhelpful/a distraction to understanding) to them. However, the determination of what information is extraneous to whom leads to the question of who the imagined audience even is and what they want out of an interpretation, which brings us to the next interpretive ideal.

Personalized / Tailored

Is the interpretation tailored to the audience? Can audiences create a personal connection with a heritage via the interpretation?

This ideal aims to judge the extent to which an interpretation can meaningfully connect to the audience’s personality, experience, interests, and emotions. In other words, it asks whether the interpretation is relatable to the audience. This stems from the arguments made by interpretation scholars that interpretation is not merely educational in nature, not merely the transmission of a series of facts, but an act of forging a personal and/or emotional connection between the heritage and the person experiencing it – with each person demographically different from the next, and with each person coming to the heritage with differing background knowledge, interests and motivations.

Table 4 Select quotes from prior scholarship relating to the the personalized / tailored ideal

Author	Year	Page	Definition
Tilden	1950	33	Any interpretation that does not somehow relate what is being displayed or described to something within the personality or experience of the visitor will be sterile; Interpretation should aim to present a whole rather than a part and must address itself to the whole man rather than any phase. (see also Beck and Cable 2011, xxiv)
Tilden	1950	33	Interpretation addressed to children (say, up to the age of twelve) should not be a dilution of the presentations to adults but should follow a fundamentally different approach. To be at its best will require a separate program. (see also Beck and Cable 2011, xxiv)
ICOMOS	2008	4	Interpretation and presentation programmes should identify and assess their audiences demographically and culturally. Every effort should be made to communicate the site’s values and significance to its varied audiences.
ICOMOS	2008	4	The diversity of language among visitors and associated communities connected with a heritage site should be taken into account in the interpretive infrastructure.
ICOMOS	2008	8	Every interpretation programme should be considered as an educational resource for people of all ages. Its design should take into account its possible uses in school curricula, informal and lifelong learning programmes, communications and information media, special activities, events, and seasonal volunteer involvement.
Shaliganova	2012	74	Motivation matters because the type and degree of expected satisfaction can influence either learning or attitude change.
Shaliganova	2012	74	Heritage sites have a rather diverse audience who come from different social and cultural groups.
Shaliganova	2012	74-75	Another common limitation at heritage sites is a lack of varied interpretive media. Current research shows that people learn differently, and they usually choose the media which helps them acquire information best. Some like guided tours, others prefer audio guides, whilst others prefer interpretation panels. Nevertheless there are many heritage sites that provide guided tours or interpretive panels as the only way of interpretation.
Shaliganova	2012	75	Visitors to a heritage site are diverse and it is impossible to satisfy everyone, however that does not mean that heritage interpreters should not strive to do so.
Shaliganova	2012	76	Interpretive material... should be appropriate and interesting for a visitor, not just for the interpreter.
Shalaginova	2012	20	In such a definition three factors play an important role in the analysis and comprehension of the understanding processes, namely a person with his/her knowledge background, expectations, values and aims…
Smith	2006	80	In effect, the past is valued and understood differently by different peoples, groups or communities and how that past is understood validates or not a sense of place.

Research shows that visitors to Korean cultural heritages are demographically diverse, with differing levels of education, and different motivations - including a desire to experience “artistic/beauty,’ “culture,” “history,” “nostalgia,” “authenticity,” “escapism,” “knowledge acquisition/education,” and more - in visiting a heritage (Son 2015, Lee and Kim 2014, Kim 2015). The greatest percentage of visitors to heritages are motivated to visit due to recommendations from friends or colleagues (33.5 percent), followed by internet search (15.9 percent) (Kim 2015, 82). Many people visit heritages multiple times (Kim 2015, 82; Son 2015, 33), and such repeat visitors may have a different relationship to a heritage than a first-time visitor. Therefore, we can see that there is no such thing as a “general” visitor to a heritage.

This research does not even include non-Korean visitors, who add a whole new layer of demographic and motivational diversity. Is also excludes demographic information, background knowledge, and motivations of those who aim to interact with heritage interpretations not as on-site visitors – such as those living abroad, students working on school projects, scholars engaging in research, or content creators looking for source material for their creative works (see also Chowdhury, S. 2015).

Creating interpretive resources which connect to the intellect and emotions of such diverse people with equally diverse expectations and needs presents a challenge. Yet as Shaliganova states, “[although] visitors to a heritage site are diverse and it is impossible to satisfy everyone, [] that does not mean that heritage interpreters should not strive to do so” (2012, 75). Therefore, better understanding the motivations of the potential “users” of heritage interpretation – whether they are visitors to heritage sites, content creators, or students/academics engaged in educational and research pursuits – and researching best practices to provide interpretive content in forms which can be tailored the diverse interests and needs of such audiences are ongoing tasks of heritage interpretation.

Contextualized / Holistic

Does the interpretation present the heritage in its full context? Does the interpretation consider this context holistically?

It has been argued that a heritage in and of itself does not have value; It is the context and practice of a heritage which give it its meaning (Smith 2006). Therefore, the contemporary and historic context of a heritage is just as, if not more, important than the physical heritage itself. It is this context of which the heritage is an embodiment. Therefore, numerous heritage scholars have stressed the point that a heritage must be conveyed in context – the present, physical context where the heritage is experienced, as well as its natural, cultural, historical, political, and spiritual contexts.

Table 5 Select quotes from prior scholarship relating to the the contextualized / holistic ideal

Author	Year	Page	Definition
Tilden	1950	68	A cardinal purpose of interpretation, it seems to me, is to present a whole rather than a part, no matter how interesting the specific part may be. It will be observed that I say “a” whole, not “the” whole. “The” whole soars into infinity, and the time we can spend with our listener or reader is all too brief. (see also Beck and Cable 2011, xxiv)
Tilden	1950	33	Interpretation...aims to reveal meanings and relationships.
Hicira Handbook	2005	15	To this end, the aim is always in situ recovery and the greatest possible contextualization of heritage resources. The idea of the object as having value in itself in isolation from its function and setting, is rejected.
ICOMOS	2008	3	Respect the authenticity of cultural heritage sites, by communicating the significance of their historic fabric and cultural values and protecting them from the adverse impact of intrusive interpretive infrastructure, visitor pressure, inaccurate or inappropriate interpretation.
ICOMOS	2008	4	Interpretation should be based on a well-researched, multidisciplinary study of the site and its surroundings. It should also acknowledge that meaningful interpretation necessarily includes reflection on alternative historical hypotheses, local traditions, and stories.
ICOMOS	2008	5	Interpretation should explore the significance of a site in its multi-faceted historical, political, spiritual, and artistic contexts. It should consider all aspects of the site’s cultural, social, and environmental significance and values.
ICOMOS	2008	5	Interpretation should also take into account all groups that have contributed to the historical and cultural significance of the site.
ICOMOS	2008	5	The surrounding landscape, natural environment, and geographical setting are integral parts of a site’s historical and cultural significance, and, as such, should be considered in its interpretation.
ICOMOS	2008	5	The cross-cultural significance of heritage sites, as well as the range of perspectives about them based on scholarly research, ancient records, and living traditions, should be considered in the formulation of interpretive programmes.
ICOMOS	2008	5	Intangible elements of a site’s heritage such as cultural and spiritual traditions, stories, music, dance, theater, literature, visual arts, local customs and culinary heritage should be considered in its interpretation.
Shaliganova	2012	30	Of course, the aim of every communicative programme at a heritage site is to stimulate visitors to learn something about it, though one cannot expect people to memorise every bit of information presented. Rather one should aspire to show visitors connections between various events, to direct the visitors in their perception and understanding of the site.
Shalaginova	2012	20	In such a definition three factors play an important role in the analysis and comprehension of the understanding processes, and namely a person with his/her knowledge background, expectations, values and aims; the nature of the object (subject) that has to be understood...; and the context in which understanding takes place.
Malpas	2008	25	…such integration itself depends on an understanding of the way in which those parts are themselves located in respect of one another and in respect of the whole. To have a sense of a work, or an artefact or site as a whole is, I would argue, to have a sense of its properly placed presence.

As the Hirica Handbook says, “the aim is always in situ recovery and the greatest possible contextualization of heritage resources,” however, as Tilden (1950) elaborates, the “the whole [context] soars into infinity, and the time we can spend with our listener or reader is all too brief” (68). Until now, most interpretive resources have been provided in the form of on-site information panels, museum video installations, or guided tours, and therefore a lot of heritage interpretation research has gone into trying to figure out how to best present the fullest contextualization of the heritage in the limited space of a new paragraphs of text, a two-minute video, or an hour-long tour (see Ham 2013). A heritage’s context is comprised, more specifically, of contextual elements, the heritage’s relationship to them, and their relationship to one another. These contextual elements include things like historical figures, time periods, places, events, artistic features, concepts, places, other heritages, etc. When connected to one another via various relationships, they create a contextual network or web. In this sense, though each heritage may have a context which surrounds it and gives it meaning, from a more holistic perspective, any single heritage is but just one element in a much more extensive historical and cultural network of information.

Therefore, if we approach the contextualization of a heritage from this holistic perspective, we can see a need for interpretation of the other contextual elements and their relationship to one another, as well. If an interpretation about a heritage argues that the heritage has value because it is related to So-and-So a person or Such-and-Such an event, the historical and cultural context of these people and events also need to be understood if the audience is able to fully grasp the context of the heritage. Therefore, interpretations about these various elements which make up a heritage’s context also need to be interpreted. In the opposite direction, heritages need to be able to act as contextual elements in the interpretations of historical figures, events, or concepts. In other words, there needs to be multidirectionality in contextualization, rather than interpretation centered merely around individual heritages.

Furthermore, the meaning of the heritage changes greatly depending on which contextual elements are included. An interpretive resource may mention only a heritage’s artistic qualities, or only its history, or only the historical figures who lived there – each one is a true context, but not a full context, and each decision about which context to present has consequences for the image presented to the audience. This begs the question of whether audiences have access to alternative contextualization or information on the context of the various historical figures, events, or concepts drawn upon in contextualizing a heritage’s value. For example, can readers of an on-site heritage interpretation easily access supplementary interpretations of the various historical figures, events, or concepts mentioned within the heritage itself if they desire or need further information? Can they easily find heritages with overlapping historical or cultural contexts – a heritage with a similar appearance, or one which was created by the same artist or in the same period? This relates to the next interpretive ideal, which deals with the extent to which audiences can engage with the interpretive information.

Facilitates Engagement

Does the interpretation itself facilitate audience engagement? Does it stimulate and encourage further engagement with the heritage?

Facilitation of further engagement refers to whether there are means within the interpretive process to allow audiences to not be just passive receivers of interpretation, but act with agency. In other words, whether the audience can take the interpretation and do something with it or in response to it. Prior scholarship suggests that heritage interpretation should stimulate the audience toward a desire for further interest, learning, passion, reflection, exploration, discovery, conservation, etc., as shown in the table below.

Table 6 Select quotes from prior scholarship relating to the the facilitates engagement ideal

Author	Year	Page	Definition
Tilden	1950	33	The chief aim of interpretation is not instruction, but provocation.
Tilden	1950	59	[The aim of interpretation is to] to stimulate the reader or hearer toward a desire to widen his horizon of interests and knowledge.
Tilden	1950	60	[The audience must] be stimulated first to want to discover things for himself, and second, to see and understand the things at which he looks.
Tilden	1950	64	The provocation to the visitor to search out meanings for himself, and join in the expedition like a fellow discoverer, was sometimes submerged in a high tide of facts, perfectly accurate, perfectly ineffectual.
Beck and Cable	2011	xxiv	Visitors must be inspired and provoked if their horizons are to be broadened.
Beck and Cable	2011	xxiv	One of the objectives of interpretation should be to simulate visitors, to instill a desire for beauty, to elevate the spirit and convey the importance of preserving what is being interpreted.
Hicira Handbook	2005	15	[Interpretation is] a working method which facilitates presentation and social use of heritage and serves to provide a reading and options for its active use by means of many presentation and animation resources.
Hicira Handbook	2005	16	The aim of heritage interpretation is to raise public awareness and provide guidance which will enable visitors to see, explore, situate, observe, analyse, understand, feel and truly «experience» the site. In short, to stimulate a set of experiences that will have meaning and life for visitors. Interpretation, in contrast to the cold rationalistic rigour which characterised traditional museum practices, seeks to evoke feelings and sensations: awareness, passion, emotions, and so on.
ICOMOS	2008	3	Contribute to the sustainable conservation of cultural heritage sites, through promoting public understanding of, and participation in, ongoing conservation efforts, ensuring long-term maintenance of the interpretive infrastructure and regular review of its interpretive contents.
ICOMOS	2008	4	Interpretation and presentation should encourage individuals and communities to reflect on their own perceptions of a site and assist them in establishing a meaningful connection to it. The aim should be to stimulate further interest, learning, experience, and exploration.
ICOMOS	2008	3	Encourage inclusiveness in the interpretation of cultural heritage sites, by facilitating the involvement of stakeholders and associated communities in the development and implementation of interpretive programmes.
Shaliganova	2012	76	… heritage interpreters need to provide an environment that encourages the exploring of interpretive material. Interpretive material itself should be attractive and able to motivate visitors to enjoy and explore a site.
Shaliganova	2012	30	Heritage interpretation becomes a tool that engages visitor imagination and enables them to create emotional connections to the site.
Shaliganova	2012	30	Visitors need to be oriented in their ways of perceiving a site, pointed in the direction of important facts and stories, and allowed to make their own conclusions.
Smith	2006	70	The engagement of emotion and the sharing of this emotive experience or performance, together with sharing of acts of remembering and memory making, are vital elements of the glue that creates and binds collective identities.
Silberman	2006	31	Presentation' denotes the carefully planned arrangement of information and physical access to a cultural heritage site, usually by scholars, design firms, and heritage professionals. As such, it is largely a one-way mode of communication. 'Interpretation,' on the other hand, denotes the totality of activity, reflection, research, and creativity stimulated by a cultural heritage site. Although professionals and scholars play important roles in this process, the input and involvement of visitors, local and associated community groups, and other stakeholders of various ages and educational backgrounds should be seen as essential to the goal of transforming cultural heritage sites from static monuments into places of learning and reflection about the past, as well as valuable resources for sustainable community development and intercultural and intergenerational dialogue.

This ideal is of particular importance in regard to the authorized heritage discourse put forth by Smith (2006) and whether those who can engage in heritage interpretation and heritage-related meaning making are limited to a select few “experts.” It raises the question of who is allowed to engage in heritage interpretation, and how (and to what extent) they are allowed to engage in heritage interpretation.

The facilitation of engagement hinges on the following factors: whether the interpretation does successfully provoke the audience into some desire for action, whether there are opportunities for engagement in place upon which the audiences can act, and whether there is a connection between the interpretation itself and the opportunities for engagement.

Whether the interpretation successfully provokes the audience to a desire for action is connected to the afore mentioned ideals relating to understanding, personalization, and contextualization, and naturally varies depending on the audience. Engagement opportunities could include consumption-oriented opportunities like buying goods related to a heritage, attending educational classes, watching a performance, or visiting other heritage sites, or they could be more production-oriented opportunities such as sharing photos on social media, participating in creative workshops, or engaging in research. It could also include volunteering to be a docent, tour guide, or grounds maintenance helper.

However, even if there are hundreds of diverse opportunities for engagement, if such opportunities are not once mentioned in the process of an interpretation, then how would the audience know such engagement is possible? For this reason, the link between interpretation and engagement opportunities needs to also be considered as a factor of this interpretive ideal. This is related to the issue of whether audiences can easily access additional information on the contextual elements in interpretations (both on- and offline), therefore following their curiosity and engaging with the interpretation itself, and whether other engagement opportunities are actively advertised and encouraged to audiences. In addition, barriers to engagement – whether they deal with language, location, needed educational background, cost, etc. – must be taken into account when considering to whom engagement opportunities are made available.

Sustainable / Innovative

Is the interpretation sustainable? Can the interpretation be easily innovated upon?

Sustainability and innovation of interpretation resources and the processes by which they are created is crucial to long-term success in achieving the objectives of interpretation. This has been expressed by various institutions and scholars, ICOMOS in particular, as shown in the table below.

Table 7 Select quotes from prior scholarship relating to the the sustainable / innovative ideal

Author	Year	Page	Definition
Beck and Cable	2011	xxiv	An interpretation programme must have political, social, financial, administrative and voluntary support if it is to prosper.
ICOMOS	2008	3	Develop technical and professional guidelines for heritage interpretation and presentation, including technologies, research, and training. Such guidelines must be appropriate and sustainable in their social contexts.
ICOMOS	2008	5	Interpretation and presentation programmes and activities should also be documented and archived for future reference and reflection.
ICOMOS	2008	6	The interpretation plan for a cultural heritage site must be sensitive to its natural and cultural environment, with social, financial, and environmental sustainability among its central goals.
ICOMOS	2008	6	Any technical or technological elements selected to become a permanent part of a site’s interpretive infrastructure should be designed and constructed in a manner that will ensure effective and regular maintenance.
ICOMOS	2008	7	Interpretive programmes should aim to provide equitable and sustainable economic, social, and cultural benefits to all stakeholders through education, training and employment opportunities in site interpretation programmes.
ICOMOS	2008	7	The interpretation of a cultural heritage site should not be considered to be completed with the completion of a specific interpretive infrastructure. Continuing research and consultation are important to furthering the understanding and appreciation of a site’s significance. Regular review should be an integral element in every heritage interpretation programme.
ICOMOS	2008	7	The interpretive programme and infrastructure should be designed and constructed in a way that facilitates ongoing content revision and/or expansion.
ICOMOS	2008	8	The training of qualified professionals in the specialised fields of heritage interpretation and presentation, such as content creation, management, technology, guiding, and education, is a crucial objective. In addition, basic academic conservation programmes should include a component on interpretation and presentation in their courses of study.
Shaliganova	2012	74	It is important not only to assume what effect a message might have, but to test it. Pilot projects are very useful in testing the interpretive activities with the target audience and adjusting the messages before activities are implemented.
Silberman	2006	29	In an era when public culture budgets are shrinking and cultural institutions of all kinds are being forced to become self-sustaining, the choice of site interpretation methods and technologies is often determined by their ability to stimulate local economic development: by paid admissions, subsidiary sales of postcards and other museum-shop items, employment opportunities, and a steady flow of tourist revenue for hotels, shops, and restaurants in the immediate vicinity. All too often, finances and balance sheets are now allowed to become the real tyrants in determining how cultural heritage sites are presented to the public.

Organizations engaged in interpretation, such as government institutions, are often non-profit institutions and with limited financial resources with which to accomplish interpretive objectives. Furthermore, there are limited human resources comprised of people who are considered to have the expertise and skills necessary to implement the groundwork of interpretation – the academic research which is the basis of the facts and claims in interpretations, the development of methods by which to present information, and the translation of the information into other languages. If such resources are not used efficiently and are not sustainable, time and money will be invested in redundant efforts rather than in innovation. Furthermore, interpretations need to easily updatable (especially for fixing mistakes) and improved upon if innovation is to be made possible. Therefore, if innovative interpretations are sought after, the process must be efficient and the fruits of such resources should be able to be reused and improved upon long into the future.

Definitions of Other Key Terms

Now that heritage interpretation and the ideals relating to it have been introduced, it will be helpful to define other related terms that will appear throughout this thesis. These phrases may be used in other ways in other contexts, and are likely to be understood differently by different readers, so for the purposes of this thesis, they are defined as follows:

• Interpretive information is the abstract collection of meanings and relationships related to heritages which can be utilized to reveal the greater context of a heritage.
• Contextual elements (also called nodes, entities) are the things, i.e. people, places, objects, concepts, events, etc., of which interpretive information is comprised and their meanings.
• Relationships (also called simply relations) are the relationships that the various contextual elements have with one another and which together comprise interpretive information.
• Interpretive content is the selection and organization of abstract interpretive information to present a particular context. In other words, it is storytelling using interpretive information, or the particular topic being presented.
• Interpretive medium is the sensorial (visual, auditory, or tactile) medium, that is linguistic or non-linguistic in nature, which can be conveyed among humans. It is the means by which interpretive content is conveyed as a resource.

Table 8 Breakdown of interpretive medium forms

	Linguistic	Non-linguistic
Visual	Written text, sign language	Photos, video, diagrams, visual objects
Auditory	Speech	Non-language audio (nature sounds, music, etc.)
Tactile	Braille	Presence in physical spaces, (touching, making or consuming) tactile objects, physical actions

• Interpretive resource is a manifestation of interpretive content via an interpretive media. Some interpretive resources may include multiple media forms together (multimedia), and may be presented by analog or digital means. The same interpretive content can be conveyed via various mediums, giving rise to varying interpretive resources.
• Interpretive text is a specific type of linguistic interpretive resource which conveys interpretive information in the form of expository writing, i.e. sentences and paragraphs of organized language (For the purposes of this thesis, and in practice, it is differentiated from linguistic forms such as lists, bullet points, labels on timelines, diagrams, or maps, etc.). It normally refers to the visual texts on information panels, brochures, or online websites. However, it could also refer to expository content even if said content is conveyed by auditory (speech, speech recordings) or tactile (Braille) means (though these are not “text” per say). It is the most commonly utilized and accessible interpretive resource.
• Interpretive data is a manifestation of abstract interpretive information in a medium which can be processed by computers. It is the only way in which interpretive information can be “understood” by computers as well as humans. This must not be confused with digital interpretive resources, which can be stored and accessed by humans via computers, but cannot be meaningfully processed by computers. For computers to process such information, humans must design data models which organize the contextual elements and relations of interpretive information. There are various ways for such data models to be designed. Interpretive data can be used in the creation of digital interpretive content and resources (such as data visualizations or automatically generated texts).
• Data-based interpretation is the practice of organizing, storing, managing, and accessing interpretive information and facilitating the creation of interpretive resources, through the utilization of data, the database, algorithms and interfaces.
• On-site cultural heritages refer to heritages which are tangible in nature and usually found at individual heritage sites (as opposed to museums). These include various structures or complexes which are difficult or impossible to relocate to a museum, such as archeological sites, fortresses, palaces, Buddhist halls, traditional Korean houses, pavilions (private, governmental, and commemorative), government offices, shrines, Confucian academies, tombs, placenta chambers, trees, wells, bridges, etc. They also include otherwise relocatable heritages which for some reason have been deemed more appropriate to keep on site rather than move to a museum, usually due to their function as an object of worship or memorial, such as Buddhist statues, pagodas, and paintings, portraits held in shrines, or steles.
• Further engagement opportunities refer to actions that can be taken by audiences of interpretation who seek to engage further with heritages after having been provoked to do so via the process of interpretation. Such actions can include activities such as seeking out further interpretive information (including related conceptual elements or other heritages), visiting more heritages, sharing information about heritages with acquaintances, attending educational programs, making creative content relating to heritages, volunteering or donating money to help in the conservation of heritages, and more.