Domestic museums in the conditions of interactivity: modern trends in the development of the museum educational environment

The widespread introduction of information technologies and the Internet, which developed in the post-industrial era, and changes in the centennials’ consciousness and thinking force museums as fundamental institutions of culture and education to significantly alter their functioning. The communicative model of the museum described by the Canadian researcher D.F. Cameron, in which a museum visitor is seen as an equal participant in the dialogue, came into domestic practice somewhat later than into the western one, and continues to this day. The author of the article analyses the development trends of the most visited domestic museums, according to the latest statistics of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation for 2018, in the context of considering educational environment as part of the cultural and educational space of the museum. According to V.A. Yasvin, educational environment includes three structural components: spaсe-and-object (architectural features of buildings, equipment, special attributes, etc.), social (special “community form” inherent in this type of culture), psychodidactic (the corresponding content of education, methods of action mastered by students, organisation of training). Among the most striking trends in the change in the space-and-object component of the educational environment of domestic museums, the author distinguishes, firstly, the emergence of virtual museums and, secondly, the ubiquity of interactive sites that allow to include the visitor in the development of the museum space. The second component, the social one, is enriched through the integrative processes of the museum with other institutions and communities, which include the tradition of interacting with universities, schools, kindergartens, as well as specific collaborations of museum academic communities and a wide audience regarding joint projects based on one topic. There is a need for museums to promote and position themselves as a brand in the market of cultural and educational services, which leads to the emergence of PR products and professional activities in social networks. The psychodidactic component of the educational environment of the modern museum is supplemented, firstly, with such an entertaining educational format as edutainment. Secondly, interactive technologies allow the museum visitor to independently choose the format and pace of the development of the museum space; at the same time, guides and cultural figures, adapting to the needs of modern youth, work on the way of delivering specific museum information, making it more accessible. Thus, the museum as a developing cultural and educational system makes changes to the format of interaction with the audience, based on the integration of traditional and non-traditional representations of their values.