Online Museum Collections and Social Media - Modes of Knowing About, With, and Through Digital Image Curation

Museums increasingly digitize collections to expand public access and foster engagement beyond institutional spaces. Katharina Geis explores how digital museum images are used, shared, and curated across platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. Drawing on ethnographic research - including participant observation and 90 interviews - she examines how digital infrastructures and social contexts shape curation practices. By tracing how users search for, edit, and share images, the study reveals how digital image curation becomes a way of knowing about, with, and through artefacts in everyday life.