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Reading Test 44
The Blockbuster Phenomenon: a new museum trend
A.
Since the 1980s, the term “blockbuster” has become the fashionable word for special spectacular museum, art gallery or science centre exhibitions. These exhibitions have the ability to attract large crowds and often large corporate sponsors. Here is one of some existing definitions of blockbuster: Put by Elsen (1984), a blockbuster is a “… large scale loan exhibition that people who normally don’t go to museums will stand in line for hours to see …”; James Rosenfield, writing in Direct Marketing in 1993, has described a successful blockbuster exhibition as a “… triumph of both curatorial and marketing skills …”.
My own definition for blockbuster is “a popular, high profile exhibition on display for a limited period, that attracts the general public, who are prepared to both stand in line and pay a fee in order to partake in the exhibition.” What both Elsen and Rosenfield omit in the descriptions of blockbusters, is that people are prepared to pay a fee to see a blockbuster, and that the term blockbuster can just as easily apply to a movie or a museum exhibition.
B.
Merely naming an exhibition or movie a blockbuster however, does not make it a blockbuster. The term can only apply when the item in question has had an overwhelmingly successful response from the public. However, in literature from both the UK and USA the other words that also start to appear in descriptions of blockbusters are “less scholarly”, “non-elitist” and “populist”.
Detractors argue that blockbusters are designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator, while others extol the virtues of encouraging scholars to cooperate on projects and to provide exhibitions that cater for a broad section of the community rather than an elite sector.
C.
Maintaining and increasing visitor levels is paramount in the new museology. This requires continued product development. Not only the creation or hiring of blockbuster exhibitions, but regular exhibition changes and innovations. In addition, the visiting public have become customers rather than visitors, and the skills that are valued in museums, science centres and galleries to keep the new customers coming through the door have changed.
High on the list of requirements are commercial, business, marketing and entrepreneurial skills. Curators are now administrators. Being a director of an art gallery no longer requires an Art Degree. As succinctly summarised in The Economist in 1994 “business nous and public relation skills” were essential requirements for a director, and the ability to compete with other museums to stage travelling exhibitions which draw huge crowds.
D.
The new museology has resulted in the convergence of museums, the heritage industry, and tourism, profit-making and pleasure-giving. This has given rise to much debate about the appropriateness of adapting the activities of institutions so that they more closely reflect the priorities of the market place and whether it is appropriate to see museums primarily as tourist attractions. Many institutions you can now hold office functions in the display areas, or have dinner with the dinosaurs.
Whatever commentators may think, managers of museums, art galleries and science centres worldwide are looking for artful ways to blend culture and commerce, and blockbuster exhibitions are at the top of the list. But while blockbusters are all part of the new museology, there is proof that you don’t need a museum, science centre or art gallery to benefit from the drawing power of a blockbuster or to stage a blockbuster.
E.
But do blockbusters held in public institutions really create a surplus to fund other activities? If the bottom line is profit, then according to the accounting records of many major museums and galleries, blockbusters do make money. For some museums overseas, it may be the money that they need to update parts of their collections or to repair buildings that are in need of attention.
For others in Australia, it may be the opportunity to illustrate that they are attempting to pay their way, by recovering part of their operating costs, or funding other operating activities with off budget revenue. This makes the economic rationalists cheerful. However, not all exhibitions that are hailed to be blockbusters will be blockbusters, and some will not make money. It is also unlikely that the accounting systems of most institutions will recognise the real cost of either creating or hiring a blockbuster.
F.
Blockbusters require large capital expenditure, and draw resources across all branches of an organisation; however, the costs don’t end there. There is a Human Resource Management cost in addition to a measurable “real” dollar cost. Receiving a touring exhibition involves large expenditure as well, and draws resources from across functional management structures in project management style. Everyone from a general labourer to a building servicing unit, the front of house, technical, promotion, education and administration staff, are required to perform additional tasks.
Furthermore, as an increasing number of institutions in Australia find their hand at increasing visitor numbers, memberships (and therefore revenue), by staging blockbuster exhibitions, it may be less likely that blockbusters will continue to provide a surplus to subsidise other activities due to the competitive nature of the market. There are only so many consumer dollars to go around, and visitors will need to choose between blockbuster products.
G.
Unfortunately, when the bottom-line is the most important objective to the mounting of blockbuster exhibitions, this same objective can be hard to maintain. Creating, mounting or hiring blockbusters is exhausting for staff, with the real costs throughout an institution difficult to calculate. Although the direct aims may be financial, creating or hiring a blockbuster has many positive spin-offs; by raising the profile through a popular blockbuster exhibition, a museum will be seen in a more favourable light at budget time. Blockbusters mean crowds, and crowds are good for the local economy, providing increased employment for shops, hotels, restaurants, the transport industry and retailers.
Blockbusters expose staff to the vagaries and pressures of the market place, and may lead to creative excellence. Either the success or failure of a blockbuster may highlight the need for managers and policy makers to rethink their strategies. However, the new museology and the apparent trend towards blockbusters make it likely that museums, art galleries and particularly science centres will be seen as part of the entertainment and tourism industry, rather than as cultural icons deserving of government and philanthropic support.
H.
Perhaps the best pathway to take is one that balances both blockbusters and regular exhibitions. However, this easy middle ground may only work if you have enough space, and have alternate sources of funding to continue to support the regular less exciting fare. Perhaps the advice should be to make sure that your regular activities and exhibitions are more enticing, and find out what your local community wants from you. The question (trend) now at most museums and science centres, is “What blockbusters can we tour to overseas venues and will it be cost effective?”
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Saving The British Bitterns
A.
Breeding bitterns became extinct in the UK by 1886 but, following re-colonisation early last century, numbers rose to a peak of about 70 booming (singing) males in the 1950s, falling to fewer than 20 by the 1990s. In the early 1980s it was clear that the bittern was in trouble, but there was little information on which to base recovery actions.
B.
Bitterns have cryptic plumage and a shy nature, usually remaining hidden within the cover of reedbed vegetation. Our first challenge was to develop standard methods to monitor their numbers. The boom of the male bittern is its most distinctive feature during the breeding season, and we developed a method to count them using the sound patterns unique to each individual. This not only allows the US to be much more certain of the number of booming males in the UK, but also enables us to estimate local survival of males from one year to the next.
C.
Our first direct understanding of the habitat needs of breeding bitterns came from comparisons of reedbed sites that had lost their booming birds with those that retained them. This research showed that bitterns had been retained in reedbeds where the natural process of succession, or drying out, had been slowed through management. Based on this work, broad recommendations on how to manage and rehabilitate reedbeds for bitterns were made, and funding was provided through the EU LIFE Fund to manage 13 sites within the core breeding range. This project, though led by the RSPB, involved many other organisations.
D.
To refine these recommendations and provide fine-scale, quantitative habitat prescriptions on the bitterns’ preferred feeding habitat, we radio-tracked male bitterns on the RSPB’s Minsmere and Leighton Moss reserves. This showed clear preferences for feeding in the wetter reedbed margins, particularly within the reedbed next to larger open pools. The average home range sizes of the male bitterns we followed (about 20 hectares) provided a good indication of the area of reedbed needed when managing or creating habitat for this species. Female bitterns undertake all the incubation and care of the young, so it was important to understand their needs as well. Over the course of our research, we located 87 bittern nests and found that female bitterns preferred to nest in areas of continuous vegetation, well into the reedbed, but where water was still present during the driest part of the breeding season.
E.
The success of the habitat prescriptions developed from this research has been spectacular. For instance, at Minsmere, booming bittern numbers gradually increased from one to 10 following reedbed lowering, a management technique designed to halt the drying out process. After a low point of 11 booming males in 1997, bittern numbers in Britain responded to all the habitat management work and started to increase for the first time since the 1950s.
F.
The final phase of research involved understanding the diet, survival and dispersal of bittern chicks. To do this we fitted small radio tags to young bittern chicks in the nest, to determine their fate through to fledging and beyond. Many chicks did not survive to fledging and starvation was found to be the most likely reason for their demise. The fish prey fed to chicks was dominated by those species penetrating into the reed edge. So, an important element of recent studies (including a PhD by the University of Hull) has been the development of recommendations on habitat and water conditions to promote healthy native fish populations.
G.
Once independent, radio-tagged young bitterns were found to seek out new sites during their first winter; a proportion of these would remain on new sites to breed if the conditions were suitable. A second EU LIFE funded project aims to provide these suitable sites in new areas. A network of 19 sites developed through this partnership project will secure a more sustainable UK bittern population with successful breeding outside of the core area, less vulnerable to chance events and sea level rise.
H.
By 2004, the number of booming male bitterns in the UK had increased to 55, with almost all of the increase being on those sites undertaking management based on advice derived from our research. Although science has been at the core of the bittern story, success has only been achieved through the trust, hard work and dedication of all the managers, owners and wardens of sites that have implemented, in some cases very drastic, management to secure the future of this wetland species in the UK.
The constructed bunds and five major sluices now control the water level over 82 ha, with a further 50 ha coming under control in the winter of 2005/06. Reed establishment has principally used natural regeneration or planted seedlings to provide small core areas that will in time expand to create a bigger reed area. To date nearly 275,000 seedlings have been planted and reed cover is extensive. Over 3 km of new ditches have been formed, 3.7 km of existing ditch have been re-profiled and 2.2 km of old meander (former estuarine features) have been cleared out.
I.
Bitterns now regularly winter on the site with some indication that they are staying longer into the spring. No breeding has yet occurred but a booming male was present in the spring of 2004. A range of wildfowl breeds, as well as a good number of reedbed passerines including reed bunting, reed, sedge and grasshopper warblers. Numbers of wintering shovelers have increased so that the site now holds a UK important wintering population. Mallard Reserve now forms part of the UK network of key sites for water vole (a UK priority species) and 12 monitoring transects have been established. Otter and brown-hare occur on the site as does the rare plant, pillwort.
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The Placebo Effect
Want to devise a new form of alternative medical treatment? No problem. Here’s the recipe. As a practitioner, be warm, sympathetic, reassuring, and enthusiastic. Your treatment should involve physical contact, and each session with your patients should take at least half an hour. Encourage your patients to take an active part in their treatment and understand how their disorders relate to the rest of their lives. Tell them that their own bodies possess the true power to heal. Get them to pay you well. Describe your treatment in familiar words, but embroider with a hint of mysticism: energy fields, energy flows, energy blocks, meridians, forces, auras, rhythms, and the like. Refer to the knowledge of an early age: wisdom carelessly swept aside by the rise of blind mechanistic science. Oh, come off it, you’re saying. Something like that couldn’t possibly work, could it?
Well, yes, it could—and often well enough to earn you a living. And a very good living if you are sufficiently convincing or, better still, really believe in your therapy. Many illnesses get better on their own, so if you are lucky and administer your treatment at just the right time, you’ll get the credit. But that’s only part of it. Some of the improvement really would be down to you. Not necessarily because you’d recommended ginseng rather than chamomile tea or used this crystal as opposed to that pressure point. Nothing so specific. Your healing power would be the outcome of a paradoxical force that conventional medicine recognizes but remains oddly ambivalent about: the placebo effect.
Placebos are treatments that have no direct effect on the body, yet still work because the patient has faith in their power to heal. Most often, the term refers to a dummy pill, but it applies just as much to any device or procedure, from a sticking plaster to a crystal. The existence of the placebo effect implies that even a complete fraud could make a difference to someone’s health, which is why some practitioners of alternative medicine are sensitive about any mention of the subject. In fact, the placebo is a powerful part of all medical care, orthodox or otherwise, though its role is often neglected and misunderstood.
At one level, it should come as no surprise that our state of mind can influence our physiology: anger opens the superficial blood vessels of the face; sadness pumps the tear glands. But exactly how placebos work their medical magic is still largely unknown. Most of the scant research to date has focused on the control of pain because it’s one of the easiest to measure.
The placebo effect can be abolished by a drug, naloxone, which blocks the effects of endorphins. Benedetti induced pain in a pressure cuff on the forearm. He did this several times a day for several days, using morphine each time to control the pain. On the final day, without saying anything, he replaced the morphine with a saline solution. This still relieved the subjects’ pain: a placebo effect. But when he added naloxone to the saline and blocked the endorphins, the pain relief disappeared. He was direct proof that the relief of pain by a placebo is carried out, at least in part, by these natural opiates.
Though scientists don’t know exactly how placebos work, they have accumulated a fair bit of knowledge about how to trigger the effect. A London rheumatologist found, for example, that red dummy capsules made more effective painkillers than blue, green, or yellow ones. Research on American students revealed that blue pills make better tranquilizers than pink, a color more suitable for stimulants. Even branding can make a difference: If Aspro or Tylenol are what you like to take for a headache, their chemically identical generic equivalents may be less effective.
It matters too how the treatment is delivered. Decades ago, when the major tranquilizer chlorpromazine was being introduced, a doctor in Kansas categorized his colleagues according to whether they were keen on it, openly skeptical of its benefits, or took a “let’s try and see” attitude. His conclusion: the more enthusiastic the doctor, the better the drug performed. A recent survey by Ernst on doctors’ bedside manners turned up one consistent finding: Physicians who adopt a warm, friendly, reassuring manner are more effective than those whose consultations are formal and do not offer reassurance.
Warm, friendly, and reassuring are precisely what alternative treatment is all about, of course. Many of the ingredients of that opening recipe—the physical contact, the generous swathes of time, the strong hints of supernormal healing power—are just the kind of things likely to impress patients. It’s hardly surprising then, that complementary practitioners are generally best at mobilizing the placebo effect, says Arthur Kleinman, professor of social anthropology at Harvard University.
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