Rediscovering the imagination: investigating active and passive visitor experience in the 21st century

The experiential nature of visits to cultural and heritage attractions is theorised. Contemporary discourses posit the emergence of a ‘thoughtful’ consumer and a paradoxical ‘dumbing‐down’ of culture. The discursive links between ‘active’ consumption and thought/learning, and of ‘passive’ consumption with dumbness/fun, are argued to be fallacious; the meanings of ‘active’ and ‘passive’ are in need of re‐evaluation. ‘Dumbing‐down’ is suggested to be a discursive term for the lowering of the threshold of engagement by cultural producers, implying neither ‘dumb’ content nor ‘dumb’ consumers. Postmodernisation has eroded the protocols governing access to culture, producing two simultaneous effects: the augmentation of opportunities for ‘thoughtful’ engagement, and increasing commodification giving rise to a ‘smart’ consumer with an initial focus on transaction. A popular threshold of engagement is a recommended and rational strategy for attracting and engaging both ‘thoughtful’ and ‘smart’ consumers.