According to a Pew Research Center study published in September 2024, 54% of adults in the U.S. reported that they look to social media for news. TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms have increasingly become sources for information about the world around us, but without the fact-checking standards of most traditional news sources, misinformation on social media is a growing concern. In a space where many people are seeking facts amongst fiction, how can museums bring trustworthy information to a new audience?
Inspired by the theme of trust at this year’s American Alliance of Museums (AAM) Annual Meeting and MuseumExpo, Amuse and our partner the Yale Peabody Museum introduced our strategy to address the question how to effectively share trustworthy content during our conference workshop “Sparking Curiosity, Maintaining Trust: Short Form in the Misinformation Era.” We believe museums should take inspiration from content formats and attention-grabbing strategies invented on social media and create well-researched, curiosity-driven content for audiences of all ages in a shortened format—60 seconds or less.
In 2023, staff and students at the Yale Peabody Museum participated in a version of this workshop. Following a structured format for story creation, groups wrote and shared stories about objects on display. The museum staff then used the tools gleaned from this workshop to develop stories for their exhibits as part of a larger, comprehensive digital engagement strategy. The project included a variety of diverse voices—students, collections managers, curators, and administrative staff—and incorporated a comprehensive review process to verify information. Along the way, the museum grappled with many questions that trouble cultural institutions across the country: What do visitors expect from content produced by museums, and is there room to try new things? How can we maintain trust and factual integrity in a shortened format? Can we discuss sensitive topics responsibly in a shortened format, and how? How can we leverage short-form content to disseminate trustworthy information beyond the walls of our institutions?
With a group of over 50 museum professionals from around the country, we facilitated a similar short-form storytelling workshop at the 2025 AAM Annual Meeting. Through hands-on experimentation, we demonstrated to our workshop participants that 60 seconds can be all you need to share your story and reach a wide audience that is hungry for information they can trust. Participants were guided through the process of writing a 60-second story about a topic or object relevant to their home institution. Using simple strategies for delivering messages succinctly and striking the right tone, participants had the opportunity to explore the possibilities of this new approach by trying it out themselves and critically assess their communication strategies with fellow museum professionals.
At the end of the workshop, we discussed the potential applications and pitfalls of this storytelling approach for different kinds of museums and areas of engagement and the larger implications for this kind of communication on the relationships between museums and the public. “Any institution that serves people can benefit from this,” remarked one participant. Others specifically noted the ways that short form can help build bridges in communities where not everyone knows about or feels welcome in a museum or create an entry point to “discover deeper, more serious topics.” And that was our goal: to provide an easy-to-use tool that any museum staff member, no matter what their job title is, can use to turn curious people into museum people.
So let me ask you: What could you accomplish in 60 seconds?
If you’re excited about hosting a short-form storytelling workshop for your institution, get in touch using the form below!
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