Digital museum diplomacy in Greece: The case of the Virtual Museum Alexander the Great

Abstract

Digital cultural diplomacy emerges as a new form of cultural policy, offering new directions in cultural heritage management, international relations and global cultural exchanges. Using the cultural diplomacy model of four components – agent, agenda, vehicle, target audience – the paper examines the role of an online virtual museum space in Greece dedicated to the legacy of Alexander the Great, who largely shaped the modern worldview as a diplomatic agent and cultural ambassador. The research does not aim to measure the effectiveness of the particular digital museum initiative; rather, it seeks to interpret its symbolic, political, and social dimensions within the Greek and international cultural policy context, aiming to contribute to the theoretical understanding of digital museum diplomacy and to underscore the potential of the virtual museum to serve digital cultural diplomacy purposes as a dynamic and forward-looking institution that adapts to the new realities of the digital era. The analysis shows that this virtual museum operates as a digital diplomatic instrument democratizing access to culture and mediating between collective memory, cultural heritage, educational resources and legitimacy. Its function takes place in a digital and interpretive environment that connects archaeology, history, heritage narratives, and digital storytelling, while it fosters the international visibility of Hellenistic culture and expands the influence of Greece and of the virtual museum itself beyond borders.

Introduction

Historically, museums have been political institutions and key actors of cultural diplomacy that communicate cultural and political messages beyond national borders (Grincheva, 2021, 2, 13). Τhe foundational principles of cultural diplomacy include national projection and cultural relations (Grincheva, 2021, 14). Nowadays, museums are considered as carriers of soft power (Kouri, 2014, 225), agents of change (Bounia, 2010, 1), social venues, vehicles, and leaders of cultural encounters and exchanges at a global level (Grincheva, 2013, 39–41).

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, museums became dynamic and two-way communication spaces in combination with the domination of new technologies and the age of digital interactivity (Grincheva, 2021, 1, 13), giving emphasis to the digital transformation, free access and dissemination of cultural heritage, authentic museum experiences and global audience engagement.

The online museum spaces are no less political than the physical ones. Instead, they provide alternative channels of museum diplomacy since they are “the result of strategic communication and the curatorial efforts” of museum professionals, employing the soft power of digital museum collections and exhibitions (Grincheva, 2021, 6–7), and projecting national history, memory, values, cultural heritage, narratives and knowledge to present and future generations.

This article's case study analyses the digital museum project “Virtual Museum Alexander the Great: From Aigai to the Ecumene”, an initiative co-funded by the European Union and Greece, emphasizing the close link between the past and the future, the memory of Macedonian history and digital innovation, cultural heritage and sustainability (Gtp Headlines, 2025). Based on the existing literature on cultural and digital museum diplomacy and within the analysis framework of the four basic structural components of cultural diplomacy (agent – the initiator of the cultural diplomacy initiative; agenda – the objectives and goals of the initiative; vehicle – the methods, medium and platforms used to deliver the cultural message; target audience – the groups of people the initiative aims to reach) as derived from Gienow-Hecht and Donfried (2010), the case study explores the identity and the ability of the agent to initiate and drive cultural diplomacy, its agenda, the ways in which digital cultural diplomacy is exercised and the relevant target audience. The particular virtual museum constitutes an interesting case that can contribute to digital museum diplomacy through its online platform, which transcends geographical boundaries, promotes global accessibility to cultural heritage, disseminates knowledge, strengthens cultural connectivity and interaction with curated and multimedia narratives, enhances intercultural exchange, and functions as a digital soft power actor.

Key components of cultural diplomacy and museums as cultural agents

Cultural Diplomacy, a key form of Joseph Nye's “soft power” (Nye, 2004, 2023, 35–39) can be defined as:

“The ability to persuade through culture, values, and ideas, as opposed to hard power, which traditionally conquers or coerces through military, political, or economic might” (Gienow-Hecht and Donfried, 2010, 21).

Carbone (2017, 65–67, 71) mentions that Gienow-Hecht and Donfried (2010) defined four main components of cultural diplomacy that facilitate the analysis of relevant phenomena and activities:

• The “agent”, the promoter of the cultural diplomacy action, that can be a state, a governmental or nongovernmental organization, a company, or a combination of different entities, as well as stakeholders from the public and private sector or the civil society.

• The “agenda” represents the mission and the purpose of the agent's initiatives, indicates the necessary efforts for their accomplishment, while it discloses values and cultural expressions and promotes intercultural dialogue.

• The “vehicle” constitutes the medium through which the agent transmits the cultural values and expressions of a nation or an institution, and reaches the defined audience, thus generating cultural diplomacy actions.

• The “target audience” that comprises either a cross section of civil society or certain targeted elites, is invited to establish a strong relation and trust towards the agent's fundamental cultural values.

According to Bennet (1995), since culture was conceptualized as a new form of power, the development of the modern public museum has been connected with politics as well as with architecture, technology, and representation. Museums became cultural institutions and social spaces involved in the practice of showing and telling, which means that they exhibit and communicate specific cultural artifacts, values, and meanings, thus cultivating the population. For this reason, modern museums, responding to reformative demands, should follow two principles: a) be equally open and accessible to all, and b) adequately represent the cultures and values of different sections of the public (Bennet, 1995, 6–9, 90). Moreover, sharing museum collections, information and knowledge are key priorities of cultural heritage management, which can be achieved through digitization, online access, physical and virtual availability, cross-cultural networking and cultural exchange (Bounia, 2010, 1–2, 5).

In this context, digital museum diplomacy emerged as a form of modern digital cultural diplomacy.

In spite of the lack of an agreed definition, digital cultural diplomacy employs the potential of new technological media and online opportunities in order to: democratize cultural heritage; offer open access; digitize and promote national, heritage and museum assets; create engaging environments of cultural information across borders; reach out to a variety of stakeholders and new audiences; provide channels for direct communication; advance diplomatic objectives in the international arena (Grincheva, 2012, 13, 20–21, 26). Therefore, digital museum diplomacy builds on cultural policy theory, but operates through digital infrastructures in contrast to traditional museum diplomacy.

Methodology

The paper presents a case study in an attempt to analyze a digital cultural diplomacy initiative critically. It intends to investigate the concept of digital museum diplomacy and its contribution to Greece's soft power and cultural influence based on primary [museum website; digital archives and exhibits of the virtual museum; mission statement; government and intergovernmental materials such as the National Strategy for ICT and e-Government (Hellenic Republic, Ministry of Administrative Reform And E-Governance, 2012), the inclusion and amendment decisions of the project with code MIS 5003898 (Hellenic Rebublic, Ministry of Economy & Finance, 2016a), official statements and reports from the Ministry of Culture] and secondary sources [literature review; academic books; digital publications; journal articles; websites providing interpretation or critical discussion], and by approaching the case from an external research perspective focusing on museum diplomacy. A critically reflective approach has been adopted to acknowledge the virtual museum's potential to function as a tool of digital museum diplomacy through the international projection of Hellenistic cultural heritage associated with Alexander the Great, and its alignment with the concept of soft power. However, despite virtual museum's conceptual and technological affordances for enhancing cultural accessibility, cross-cultural engagement and preservation of cultural heritage, the lack of user data and sufficient empirical evidence to evaluate the virtual museum's effectiveness in achieving specific diplomatic outcomes is highlighted, positioning the research analysis between prospective contribution and limited substantiation. Unfortunately, it was not possible to include in the paper an impact assessment concerning audience engagement and measurable outcomes (for example web traffic data, page views, visitor statistics or users’ feedback) because of the unavailability of official data and of time limitations. The Virtual Museum Alexander the Great was launched only quite recently, in mid-2025, whereas cultural institutions usually need more time to collect operational statistics and maintain their dissemination at their discretion. Moreover, the frequent unavailability of visitor analytics in Greece inhibits the evaluation of certain aspects of the particular initiative. Furthermore, there aren’t currently any initiatives (for example conferences, exhibitions, excavations online, fora) connected with the content, context, and scope of the Virtual Museum Alexander the Great that could substantiate its effectiveness. As such, the case is positioned between interpretive potential and evidentiary constraint, aiming to critically assess the virtual museum not only as a digital cultural and museum project but also as a prospective, yet as of now insufficiently evaluated, mechanism of international cultural influence. However, this case study is meaningfully connected to digital museum diplomacy, especially when examined through the lenses of cultural diplomacy, digital heritage dissemination, and soft power implementation via digital practices.

Greek cultural policy framework

The Virtual Museum Alexander the Great is a digital project co-funded by the European Union and the Greek state in the framework of the national cultural policy. Greece has significant soft power potential due to its internationally acclaimed cultural heritage assets, which are also part of the EU common values (Kouri, 2014, 223). Greek cultural policy is organized in three pillars: cultural heritage, the return of the Parthenon Marbles, and culture and tourism (Magkou, Kolokytha and Tsene 2022, 198; Kouri, 2014, 224). For decades, a top-down approach promoted by a selective and centralized policy for cultural heritage characterizes the country and its official agents (state and state-supervised bodies, museums and cultural organizations). Thus, the identification, protection and promotion of heritage for present and future generations have been prioritized with a main focus on the economic impact of culture, while a dialectic communication with society has hardly been developed (Kouri, 2014, 224–226; Kolokytha, 2022, 3; Magkou et al., 2022, 198–199). This approach is connected with political, organizational and financial barriers (Kouri, 2014, 226) and treats people more as targets/recipients and less as participants (British Council, 2022a, 3–5).

Cultural diplomacy in Greece is also fragmented and faces a lack of a long-term strategic vision (Magkou et al., 2022, 209), while museums mainly focus on the creation of (digital) tools, although such initiatives are not always coherent with a broader cultural strategy.

According to the Greek News Agenda (2025), a new era started for Greek cultural policy in 2025 with strategic principles and key priorities fostering the preservation and protection of national heritage, nurturing the contemporary artistic creation along with the promotion of culture as a “national developmental asset and a cornerstone of the country's intellectual, economic, and social revitalization, progress, and prosperity”. Museums are required not to be “frozen in time”, but integrated into everyday life as living parts of the society that project the image of the country or a heritage destination beyond national borders. Thus, they are able to contribute to economic development, and strengthen cultural tourism and digital transformation by including new digital platforms and enhancing cultural heritage management in Greece.

In order to adapt to the dictates of the digital era and become resilient and sustainable, the cultural and the museum sector respond to the coordinated financial opportunities offered by the Greek Ministry of Culture and the European Union, and design activities for the purpose of transferring cultural content online (Magkou et al., 2022, 199–200).

Within this framework, a digital cultural project dedicated to the well-known figure of Greek and world history, Alexander the Great, has been inspired and completed by the Greek state, as an online portal and a digital tool for cultural exchange and influence, integrating heritage, diplomatic and educational assets, and projecting values as well as soft power.

Case description: Alexander the Great online virtual museum

Alexander the Great – followed by his successors – introduced the first form of universality. He inaugurated a new way of communicating and disseminating cultural goods, a new sense of community among people, a new experience of living together and having a common language, an “ecumene” (Hellenic Republic – Greece In The UK, 2012).

The Polycentric Museum of Aigai, which is a “modern, polymorphic, and evolving entity” (Tsinganas, 2025), was designed to become the symbolic gateway to the history, culture and archaeology of Aigai, and hosts the physical headquarters of the “Virtual Museum Alexander the Great: From Aigai to the Ecumene” (Archaeology in the Heart of Macedonia, 2022). This innovative digital project was inspired, designed and implemented by the Ephorate of Antiquities of Imathia with financial resources from the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) – Digital Convergence (Hellenic Republic – Greece in the UK, 2012) and the Operational Program Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation (EPAnEK) 2014–2020 (Hellenic Republic, Ministry of Economy & Finance, 2016a; Alexander The Great Virtual Museum, 2025), and was officially opened to the public on Monday 30 June 2025 (Alexander The Great Virtual Museum, 2025).

At the museum entrance, a sculpted head of the Macedonian King Alexander the Great constitutes the introductory exhibit, and is framed by two large screens that are opening two large windows to the world (Tsinganas, 2025) of the virtual museum of Alexander the Great. It is a museum without walls, an online portal dedicated to the history, myth and legacy of Alexander the Great. It not only presents the journey of this charismatic young man and hero in an “accessible”, “synthetic”, “comprehensive” and “scientifically accurate” way, but also offers virtual visitors the opportunity to understand the political, historical, cultural and economic conditions under which the Hellenistic Ecumene was created (Alexander The Great Virtual Museum, 2025). Unlike other virtual museums, the Virtual Museum of Alexander the Great does not exhibit museum artifacts and collections. Rather, it is based on an information-oriented selection strategy (Hannich et al. 2024, 108) and on the richness of Alexander the Great's legacy. Its key characteristic is that it consists of specialized video recordings of hundreds of archaeological sites, museums and monuments, located in Greece, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey along with visual material from sites and monuments worldwide, thus enriching the museum's narrative (Alexander The Great Virtual Museum, 2025). This is the result of a coordinated communication and collaboration between museum professionals, cultural stakeholders and relevant institutions internationally, the private and the public sector, as well as tourism bodies to meet all the needs that were projected and arose during the long timetable of the project (Hellenic Rebublic, Ministry of Economy & Finance, 2016a, 2016b, 4–5).

Moreover, the virtual museum is a born-digital and curated exhibition space with a user-friendly interface, mainly static, which delivers through interactive web content with embedded video in a smooth way. It comprises three levels of information (Nanou, 2025) that highlight Alexander the Great's presence in the contemporary world:

In the first level, the visitors can watch the concise narration in the form of a documentary.

In the second level, visitors can interactively delve deeper by accessing a plethora of multimedia organized into seven sections.

In the third level, a library offers access to digital educational games and supplementary material like texts, images, digital artifacts, articles, maps, written sources, terminology thesaurus, and bibliographic references, where visitors can find further information and knowledge according to their specific interests (Alexander The Great Virtual Museum, 2025).

In the first level, the virtual museum is actually a five-hour interactive documentary (Alexander The Great Online Virtual Museum, 2025; Thermou, 2025) in the form of a concise and interactive tour involving video and narration (Nanou, 2025) that presents all the places reached and conquered by the great strategist. The documentary is accessible online and comprises seven thematic chapters: i) the Roots; ii) the Age of Philip II; iii) Alexander of Philip; iv) the Campaign. Alexander, the King of Asia; v) The Cosmocrater, first citizen of the Ecumene; vi) The “New World”, the Hellenic Community; and vii) Immortal (Alexander the Great Online Virtual Museum, 2025).

Level two gives access to 304 digital exhibits organized into the aforementioned seven thematic digital rooms, where the material is presented via film footage, multimedia, animation, 3D representations, sound (Nanou, 2025) and approximately 3.500 texts (Thermou, 2025). Level three includes rich, scientific and educational material as well as digital communities that can collaborate and transform the available information into a “valuable tool for both the general public and experts” (Nanou, 2025).

By having a bilingual format (Greek-English) the virtual museum ensures the global reach befitting the emblematic figure and the heritage of Alexander the Great (Nanou, 2025), promoting intercultural dialogue and global audience engagement, whilst becoming a cultural tourism destination, attracting virtual and physical visitors worldwide.

Discussion

The four main components of cultural diplomacy introduced by the theory of Gienow-Hecht and Donfried (2010) can be traced in the Virtual Museum Alexander the Great:

The “agent” of the digital museum initiative is the Ephorate of Antiquities of Imathia, which is a regional agency of the Greek Ministry of Culture. The Polycentric Museum of Aigai and particularly its virtual museum constitutes the promoter of cultural diplomacy; the virtual organization has a clear purpose to build trust based on its scientific orientation, institutional legitimacy and granted authority that derive from the cultural heritage capital and state support. Since the Greek state acts through affiliated archaeological authorities and cultural organizations, it constitutes the initiator of the diplomatic intervention, and thus the ultimate agent of the Virtual Museum Alexander the Great.

The “agenda” includes the mission and purpose of the virtual museum that aspires to become the main international reference point regarding the topic “Macedonia, Alexander the Great – Hellenistic Civilization” both for specialists and the broader public (Hellenic Rebublic, Ministry of Economy & Finance, 2016b, 4). By focusing toward this orientation and not being subject to a specific cultural strategy, the virtual museum possesses agency to form its own agenda. Furthermore, it is connected with the institutional, curatorial and symbolic power of the agent, who tends to promote Greek heritage, to designate cultural and scientific excellence, and strengthen Greece's international profile. Indeed, the virtual museum of Alexander the Great is a cultural project that the Ministry of Culture has completed within the framework of its integrated planning, and an initiative in Imathia (Region of Central Macedonia) that was included among others in the “Cultural Charter of Development and Prosperity”; the particular document was designed in 2019 for all 13 regions of Greece with a planning horizon to 2030 (Greek News Agenda, 2025) to serve as an active roadmap for culture, innovation, community resilience and economic vitality. Thus, the agenda of the virtual museum involves cultural heritage management, soft power projection and long-term value for Greece and citizens.

The born-digital online museum platform is the “vehicle” that implements cultural diplomacy by functioning: i) as a diplomatic medium to reach mass audiences, safeguard and promote cultural heritage, and build empathy across national and international borders; and ii) as a mechanism for museum learning experiences. The particular entity dedicated to Alexander the Great is an innovative, unconventional, multilevel, digital museum that has no exhibitions, collections, walls and boundaries. However, it brings together visitors from all over the world with the use of modern multimedia technologies, documents and narratives, making history and culture accessible to everyone, while opening new paths for the dissemination of the Hellenistic Ecumene in the modern era (Nanou, 2025; Hellenic Republic, Ministry Of Administrative Reform and E-Governance, 2012, 44, 75). Its digital space and interactive documentary accumulates stories, cultural heritage material and audiovisual elements that preserve the legacy of the Hellenistic world and offer new forms of cultural and audience engagement. Furthermore, the museum experience, overcoming the physical and geographical limitations of traditional museums, gives access to monuments, archaeological sites, museums and historical areas from different countries (Egypt, Greece, Jordan, Turkey) that validated Alexander the Great's history and legacy (Nanou, 2025). It can be seen as a database of visual, textual and audio information narrating history to audiences (Grincheva, 2013, 43) and as an instrument for mutual understanding and cultural interaction at the international level (Gienow-Hecht and Donfried, 2010, 86–87). Consequently, although there may be a fine line between the agent and the vehicle, the virtual museum itself becomes the vehicle of digital museum diplomacy, disseminating cultural content and curated narratives globally.

The “target audience” of the digital initiative is a broad audience that comprises not only the global online visitors and history enthusiasts, but also youth who is familiar with online platforms, international scholars, students and teaching staff of all educational levels, researchers, scientists, entrepreneurs (Nanou, 2025; Hellenic Republic, Ministry of Culture And Sports, n.d., 1–2), Greek diaspora communities, public and private cultural/tourist bodies, cultural tourists. The three-level model of access to the content of the virtual museum ensures accessibility to diverse audiences, while it stimulates academic and scientific exchanges (Grincheva, 2013, 42–43). Finally yet importantly, it provides cultural information and knowledge to a range of online visitors, enabling them to establish “access on their terms, through their own choices, and within their own place and time” (Grincheva, 2013, 46). Hence, with the target audience extending beyond domestic citizens to include foreign publics and digital users, the virtual museum differentiates itself from the traditional cultural diplomacy offerings by exclusively using online services and a digital museum space to engage broader audiences.

Even though the Virtual Museum Alexander the Great integrates all four components as a cultural diplomacy multidimensional contributor, there is no clear evidence in the Greek foreign affairs design or the public policy documentation that a deliberate and especially planned cultural diplomacy strategy has been developed in this case. Thus, its diplomatic value remains implicit in spite of its promising and impactful characteristics, such as its immense potential to not only safeguard heritage, inform, educate, foster intercultural dialogue, advance cultural understanding, highlight cultural continuity and remove barriers, but also to experience and interpret culture, inspire and promote narratives of connectivity rather than division within the broader concept of the Ecumene via a digital museum endeavor rooted in Greek and especially Hellenistic cultural heritage. However, the function of the particular digital museum project is in alignment with the digital cultural policy, especially with the National Strategy for ICT and e-Government (Hellenic Republic, Ministry of Administrative Reform and E-Governance, 2012) and embodies dimensions of digital museum diplomacy by using digital technologies and means in order to promote and disseminate the national culture, heritage and values into the interconnected digital sphere. In addition, it is audience and education-oriented and encourages cross-cultural connections and international partnerships, while it reinforces the national cultural identity and generates soft power by ensuring digital access to heritage and shaping transnational narratives that overcome all forms of boundaries.

Challenges and future research avenues

Virtual museums are of great importance for digital museum diplomacy. A short comparison of the Virtual Museum Alexander the Great with a similar international digital museum initiative confirms that virtual museums are designed to generate digital cultural diplomacy. The UNESCO Virtual Museum of Stolen Cultural Objects, funded by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, was released on 29^th of September 2025 in response to the member states request for a coordinated strategy to raise awareness on illicit trafficking of cultural goods. It was developed as the first global platform dedicated to stolen cultural heritage property, harnessing cutting-edge and innovative technologies, and offering immersive experiences (UNESCO, 2025). Both museums are new and were launched in the same year, revealing a strong policy trend towards technological innovation and the creation of digital (virtual) museum platforms, as well as a continuous evolution in audience expectations. They both share cultural heritage content online and educational narratives on a digital and user-friendly platform, which enables them to safeguard and promote national and international cultural values, restore the social right to democratic access to museums and cultural heritage, build trust, raise public awareness about the importance of cultural heritage for people's identity and lives, and lead audiences to further exploration of digital cultural resources and strong museum experiences. In addition, both museums are highly symbolic organizations rooted in universal heritage. Their main challenge is to ensure a constant state of evolution, taking into consideration legislative texts, official documents and cultural agendas in combination with technological advancements, new findings and trends in digital cultural diplomacy. Thus, virtual museums should not only make use of the unprecedented capabilities of state-of-the-art digital technologies, but also take advantage of the digital transformation of cultural heritage and of the museum sector that facilitates direct bilateral communication and provides alternative ways of practicing digital museum diplomacy.

Digital technologies offer significant multidimensional opportunities enabling accessibility and audience engagement, interactive or immersive experiences and multilingualism, advanced digitization and artificial intelligence, international relations, cross-border collaboration and interoperability. Furthermore, they expand the reach, scale, digital transformation and flexibility of museum cultural diplomacy. However, they impose some important challenges regarding digital (in)equality, authenticity, intellectual property, data sovereignty and preference for virtual museum experience compared to the physical one. Moreover, the effectiveness of digital museum diplomacy depends on digital literacy, local digital infrastructure and digital devices availability that need to be constantly measured or evaluated (British Council, 2022b, 6–9). Similarly, aspects like digital policy framework, strategic governance, sustainable funding, ethical standards, support of social media and impact assessment have to be taken into account.

Digital strategies should be integrated in digital cultural diplomacy initiatives at the outset (British Council, 2022b, 10). The formation of a digital cultural policy especially for the cultural and museum sector remains a big challenge. Greece needs to make its digital strategy more relevant to the European and global cultural agenda, while museums are required to recognize and activate the potential of digital cultural diplomacy.

Just as importantly, the Virtual Museum Alexander the Great, a heritage-led initiative mobilizing digital technology and showcasing the history, cultural treasures and identity of Macedonia and different destinations (GTP Headlines, 2025), affirms that museums should start thinking “glocally” (Kouri, 2014, 224), taking into consideration that the digital and the physical realm intersect and impact one another. As regards the people who participate in online cultural heritage activities and digital platforms, they may change their “offline perceptions of a culture or a country”, thus allowing digital technologies to be used to obtain positive outcomes (British Council, 2022b, 3–4) or boost sustainable cultural tourism in regions and countries, creating new tourism, cultural and business networks (Nanou, 2025).

Conclusion

Museums are actors of cultural diplomacy either in cooperation with state authorities or independently. The paper, besides offering an interpretive examination of the diplomatic dimensions of the Virtual Museum Alexander the Great in Greece, reveals the intention of state actors to embrace the potential and opportunities of digital museum diplomacy, which however are not fully employed so far. The charismatic figure of Alexander the Great and issues related to his legacy and ancient Macedonia constitute a perfect soft power tool for nation branding and cultural diplomacy endeavors. Therefore, Greece should consider branding it properly in the digital realm in order to promote cultural heritage, enhance the country's fame and reinforce its cultural competitiveness in a globalized environment. To this end, the Virtual Museum Alexander the Great, which constitutes homage to this charismatic personality, indirectly generates soft power dynamics benefiting both his country of origin and the entire humanity, and contributes significantly to the international discourse on digital museum diplomacy.