The Museum As Institutional Actor: Strategic Communication And Narrative Identity In The Medical University

This article proposes an analysis of the role played by the university museum in constructing and communicating institutional identity, starting from the concept of the museum-actor – an entity that does not confine itself to preserving heritage, but actively participates in the production of meaning, in symbolic legitimisation, and in the narrative articulation of organisational values. The theoretical anchoring integrates actor-network theory (Latour, 2005), dramaturgical analysis (Goffman, 2007), the theory of symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 2013), models of corporate communication (Cornelissen, 2011; Capriotti, 2013) and the sociology of medical professionalism (Freidson, 1970; Montgomery, 2006; Groopman, 2007). The case study, focused on the Museum of the History of Medicine of the University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova, examines how a museum space can function as a narrative platform, as an instrument of institutional legitimisation, and as a vector of identity cohesion in the contemporary medical-academic context, while simultaneously responding to the tensions between scientific authority and the humanistic dimension of the medical profession.