| Sumario: | The relation between authority and different media is explored, focusing in particular on how museums use multimedia technologies to authorize what they display. A comparison is made of two exhibitions that formed the Art Gallery of Ontario's 1996 Oh! Canada Project. The Art for a Nation exhibition featured the work of the Canadian landscape painters known as the Group of Seven and was presented within the conventional criteria through which major museums typically authorize their art. The Oh! Canada Workshop, however, made use of multimedia technologies to promote multicultural views of Canada. The comparison of visitors' reactions to the exhibitions reveals an overwhelming preference for the Art for a Nation exhibition. This suggests that viewers want the authoritative media formats traditionally offered by art galleries, rather than an unauthoritative, multimedia environment that parallels what they experience in everyday life. Thus, for them, the museum should continue to be a place where one can be deferential to authority and anti-popular.
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