2. Social media & Participation 1
Democratic design and co-curation of exhibits
(Simon, 2010; Ciolfi, Bannon, & Fernström, 2008)
Each museum in a 2010 study, 2.0 tools
represented less than 10% of their online
presence (Lopez, et al, 2010)
Building community and two-way engagement
are core misssions of museums (Allen-Greil and
MacArthur, 2010)
Museums should reflect the current prevailing
behaviors of an information world (Lovejoy,
Waters, and Saxton, 2012; Peacock and Brownbill, 2007)
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3. Research Questions
How are museums using social media?
What degree of participation does a
museum engage in based on its postings?
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4. Sampling
50 museums selected through purposeful
sampling
Used Twitter and Facebook search tools to
identify sample
All museums in the sample have both
Facebook and Twitter accounts
Limited to Facebook and Twitter activity
because they are textual sources and free
Outwit Hub Pro www.outwit.com
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5. Dimensions of analysis
COUNT of followers and following
RELIABILITY for official status & info
FINDABILITY from a search or homepage
ENGAGEMENT monthly, weekly, daily
FREQUENCY monthly, weekly, daily
CONTENT recycled, live, multiple channels
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6. Content dimension
Recycled content from other users or
networks
Uses platform specific tools (e.g., #hashtags,
@replies, retweets)
Multiple social media channels with links
across platforms
Has “live content/interactive” sessions (e.g.,
Twitter townhall)
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7. Frequency dimension
Once a month<frequency<once a week
Once a week<frequency<every day
New content posted every day
Several times per day
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8. Engagement dimension
Once a month < Active user engagement <
once a week
Once a week < Active user engagement <
every day
Actively engages (and responds) to users
every day
Not at all
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9. Content dimension Findings
Dimension Aspects Twitter
Recycled content 29.2%
Platform tools 89.6%
Multiple social media channels 97.9%
Live Content 2.1%
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10. Frequency dimension Findings
Dimension Aspects Twitter
Once/mth 6.3%
Once/wk 18.8%
Every day 77.1%
Several times a day 75.0%
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11. Engagement dimension Findings
Dimension Aspects Twitter
Once/mth 12.5%
Once/wk 22.9%
Every day 27.1%
Not at all 37.5%
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12. What is participatory?
Less Participation Greater Participation
Public Relations Games (voting, “like if”)
Events announcements Co-curating projects
Fact of the day Live tweeting events
Retweeting other users
or institution’s content
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15. References
Allen-Greil, D. and MacArthur, M. (2010). “Small Towns and Big Cities: How Museums Foster Community
On-line,” in Museums and the Web 2010: Proceedings, edited by J. Trant and D. Bearman. Toronto:
Archives & Museum Informatics. http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/papers/allen-greil/allen-greil.html.
Ciolfi, L., Bannon, L.J., Fernström, M. (2008). Including visitor contributions in cultural heritage
installations: designing for participation. Museum Management and Curatorship 23(4), 353-365.
Lopex, X., Margapoti, I., Maragliano, R. and Bove, G. (2010). The presence of Web 2.0 tools on museum
websites: a comparative study between England, France, Spain, Italy and the USA. Museum Management
and Curatorship 25(2), 235-249.
Lovejoy, K., Waters, R.D., and Saxton, G.D. (2012). Engaging stakeholders through Twitter: How nonprofit
organizations are getting more out of 140 characters or less. Public Relations Review 38, 313-318.
Peacock, D., and Brownbill, J. (2007). “Audiences, Visitors, Users: Reconceptualising Users Of Museum On-
line Content and Services,” in Museums and the Web 2007: Proceedings, edited by J. Trant and D.
Bearman. Toronto: Archives & Museum
Informatics. http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/papers/peacock/peacock.html
Stratford Institute for Digital Media. (2012). Becoming a Digital Nation: An Evaluation of Provincial and
Territorial eGovernment Initiatives. Stratford, Canada: The Stratford Institute for Digital Media. Retrieved
from http://stratfordinstitute.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/eGovernment_final_web.pdf
Simon, N. (2010). The Participatory Museum. Santa Cruz, CA: Museum 2.0.
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Notas do Editor
A series of interesting developments have arisen in the social media and participation landscape in the museum community. Simultaneously we see greater use of social media tools like Twitter and Facebook alongside advocates of participatory design principles. Nina Simon, I’m sure most of you have heard of, talks specifically in her book The Participatory Museum about collaborative efforts across museum programming and invites the interests of visitors into their experiences, which was echoed in a study that Luciana Ciolfi condicted to measure the visitor engagement in a co-curated project. The existing evidence of social media presence and use comes from a study published in Museum Management & Curatorship in 2010 that counts the common tools museums across 5 Western countries were employing. They noted for each museum in their study 2.0 tools represented less than 10% of their online presence. Tools like sharing sites, commenting tools, uploading to the museum website, open forums, moderated forums, mashup tools or collective construction.
Engagement has a certain amount of range inherent in it. When coding, Twitter replies to users who had already posted to the museum account were counted as engagement. This can be considered somewhat meaningless considering the conversation might be limited to two tweets, especially if it is prompted by the user stating something like “Just had a great time at X museum”, and the museum simply replies by thanking that person or remarking that it was great to have hosted them.
Greater Participation: Whose nose competition
What are museums getting out of using social media? It is hard to justify using these tools because they do not