Understanding levels of online participation in the U.K. museum sector

Charlesworth, Ellen; Beresford, Andrew M.; Warwick, Claire; Impett, Leonardo

doi:10.1080/09647775.2023.2188478

Understanding levels of online participation in the U.K. museum sector

Charlesworth, Ellen; Beresford, Andrew M.; Warwick, Claire; Impett, Leonardo

Authors

Ellen Charlesworth ellen.m.charlesworth@durham.ac.uk
PGR Student Doctor of Philosophy

Professor Andrew Beresford a.m.beresford@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Professor Claire Warwick c.l.h.warwick@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Leonardo Impett

Abstract

COVID-19 has undeniably affected museums’ online content, yet attempts to identify or understand sector trends have been hampered by a lack of data. This paper uses a representative sample of 315 U.K. museums to create a much-needed benchmark against which museum practitioners can evaluate and contextualise prior studies and their own experiences. Gathering data from museum websites and five social media platforms, this paper is one of the largest studies of its kind in the European museum sector and the first of such scale in the U.K. Beginning with an overview of social media adoption, the paper then investigates museums’ use of YouTube to identify sector trends. Crucially, this paper demonstrates a scalable methodology that enables a broader analysis of European and North American museums using TripAdvisor. This method has applications beyond the heritage sector and is pertinent to the study of any public facing attraction.

Citation

Charlesworth, E., Beresford, A. M., Warwick, C., & Impett, L. (2023). Understanding levels of online participation in the U.K. museum sector. Museum Management and Curatorship, https://doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2023.2188478

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Mar 4, 2023
Online Publication Date	Mar 22, 2023
Publication Date	2023
Deposit Date	Mar 24, 2023
Publicly Available Date	May 10, 2023
Journal	Museum Management and Curatorship
Print ISSN	0964-7775
Electronic ISSN	1872-9185
Publisher	Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2023.2188478
Public URL	https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1177219

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Copyright Statement
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.