Museums and Visitors on the Web

This master thesis investigates the activities of museums on social media by focusing on two culturally active cities: Amsterdam and Istanbul. Using website analysis and a framework for museums’ online activities by J. Kidd (2012), the thesis tries to identify the relationship between museum characteristics such as type, size and funding and visitor engagement. Social media is an exciting platform for cultural organizations such as museums as an informal but effective way to try to attract new audiences and keep existing audiences involved. With the participatory culture of social media applications such as Facebook and Twitter, not only more people could be interested in visiting the museum, but visitors could be updated on the projects and plans of the museums and informally introduced to the advantages of becoming donors. However, the same participatory culture that creates opportunities to reach these audiences also creates a friction with the museum and curator as authority. Looking into different types of museums in two metropolitan areas from two museum sectors with distinct differences in level of development, this thesis tests different hypothesis on the relationship of characteristics of the museum and its online existence. The research concludes that complete public funding significantly hinders innovation and entrepreneurship in museums. Additionally, this thesis concludes that small museums are not significantly more innovative than larger museums. On the contrary, large museums have more resources to devote to opportunities arising on social media applications and are more successful in engaging with visitors online.