THE EMERGENCE OF THE WOW MUSEUM EXPERIENCE REVEALED

Today, museums allegedly focus more and more on experience due to multiple societal challenges, such as the growing competition of the leisure industry, financial uncertainty and changing desires of museum visitors. Some fear of spectacularization of the museum, others even argue that the museum is losing their worth because of this focus on experience. Yet, are museums indeed experientializing their practices increasingly or are there nuances to be determined? Hence, to modernize understandings on current museum practices and cultural legitimation, this research gauged the prevailing idea of museums increasingly embracing an experience-orientation. This thesis presents a study exploring how Dutch, British and American museums experientialize their practices and whether differences and similarities could be ascribed to certain museum characteristics, namely: museum type, intended audience and country of residence. A mixed methods approach was applied, consisting of a qualitative and quantitative content analysis of official websites of 21 museums belonging to seven categories (history, art, natural history, ethnology, science and technology, house, and fusion). Text as well as website design were examined concerning a focus on experience, which was defined along four indicators, namely: participation, sociability, entertainment, and memorability. Results indicated that certainly not all museums embrace an experience-orientation, refuting the prevailing idea of an increasing focus on experience among museums. When museums do experientialize they mainly focus on participation, onsite as well as online. Sociability, entertainment and memorability seem of less importance. Furthermore, museum type didn’t seem a strong factor concerning how museums embrace an experience-orientation. A museum’s intended audience and country of residence seem to have more influence, yet only moderate, on the manner and degree of experientialization: museums targeting an audience of families seem more likely to have a stronger experience-orientation, as well as British and American museums. Still, this strong focus on experience primarily involved a focus on participation; hence, museums aren’t representing themselves so much as experiential, but rather as participatory.