WHO SAID MUSEUMS ARE BORING? - A STUDY ON AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT FOR CHILDREN IN DUTCH MUSEUMS

It is a stereotypical image seen in movies and tv shows, especially in the ones of lower quality, to have children half-heartedly strolling across a museum with tired faces while a boring adult is showing them the artifacts of the exhibition in a monotonous, uncharming manner. This thesis wants to show that museums can be exiting places where children can have fun and in the meantime have a meaningful experience that taught them something, may it be about history, science, art, or whatever. By taking the museums in the Netherlands as a case study, this dissertation will look at the efforts done by museums to attract children and ensure that they have a good time while visiting with their family. Using a quantitative method, Dutch museums are analysed in regards to audience developments, strategies to attract children and families, and use of edutainment, while also paying attention to the reasons (e.g.: budgeting or government regulation) why they are organised one way or another. The results of this empirical study shows that the image of bored kids in a museum is indeed a stereotype with little to no connection with factual reality, at least in the Dutch case. Museums are interested in having an important number of children as their visitors