Abstract
On 18 March 2020, Spanish museums saw their in-person activities come to a halt. This paradigm shift has raised questions concerning how these institutions reinvented themselves and modified their edu-communicative strategies to promote heritage through active citizen participation. The present study centers on analyzing how the main Spanish archaeological museums and sites (N = 254) have used Twitter as an edu-communicative tool and analyzes the content of their hashtags through a mixed methodology. The objective is to identify the educational strategies for both transmitting information as well as interacting with users. We did it by observing and analyzing if Spanish archaeological institutions are promoting a type of quality, accessible, and egalitarian education and promoting the creation of cyber communities that ensure the sustainability of heritage through citizen participation. This paper proposes an innovative assessment of communication on Twitter based on the purpose of messages from the viewpoint of heritage education, their r-elational factor, and predominant type of learning. The main findings reveal a significant increase in Twitter activity, both in quantitative and qualitative terms: educational content is gaining primacy over the simple sharing of basic information and promotional content. The networks forge new ways to teach–learn and interact with media and represent a strong channel to promote the sustainability of heritage, its preservation, and appreciation.
Highlights
The breakneck speed at which digital society and culture have advanced over the last 20 years has given rise to various new areas of research, such as the study of digital edu-communication, which has proven itself to be fundamental for life-long and non-formal learning
The heritage-based edu-communicative strategies used by museums constitutes an emerging field of research within which the present study focuses on the collection of Spanish archaeological and open-air museums and these institutions’ use of Twitter
In light of previous analyses concerning the possible advantages of social networks for heritage education [2,23,24], it has been determined that a hashtag on Twitter, which is linked to specific educational content and is used in a periodic or regular fashion, can enjoy substantial diffusion and be combined with other communicative strategies for piquing user interest and leading to meaningful learning
Summary
The breakneck speed at which digital society and culture have advanced over the last 20 years has given rise to various new areas of research, such as the study of digital edu-communication, which has proven itself to be fundamental for life-long and non-formal learning. Digital learning is a process that is not subject to normal restrictions and has changed the rules of the game, providing new communication tools and spaces for interaction [1,11] In this vein, social networks have emerged as powerful instruments and platforms for museums to communicate on a massive scale with their publics [12,13,14,15,16,17], even becoming publication spaces for these institutions [18] and forging new inter-institutional relationships as a part of trends in online communication [19] allowing us to educate, raise awareness, and value the wealth of heritage and its necessary conservation to promote the sustainability of our legacy
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