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

Abstract

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.