Journal | magazén
Monographic journal issue | 4 | 1 | 2023
Research Article | Designing for Audience Engagement
Designing for Audience Engagement
Exploring the Use of Online Metrics in the GLAM Sector
Abstract
Many heritage and cultural professionals have emphasised the ability of online content to reach beyond museums’ traditional audiences, yet one of the largest surveys to date shows no significant change in the demographic breakdown of online and on-site visitors. This paper aims to investigate the discrepancy between the data and the narrative, using two case studies to illustrate the pitfalls of using common social media metrics such as ‘views’, ‘likes’, and ‘shares’. Drawing from the authors’ previous sector-wide study, the paper highlights what shapes these numbers, and questions how useful they are as a measure of ‘audience engagement’. Finally, it looks to computational methods to explore nuanced alternatives that could supersede these metrics in the coming decade.
Submitted: April 28, 2023 | Accepted: July 4, 2023 | Published Aug. 2, 2023 | Language: en
Keywords metrics • UK • digital • engagement • social media • GLAM • audiences
Subtags Publication Society Visualisation Communication Works of Art Image data Analysis Technology Institutions Audio-visual data
Copyright © 2023 Ellen Charlesworth, Claire Warwick, Leonardo Impett, Andrew M. Beresford. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/mag/2724-3923/2023/07/005
