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Researching Online Museums: Digital Methods to Study Virtual Visitors

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Research Methods for the Digital Humanities

Abstract

Digital ethnography can be used to study online audiences and virtual communities built around museum content. Virtual museum visitors can participate in online museum spaces, including interactive online galleries, virtual three-dimensional museum simulators, or museum profiles on social network sites or blogs. These online environments can include recording tools, to trace all of the activities of the users and to display all of the visible records. This chapter discusses challenges, ethical implications, and online research opportunities of the digital ethnographic methodology employed to study online museum audiences. It illustrates the method through empirical studies of online communities at internationally recognized museums. Digital ethnographic research conducted in online museum communities can inform Digital Humanities and incorporate perspectives from visitor studies.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Glen Drury, “Social Media: Should Marketers Engage and How Can It Be Done Effectively?” Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice 9, no. 3 (2008): 274–277.

  2. 2.

    Ibid.

  3. 3.

    “Glossary of Visitor Studies Terms,” Visitor Studies Association, accessed May 10, 2017, http://www.visitorstudies.org/glossary-of-terms.

  4. 4.

    Alan Bryman, “The End of the Paradigm Wars?” In The SAGE Handbook of Social Research, eds. Pertti Alasuutari, Leonard Bickman, and Julia Brannen (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2008).

  5. 5.

    Abbas Tashakkori and Charles Teddlie. Handbook of Mixed Methods in Social & Behavioral Research (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2003).

  6. 6.

    Bryman, “The End of the Paradigm Wars?”

  7. 7.

    “Museum Definition,” ICOM (International Council of Museums ), accessed May 10, 2017. ICOM, http://icom.museum/the-vision/museum-definition/.

  8. 8.

    Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, “Studying Visitors,” in A Companion to Museum Studies, ed. Stuart McDonald (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006).

  9. 9.

    Steve Bitgood, “Introduction: Visitor Studies—1988.” Visitor Studies 1, no. 1 (1989): 5–8; George Hein, Learning in the Museum. (London: Routledge, 1999); and Boris Schiele, Ruth Rentschler, and Eve Reussner, Museum Marketing Research: From Denial to Discovery (Melbourne: Deakin University Press, 1992).

  10. 10.

    Robert Kozinets, Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online (London: Sage, 2010).

  11. 11.

    Ibid.

  12. 12.

    Natalia Grincheva, “Museum Ethnography in the Digital Age: Ethical Considerations,” in Internet Research Ethics for the Social Age: New Cases and Challenges, eds. Michael Zimmer and Kataharina Kinder-Kurlandan (New York: Peter Lang, 2017).

  13. 13.

    “Code of Ethics for Museums ,” ICOM (International Council of Museums ), accessed May 10, 2017, http://icom.museum/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/Codes/code_ethics2013_eng.pdf.

  14. 14.

    Debora Heath, Erin Koch, Barbara Ley, and Michael Montoya, “Nodes and Queries: Linking Locations in Networked Fields on Inquiry,” American Behavioral Scientist 43, no. 3 (1999): 450–463.

  15. 15.

    Christine Hine. Virtual Ethnography (London: Sage, 2000).

  16. 16.

    Nigel Fielding, Raymond Lee, and Grant Blank. Sage Book of Online Research Methods (London: Sage, 2008).

  17. 17.

    Hine, Virtual Ethnography, 257.

  18. 18.

    Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics (London: Routledge: 1995), 8.

  19. 19.

    Ibid.

  20. 20.

    Bitgood, “Introduction: Visitor Studies,” 5–8.

  21. 21.

    Ibid.

  22. 22.

    Hooper-Greenhill, “Studying Visitors,” 368.

  23. 23.

    Charles Van den Heuvel, Sandor Spruit, Leen Breure, and Hans Voorbij, “Annotators and Agents in a Web-Based Collaboratory Around Cartographical Collections in Cultural Heritage Institutions.” Museums and the Web 2010, accessed May 10, 2017, http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/papers/heuvel/heuvel.html; Georgia Angelaki, Rossella Caffo, Monika Hagedorn-Saupe, and Susan Hazan, “ATHENA: A Mechanism for Harvesting Europe’s Museum Holdings into Europeana,” Museums and the Web 2010, accessed May 10, 2017, http://www.museumsandtheweb.com/mw2010/papers/angelaki/angelaki.html; Wayne LaBar, “Can Social Media Transform the Exhibition Development Process: Cooking the Exhibition—An Ongoing Case Study.” Museums and the Web 2010, accessed May 10, 2017, http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/papers/labar/labar.html.

  24. 24.

    Barbara Soren and Nathalie Lemelin, “‘Cyberpals!/Les Cybercopains!’: A Look at Online Museum Visitor Experiences.” Curator: The Museum Journal 47, no. 1 (2004): 55–83.

  25. 25.

    Ibid.

  26. 26.

    Facebook Insights shows the demographics and geographic distribution of audiences in total absolute numbers, not normalized to the Facebook demographics.

  27. 27.

    “Annual Report 2010–2015,” Van Gogh Museum , accessed May 10, 2017, https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/organisation/annual-report.

  28. 28.

    Natalia Grincheva, “How Far Can We Reach? International Audiences in Online Museum Communities.” The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society 7, no. 4 (2012): 29–42.

  29. 29.

    Grincheva, “How far can we reach?”

  30. 30.

    “Museum Definition,” ICOM.

  31. 31.

    Arthur Melton, Problems of Installation in Museums of Art (Washington, DC: American Association of Museums, 1935), 114.

  32. 32.

    Arthur Lucast, Paulette McManus, and Gillian Thomas, “Investigating Learning from Informal Sources: Listening to Conversations and Observing Play in Science Museums.” International Journal of Science Education 8, no. 4 (1986): 341–352; Kevin Crowley and Maureen Callanan, “Describing and Supporting Collaborative Scientific Thinking in Parent-Child Interactions,” Journal of Museum Education 23, no. 1 (1998): 12–17; and Dirk vom Lehn, Charles Heath and John Hindmarsh, “Video-Based Field Studies in Museums and Galleries,” Visitor Studies Today 5, no. 3 (2002): 15–23.

  33. 33.

    Patricia Gillard and Anne Cranne-Francis, “Evaluation for Effective Web Communication: An Australian Example,” Curator: The Museum Journal 45, no. 1 (2002): 35–49, 38.

  34. 34.

    Grincheva, “How Far Can We Reach?”; Natalia Grincheva, “‘The World Beach Project’ Going Viral: Measuring Online Influence (Case Study of the Victoria & Albert Online Museum Project),” Journal of Creative Communications 10, no. 1 (2015): 39–55.

  35. 35.

    Grincheva, “How far can we reach?”

  36. 36.

    Graham Black, The Engaging Museum: Developing Museums for Visitor Involvement (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005).

  37. 37.

    “The World Beach Project,” Victoria and Albert Museum , accessed May 10, 2017, http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/w/world-beach-project/.

  38. 38.

    Jiawei Han, Jian Pei, and Micheline Kamber, Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques (New York: Elsevier, 2011).

  39. 39.

    Grincheva, “‘The World Beach Project’ Going Viral.”

  40. 40.

    “The World Beach Project,” Victoria and Albert Museum .

  41. 41.

    Becky Rendell, E-mail Message to Author, November 15, 2010.

  42. 42.

    David Fetterman, Ethnography: Step-by-Step (London: Sage, 2010).

  43. 43.

    David McConnell, Implementing Computer Supported Cooperative Learning (London: Psychology Press, 2000), 72.

  44. 44.

    Steven Jones. Cybersociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-Mediated Communication and Community (London: Sage, 1998).

  45. 45.

    Kimberly A. Neuendorf, The Content Analysis Guidebook (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2016).

  46. 46.

    Natalia Grincheva, “Cultural Diplomacy of a Different Kind: A Case Study of the Global Guggenheim” (PhD dissertation, Concordia University, 2015).

  47. 47.

    Nora Semel and Francesca Merlino, “YouTube : Play at Guggenheim Museum ,” Museum Next 2011, accessed May 10, 2017, https://www.museumnext.com/insight/youtube-play-at-guggenheim-museum/.

  48. 48.

    Ibid.

  49. 49.

    Liu, Bing. Sentiment Analysis: Mining Opinions, Sentiments, and Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

  50. 50.

    Betsy Rymes, “Recontextualizing YouTube : From Macro–Micro to Mass-Mediated Communicative Repertoires,” Anthropology & Education Quarterly 43, no. 2 (2012): 214–227.

  51. 51.

    Grincheva, “Cultural Diplomacy of a Different Kind.”

  52. 52.

    Ibid.

  53. 53.

    Lev Manovich, “Cultural Data,” In Museum and Archive on the Move: Changing Cultural Institutions in the Digital Era, ed. Oliver Grau (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017).

References

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  • “Code of Ethics for Museums.” ICOM (International Council of Museums). Accessed May 10, 2017. http://icom.museum/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/Codes/code_ethics2013_eng.pdf.

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    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fetterman, David. Ethnography: Step-by-Step. London: Sage, 2010.

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  • Fielding, Nigel, Raymond Lee, and Grant Blank. Sage Book of Online Research Methods. London: Sage, 2008.

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  • Gillard, Patricia, and Anne Cranne-Francis. “Evaluation for Effective Web Communication: An Australian Example.” Curator: The Museum Journal 45, no. 1 (2002): 35–49.

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    Article  Google Scholar 

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  • Grincheva, Natalia. “Museum Ethnography in the Digital Age: Ethical Considerations.” In Internet Research Ethics for the Social Age: New Cases and Challenges, edited by Michael Zimmer and Kataharina Kinder-Kurlandan. New York: Peter Lang, 2017.

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  • Heath, Debora, Erin Koch, Barbara Ley, and Michael Montoya. “Nodes and Queries: Linking Locations in Networked Fields on Inquiry.” American Behavioral Scientist 43 (1999): 450–463.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hein, George. Learning in the Museum. London: Routledge, 1999.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hine, Christine. Virtual Ethnography. London: Sage, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean. “Studying Visitors.” In A Companion to Museum Studies, edited by Stuart McDonald. Oxford: Oxford, Blackwell, 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, Steven. Cybersociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-mediated Communication and Community. London: Sage, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kozinets, Robert. Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online. London: Sage, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • LaBar, Wayne. “Can Social Media Transform the Exhibition Development Process: Cooking the Exhibition—An Ongoing Case Study.” Museums and the Web 2010. Accessed May 10, 2017. http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/papers/labar/labar.html.

  • Liu, Bing. Sentiment Analysis: Mining Opinions, Sentiments, and Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lucast, Arthur, Paulette McManus, and Gillian Thomas. “Investigating Learning from Informal Sources: Listening to Conversations and Observing Play in Science Museums.” International Journal of Science Education 8, no. 4 (1986): 341–352.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manovich, Lev. “Cultural Data.” In Museum and Archive on the Move: Changing Cultural Institutions in the Digital Era, edited by Oliver Grau. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017.

    Google Scholar 

  • McConnell, David. Implementing Computer Supported Cooperative Learning, 72. London: Psychology Press, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  • Melton, Arthur. Problems of Installation in Museums of Art. Washington, DC: American Association of Museums, 1935.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • “Museum Definition.” ICOM (International Council of Museums). Accessed May 10, 2017. ICOM. http://icom.museum/the-vision/museum-definition/.

  • Neuendorf, Kimberly A. The Content Analysis Guidebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2016.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rendell, Becky. E-mail Message to Author, November 15, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rymes, Betsy. “Recontextualizing YouTube: From Macro–Micro to Mass-Mediated Communicative Repertoires.” Anthropology & Education Quarterly 43, no. 2 (2012): 214–227.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schiele, Boris, Ruth Rentschler, and Eve Reussner. Museum Marketing Research: from Denial to Discovery. Melbourn: Deakin University Press, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  • Semel, Nora, and Francesca Merlino. “YouTube: Play at Guggenheim Museum.” Museum Next 2011. Accessed May 10, 2017. https://www.museumnext.com/insight/youtube-play-at-guggenheim-museum/.

  • Soren, Barbara, and Nathalie Lemelin. “‘Cyberpals!/Les Cybercopains!’: A Look at Online Museum Visitor Experiences.” Curator: The Museum Journal 47, no. 1 (2004): 55–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tashakkori, Abbas, and Charles Teddlie. Handbook of Mixed Methods in Social & Behavioral Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van den Heuvel, Charles, Sandor Spruit, Leen Breure, and Hans Voorbij. “Annotators and Agents in a Web-Based Collaboratory Around Cartographical Collections in Cultural Heritage Institutions.” Museums and the Web, 2010. Accessed May 10, 2017. http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/papers/heuvel/heuvel.html.

  • vom Lehn, Dirk Charles Heath, and John Hindmarsh. “Video-based Field Studies in Museums and Galleries.” Visitor Studies Today 5, no. 3 (2002): 15–23.

    Google Scholar 

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Natalia Grincheva

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  1. Natalia Grincheva
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Correspondence to Natalia Grincheva .

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  1. Levenberg Services, Inc., Bloomingburg, NY, USA

    lewis levenberg

  2. Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Tai Neilson

  3. The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA

    David Rheams

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Grincheva, N. (2018). Researching Online Museums: Digital Methods to Study Virtual Visitors. In: levenberg, l., Neilson, T., Rheams, D. (eds) Research Methods for the Digital Humanities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96713-4_7

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