[Bcma-l] Museum Audience Insight

[bcma-l@museumsassn.bc.ca]

Hello all,
See below, you might find this website useful. It focuses on audience 
research in museums. Some discussions are witty and totally relevant to 
what we're doing and experiencing in the museum sector here in BC.
<http://reachadvisors.typepad.com/museum_audience_insight/>http://reachadvisors.typepad.com/museum_audience_insight/
This will give you a taste for it.


>
><http://reachadvisors.typepad.com/museum_audience_insight/2008/12/the-trouble-with-trustworthiness-authenticity-a-high-bar.html>The 
>Trouble With Trustworthiness, Authenticity? A High Bar
>
>
>
>Recently, the concepts of museum trustworthiness and authenticity have 
>been popping up a lot in our work, and on this blog.  Visitor surveys we 
>conducted for 13 
><http://reachadvisors.typepad.com/museum_audience_insight/history_visitors/>outdoor 
>history museums (OHMs) and 50 
><http://reachadvisors.typepad.com/museum_audience_insight/science-museum-visitors/>member 
>museums of the<http://www.astc.org/>Association of Science-Technology 
>Centers (ASTC) have given us some interesting results on the topic, and 
>how they intersect, and our posts on the topics have started some 
>interesting conversations.
>
>Our survey respondents confirmed what the museum field at large has known 
>for a while:  Americans, and American museum visitors, from all walks of 
>life consistently rank museums as extremely trustworthy, often above other 
>sources of information such as friends and relatives, eyewitnesses, 
>nonfiction publications, news media, commercial websites, television, and 
>movies.  Eighty-four percent of respondents to our 
><http://reachadvisors.typepad.com/museum_audience_insight/science-museum-visitors/>ASTC 
>survey said science museums are "very trustworthy."  This result is in 
>line with the results of three nationwide public opinion surveys conducted 
>in the past ten years:
>
>    * 77% of museum visitors indicated that museums are "equal to or 
> higher in trustworthiness than all other sources."  Only libraries 
> performed better:  86% of public library visitors said libraries are 
> "equal or higher to" (IMLS, 2008)
>    * 87% of the general public said museums are "trustworthy overall" 
> (AAM, 2001)
>    * When members of the general public were asked to rank the 
> trustworthiness of a variety of sources of information about the past, 
> they placed museums above any other choice, giving them an 8.4 on a 
> ten-point scale, with 10 being the highest (Rosenzweig and Thelen, 
> 1998).  [Citations for all three sources below.]
>
>Similarly, when we asked OHM survey respondents what authenticity at a 
>historic site meant to them, over 60% of respondents wrote something in, a 
>huge response for an open-ended survey question (and it amounted to over 
>3,000 definitions for us to sift through).  What all this boils down to is 
>that museums have an inherent advantage over other sources of 
>information:  most visitors walk in the door ready to believe what they 
>see and hear.
>
>Why are museums so trustworthy, so authentic?  Results from all of these 
>surveys suggest the following reasons:  the presentation of topics in ways 
>that incorporate or acknowledge multiple viewpoints, the use of primary 
>sources for research and documentation, the organizations' management by a 
>nonprofit, non-commercial entity, and, at historic sites and history 
>museums, visitors' ability to feel as if they are "stepping back in time" 
>while seeing the actual places and stuff of the past.
>
>But here's the thing:  our survey results indicate that when museums fail 
>to meet visitor expectations of trustworthiness and authenticity, the 
>organizations' fall from grace is long and hard.  Visitors have visceral 
>reactions when they think that museums aren't telling the truth, or are 
>biased, inauthentic, or too commercial.  One participant in our OHM 
>survey, when defining authenticity in history museums, felt so strongly 
>that he wrote in all caps, "AUTHENTICITY IS ESSENTIAL TO THE CREDIBILITY 
>OF ANY OUTDOOR HISTORY MUSEUM."  And 
><http://reachadvisors.typepad.com/museum_audience_insight/2008/12/why-trust-is-sometimes-lacking-at-science-museums-.html>as 
>we explored in a recent post, the respondents to our ASTC survey who felt 
>the museum was only "somewhat" or "not at all" trustworthy used incredibly 
>emotive language when describing a real or potential lack of trust.
>
>Luckily, our survey respondents have given us some pointers on how to keep 
>their trust.  Here are a few for you to consider:
>
>    * Be transparent about the methodology and sources of the information 
> used in your programs and interpretation
>    * Incorporate multiple viewpoints whenever possible
>    * Present lots of primary source materials
>    * Be transparent about what is and what is not "original"
>    * If a program or exhibit is sponsored by a commercial entity, make it 
> clear that the sponsor was not involved in developing the content
>    * Avoid interrupting visitors' experiences of stepping back in time 
> <http://reachadvisors.typepad.com/museum_audience_insight/2008/05/limiting-modern.html>with 
> modern intrusions
>    * Avoid additional points of sale 
> <http://reachadvisors.typepad.com/museum_audience_insight/2008/05/authenticity-an.html>beyond 
> the admissions counter
>
>We would love to hear your thoughts and questions about these topics.  To 
>share or ask questions, simply click on "comments" below.  (If you are 
>reading this from your e-mail subscription to the blog, please go to our 
><http://reachadvisors.typepad.com/>blog's websiteto add a comment.)

Viviane Gosselin
Doctoral Student & THEN/HiER Program Coordinator
Centre for the Study of Historical Consciousness
Faculty of Education
University of British Columbia
1326-2125 Main Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4
604.822.4331