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Assessing dialogic communication through the Internet in Spanish museums
Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 619–626
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Public Relations Review
Assessing dialogic communication through the Internet in Spanish museums Paul Capriotti a,∗ , Hugo Pardo Kuklinski b a b
Department of Communication Studies, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Av. Catalunya, 35, Room 323, 43002 Tarragona, Spain School of Business and Communication, Universitat de Vic, Vic, Spain
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 11 July 2011 Received in revised form 14 May 2012 Accepted 15 May 2012 Keywords: Public relations Dialogic communication Internet Websites Social web Museums
a b s t r a c t Dialogic communication is being boosted by the strong development of the social web. The web 2.0 is generating significant changes in the manner that organizations engage in dialogue with their publics, opening the way towards the interactive communication. In this way, web 2.0 tools will foster the dialogic communication between museums and their publics. Through them, the relationship between museums and publics is changing towards more interactive and collaborative forms. The objective of this article is to assess the level of dialogic communication developed by museums on the Internet, by analyzing the use of web platforms and social web applications as tools for dialogic communication by 120 museums in Spain. Two key aspects of communication between museums and publics using the Internet were identified to that end: content management and interaction management. These aspects enable a matrix which makes a distinction between the phases of evolution of the institutional web communication. The results obtained show that the museums studied are predominantly in a phase of monologic communication with their publics. © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction In recent years museums’ communication has been redefined by the emergence of the network society and the social web. Previous studies (Capriotti, 2010; Crenn & Vidal, 2007; Pardo Kuklinski, 2008; Sigala, 2005; Tallon & Walker, 2008) confirm that the relationship between museums and publics is changing towards more interactive and collaborative forms. The role of the Internet in museums is increasingly relevant, and it will be even more influential in the future in view of the new interactive perspectives for communication created by the web 2.0 (Crenn & Vidal, 2007) and mobile communications (Proctor, 2005; Tallon & Walker, 2008). Museums’ web applications are in the midst of a transition from being static sites containing basic information to becoming platforms for real interaction with their publics, involving their audiences in an open conversation on the Internet. Are all these changes taking place in Spanish museums? According to Capriotti (2010), individuals are increasingly seeking ˜ information about museums’ activities using the Internet. However, previous studies (Celaya & Vinarás, 2006; Monistrol, Rovira, & Codina, 2006) show that in Spain, these institutions are not using all the advantages that the Internet offers as an interactive medium for communication. The basic objective of this article is to assess the level of dialogic communication developed by museums on the Internet, by analyzing the use of web platforms and social web applications as tools for dialogic communication by 120 museums in Spain.
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 622 090 060. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (P. Capriotti), [email protected] (H. Pardo Kuklinski). 0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2012.05.005
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Two key aspects of institutional communication between museums and publics using the Internet were identified to that end: content management and interaction management. These aspects enable an analysis matrix to be defined, which makes a distinction between the three phases of evolution of the institutional web communication: monologic communication, expanded monologic communication and dialogic communication. The results obtained show that the museums studied are predominantly in a phase of monologic communication with their publics. 2. Theoretical background Research in the Public Relations field on the use of the Internet as a dialogic tool has increased considerably in recent years, and has mainly focused on analyzing the opportunities for the dissemination of information and interaction between organizations and their publics, on their websites (Capriotti & Moreno, 2007a; Jo & Jung, 2005; Kent & Taylor, 1998; Kim, Park, & Wertz, 2010; McAllister-Spooner, 2009), in blogs (Kelleher & Miller, 2006; Kent, 2008; Seltzer & Mitrook, 2007; Yang & Lim, 2009) and in social networks (Muralidharan, Rasmussen, Patterson, & Shin, 2011; Rybalko & Seltzer, 2010; Sevick-Bortree & Seltzer, 2009; Waters, Burnett, Lamm, & Lucas, 2009). Dialogic communication is today a basic and essential expectation in the online communication of any type of organization, and museums are no exception. In a work that has proven to be seminal over the last decade in the analysis of public relations on the Internet, Kent and Taylor (1998) state that dialogic communication is the theoretical framework for constructing relationships between organizations and their target audiences. These authors (Kent & Taylor, 1998) established five principles for effective dialogic communication using the Internet: (1) The Dialogic Loop; (2) Usefulness of Information; (3) Generation of Return Visits; (4) Intuitiveness/Ease of the Interface; and (5) Rule of Conservation of Visitors. From our perspective, the dialogic loop is not simply a principle, but is instead the framework for dialogic communication, and is the concept that provides the best interpretation of the notion of intercreativity, which was a cornerstone in the origins of the World Wide Web (Berners-Lee, 1999). If the dialogic loop is implemented on an institutional web platform, the objective of intercreativity is fulfilled and this platform becomes an efficient space for interrelations. We believe that the concept of a dialogic loop has evolved since the idea originally expressed by the authors (“a dialogic loop allows publics to query organizations and, more importantly, it offers organizations the opportunity to respond to questions, concerns and problems,” Kent & Taylor, 1998: 326), and now takes in a broader, more continuous and balanced conception of interaction, i.e. the dialogic loop must be seen as an ongoing interaction between organizations and their publics using Internet tools, which enables information, comments, opinions, assessment and experiences to be exchanged on a continuous basis. The dialogic loop is therefore the result of the correct management of the other principles conceptualized by Kent and Taylor (1998). In other words, if those principles are complied with, the dialogic loop will be effective. The principles highlighted by Kent and Taylor (1998) for the development of the dialogic loop are essentially based on two key aspects in the management of institutional communication on the Internet: (a) content management (principles of usefulness of information and intuitiveness/ease of the interface) related to the type of information managed on the Internet and how it is organized and structured in order to be accessible to publics; and (b) interaction management (the principles of generation of return visits and conservation of visitors), which is linked to the types and levels of interaction between the organization and its publics by means of the integration of various digital resources on web platforms. These two key aspects are very closely related and influence each other, given that management of the tools for interaction has a decisive effect on the way in which web platform content is managed (how it is created, developed, prioritized and distributed), and appropriate content management will also facilitate improved management of the interaction with its publics (prioritized and specific content for different publics). A conceptual design including both aspects (content and interaction) is therefore essential for the configuration of productive platforms which identify and connect with the target publics. 2.1. Content management In the early years of the Internet, organizations offered the information they were interested in circulating or disseminating on their websites in an up-down strategy. The Internet expanded organizations’ capabilities for the controlled massive dissemination of information quickly, easily and internationally (Capriotti, 2011). The emergence of the web 2.0 has radically altered this approach. The birth of platforms for collaborative writing has led to the development of technological uses that simply reflect the original essence of intercreativity (Berners-Lee, 1999), the basic principle behind the creation of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s. The concepts of prosumer (Toffler, 1980) and cognitive surplus (Shirky, 2010) define the proactive nature of publics and the productive use that individuals make of their free time, with a distinction between passive leisure time spent consuming mass media and productive consumer leisure on the social web. As a result, on the social web the importance or usefulness of contents and services is not exclusively defined by the organizations producing content, but rather by publics using them. This idea is based on bottom-up consumption of content, with key values such as openness, collaboration, decentralization and crowd-working. Li and Bernoff (2009) provide a broader perspective on this phenomena using the definition of groundswell, i.e. waves of opinion generated on a bottom-up basis, or in other words by publics towards organizations, and the tendency for people to use Internet applications based on their own needs and interests (EuroRSCG Worldwide, 2009; Li & Bernoff, 2009). There is also a shift from broadcasting to egocasting (Pardo Kuklinski, 2010), i.e. the construction of personal spheres – me spheres – in which the individual is at
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the center and all the other actors are located in different positions within the sphere, at varying degrees of proximity to the center. This narcissistic transformation of the users in social networks is a vital factor in each user becoming a node that lives on the Internet and transfers his/her experience to the community. Publics thus create their own spaces for information and interaction and also want organizations to develop spaces with information that is specific and relevant to them. Therefore, an analysis of the content management of an institutional website platform should consider not only the type of information provided to its publics, but also how the information is organized, identifying and assessing the areas/sections created for (and by) each public, the creation of specific content for each one and their distribution and hierarchical arrangement.
2.2. Interaction management In the first years of the Internet, publics had very limited opportunities to give opinion and establish any interaction with organizations. The arrival of the web 2.0 in the early twenty-first century has led to significant changes in the relations between organizations and their publics, contributing to the development of the interaction and negotiation between them, thereby opening the way towards fully interactive communication (Ingenhoff & Koelling, 2009; Jo & Kim, 2003). Web 2.0 tools meet the demands for interactive and symmetrical communication (Jo & Jung, 2005) and foster dialogic relations between organizations and publics. For Li and Bernoff (2009), technology is valued in positive terms by its users if it: (a) fosters communication between individuals in a simple and productive way; (b) transfers power from institutions to citizens based on social validation; (c) encourages synergies with other groups of interest via open platforms. Pardo Kuklinski (2010) points out that the evolution of the social web is generating a continuous change in social conversation that goes beyond the bounds of technological applications. And Capriotti (2011) suggests that these digital tools facilitate multidirectional communication and foster the shift from focal relationships between the organization and its publics (oneto-one and one-to-many) towards multilateral relationships (many-to-many): between organizations and publics, among members of the same public and among different publics. Websites and portals with a one-to-many communication focus are tending to disappear, and open and distributed manyto-many platforms are becoming relevant (Cobo & Pardo Kuklinski, 2007; Jarvis, 2009). Tools that favor easily organized and accessible information and information management in real time are becoming increasingly valuable. This design perspective is changing the productivity of all online platforms. Social design is the buzzword related with this change, going beyond the human-computer interaction to empower the human-human emphasis. Facebook’s Timeline is a clear example of this (Boyd, 2012). Web platforms are increasingly used as a vital community hub (Allen-Greil & Mac Arthur, 2010), that is, points for interaction between various groups with similar interests. Native platforms designed for mobile devices, which work on the Internet but not on the Web, accentuates this trend (Anderson & Wolff, 2010). As a result, when assessing the level of interaction on corporate websites it is important to analyze the way in which organizations integrate the various digital tools available, and the degree to which they use their interactive potentialities in order to develop stable and long-lasting relationships with their publics through their web platforms.
2.3. Institutional website phases The evolution of institutional websites has been gradual and constant since the emergence of the World Wide Web in the 1990s. A gradual change can be seen from what was a basically informative/monologic tool in the beginning to today’s conversational/dialogic instrument (Pardo Kuklinski, 2008). Within this continuum consisting of the evolution of institutional websites, we can identify three major phases of analysis (with blurred boundaries between them, which are gradual and which include the previous phase) based on the type of content management and management of the interaction by the organizations with their publics using their corporate web platform (Table 1).
3. Methodology Based on Kent and Taylor’s (1998) conclusion that dialogic communication is the framework for guiding relationship building between organizations and publics, the main objective of this paper is to analyze the level of dialogic communication established by museums by means of their corporate web platforms, and to study how these organizations manage web contents and interactivity to engage in dialogue with their publics. To achieve our aim, our research study was undertaken in Catalonia, a region in north-eastern Spain, with a population of 6,000,000 people (similar to Denmark), and an area of 32,000 km2 (similar to Belgium). Catalonia was selected because with Madrid, it is the region in Spain with the largest amount and highest quality of museums, and because it is one of the most active regions in terms of museum activities. The subject for this study was all the museums in Catalonia with more than 1000 visitors in 2007 and in 2008: 270 institutions, according to the Junta de Museus, the governmental authority for museums in Catalonia (Junta de Museus, 2009). The selected sample included 120 websites of these institutions, i.e. 45% of the total universe, selected on a representative basis from the various types of museums (public and private; large, medium and small institutions).
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Table 1 Institutional website phases.
Content–interaction relationship
Phase 1 Monologic communication
Phase 2 Expanded monologic communication
Phase 3 Dialogic communication (Dialogic Loop)
The content is separated from the interaction.
The content is separated from the interaction.
The content and the interaction are very closely linked.
Completely top-down content.
Mostly top-down, incipient bottom-up content. Produced by the organization for the different publics and adapted to their interests, but consider publics’ requests and suggestions. Dissemination of information from the organization, with restricted participation by publics.
Mostly bottom-up content. Developed by and for publics based on shared interests and collaboration. Mutual control and institutional transparency. Ongoing exchange of information and co-creation of content between organizations and publics.
Limited interaction Asymmetrical dialogue with predominance and control of the organization over publics. Publics give opinions and comments on the content generated by the organization.
Full interaction. Symmetrical dialogue between organization and publics. Conversation on the Internet. Balanced and fluid dialogue between the organization and publics.
Mainly one-way, although there are some tools providing opportunities for participation, such as blogs, websites for photos and videos.
Interactive and collaborative tools, dialogic and conversational, such as websites based on collaborative writing and social networks.
Content Generated by the organization to provide information to its publics about the institution, and its products, and services. Dissemination of information from the organization, with minimal participation of publics.
Interaction
Minimal interaction Informative monologue by the organization. Publics ask questions or demand extra information about the contents.
Tools
Basically one-way, such as email or forms for requesting information.
Table 2 Categories of content management.
Typology of contents
Types of information
Institutional Products/Services Activities News
Location of information
Publics Sections Thematic Sections
Hierarchy of information
Level 1 (Home) Level 2 (Other)
Organization of information
The general aim of the study was set out using five research questions (RQs), the first two of which were related to content management, and the last three linked to the interaction management of institutional websites: RQ1: What kind of content is present on the museums’ websites? RQ2: How is the information organized on their websites? RQ3: What kind of information formats are used to present their contents? RQ4: What type of Web 2.0 tools are used/integrated on their websites? RQ5: Which information systems are available to facilitate contact and feedback? In order to answer the research questions, a content analysis methodology was applied to the websites under study. Two types of categories were established for RQ1 and RQ2 (related to content management): one category of content typology (RQ1) and two categories of information organization (RQ2) (Table 2). The methodology suggested by Capriotti and Moreno (2007a, 2007b) was used as the starting point in developing our own framework for content analysis. The Type of Information category enables identification of the issues related to museums activity. An exploratory analysis was undertaken of 20 websites of different kind of museums (public and private; large, medium and small institutions). Four types of information were identified: Institutional (general information about the institution), Products/Services (information about the museum’s permanent collection and about the temporary exhibitions), Activities (information about the educational projects and other activities) and News (museums’ news and agenda). Two categories were established for the organization of information: (a) the Location of the Information identified the sections where the information was located, if it existed. Two types of sections were defined to that end: Thematic Sections (generic sections relating to different types of information) and Publics Sections (specific sections for each public). (b) The Information Hierarchy enables establishment of the hierarchical level that is allocated to the majority of the information (and/or to the specific section, if there is one). Two levels were established to that end: Level 1 (Home) is the homepage of
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Table 3 Categories of interaction management. Presentation of information resources
Expositive Interactive
Web 2.0 resources
One-way/monologic Conversational/dialogic
Information and feedback systems
Passive feedback systems Proactive information systems
a museum’s website, and Level 2 (other levels) is subsequent levels based on the number of clicks necessary to reach the information from the homepage. Three types of categories were established for RQ3, RQ4 and RQ5 (relating to interaction management): the presentation of information resources, web 2.0 resources and information and feedback systems (Table 3). The Presentation of Information Resources showed us the different resources used to present the information about the institutions and their products, services and activities. Two types of resources were found: (1) Expositive: those enabling the dissemination of information, with a mainly passive visitor. This type of resource was classified as Graphic (written text and fixed images, photos, graphics), Audio and Video. (2) Interactive: resources facilitating the obtaining of information through active interaction, with a mainly active and participative visitor. This type of resource was classified as Interactive Resources (hypertexts, interactive graphics and charts, etc.) and Virtual Visits (organized systems for virtual visits of the institution’s collection and exhibitions). Web 2.0 Resources refers to the various social web tools used on websites as complementary systems for information and interaction. We made a distinction between (1) Monologic tools (such as websites for videos, photos, presentations or downloading files), in which interaction with the visitor is low-level, limited, and mainly one-way, and (2) Dialogic tools (such as blogs, wikis, discussion forums, social networks, microblogging, etc.) where interaction with the visitor is high-level, open and multidirectional. The Information and Feedback Systems facilitate the identification of the tools available on corporate websites for giving an opinion, assessing institutional issues or asking for information. Two types of resources were laid out: (1) passive feedback systems: those provided on the website for publics to contact the organization, in which the entity has a passive attitude (such as telephone numbers, e-mails and information request forms); (2) proactive information systems: the tools available on the website that enable the institutions to inform visitors about products, services and activities on a proactive basis (such as subscriptions to news, online newsletters and mobile alerts). After the coding sheet had been prepared, an initial analysis was conducted on 20 websites representing institutions of various sizes. This initial approach enabled us to assess the suitability of the tools for obtaining the information needed to answer the RQs. Once the necessary modifications and changes were made, the actual data collection process was conducted on the entire sample. The information obtained was codified in Excel coding sheets. 4. Results The results obtained show a surprising figure: only 77.5% of the museums analyzed have their own website. This means that at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, 22.5% of museums do not have their own website. 20% of the institutions have their own space on the website of another institution (normally a town council or other public institution) and the remaining 2.5% have no website. However, almost all these museums without a website are small local-level institutions. 4.1. Content management As regards the different types of information available on the websites (RQ1), there is a significant presence of general institutional information, with a percentage of 93.2%. Information relating to the institution’s permanent collection (75%), temporary exhibitions (70.6%) and educational activities (73%) are on a second level. Information about other museum activities (47.7%) and sections for news and agenda (52.3%) are on a third level. Thus, the museums mostly have information areas about the institution itself and its “products and services” (collections, exhibitions and activities). However, there are few sections or areas focused on the continuous presentation of updated information, such as news sections. This can generate an image of a lack of dynamism in the information management of institutions. In relation with the organization of the information (RQ2), the segmented information available for the various publics of the institution shows that museums allocate specific sections mainly to virtual visitors to the website, especially generic visitors (98.3% of websites), and to a lesser extent to schools or academic institutions (75.5%). Expert publics or researchers are at a lower level, with a presence on 52.5% of the websites. Beneath these, with a presence on a third of websites, are three types of publics: Friends of the Museum associations (35.6%), sponsors/patrons (31.4%) and the mass media (28.7%). Finally, a negative point is that both employees and suppliers have a token presence (1%) on the museums’ websites. Therefore the museum websites studied are essentially designed for end users of the institutions (individual and family visitors and
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Table 4 Presentation of information resources. Type of information
Institutional Permanent collection Temporary exhibitions Educational activities Other activities News/agenda
Expositive tools (%)
Interactive tools (%)
Graphic
Audio
Video
Interactive resources
Virtual visits
87.0 71.6 79.0 87.0 76.5 97.3
0.8 2.8 3.8 2.2 1.7 1.4
8.4 8.5 10.5 6.5 12.2 1.4
3.1 14.2 3.8 4.3 9.6 0.0
0.8 2.8 2.9 0.0 0.0 0.0
educational centers), while other very important publics such as sponsors/patrons, experts, associations and the media have a very limited presence. A negative feature is the lack of specific information areas for the institution’s employees, a key group for the effective operation of this type of institutions. In terms of the hierarchical organization of information, the institutional information has the greatest presence on the museums’ homepage (the section is on the homepage on almost 89.1% of the websites). This is followed by “news” and “temporary exhibitions” sections, which are on 73.2% and 71.4% of the homepages, respectively. These are followed by sections relating to the educational activities (64.2%) and the permanent exhibition (61.9%) of homepage presence. In last place in terms of presence on the museums’ homepages are sections on “other activities” (a presence of 51.9%). However, all the sections dedicated to specific publics have a significantly lower presence on the homepage than the information sections about the museum and its activities. None of the specific sections for publics has a homepage presence of 50%. Then, the general information about the museum is prioritized on the specific information for each public. 4.2. Interaction management The results about the presentation and information resources (RQ3) clearly show that the information in the museums (either of an institutional nature or about their products, services and activities) is presented by means of mainly one-way or expositive tools (Table 4). However, the main resources used are Graphics (fixed images and texts), with percentages of over 70%, and as such the use of audiovisual resources (audio and video) is also very limited (between 10% and 15% of institutions). Meanwhile, interactive instruments are applied in very few cases and are used by a minority of the institutions, of not more than 10%, except for information on the permanent collection, for which they are used by 17% of the museums. Museums are therefore not taking advantage of all the opportunities provided by the online resources available for greater interaction with virtual visitors. In relation with the use of the various web 2.0 tools (RQ4), very few museums integrate their websites with social web tools. The three most popular web 2.0 tools present very low percentages of use on the museums’ websites: blogs are in 16.5% of websites, social networks are in 12.4% and video accounts are in 14.7%. The other tools are used by less than 10% of the museum websites (these include one of the current key tools of social web, Twitter, which is used by 3.5% of the museums). Photo accounts are present in 7.1% of the websites, discussion forums are in 4.5% and wikis and presentation accounts have no presence. There is also no apparent distinction or preference in the use of tools depending on whether they are one-way/monologic (such as video, photo, presentation or downloads) or more conversational/dialogic (such as blogs, social networks, discussion forums and wikis). As regards information and feedback systems (RQ5), the museums use their websites to provide information about traditional forms of offline contact, such as the institution’s postal address and telephone number (with percentages of 94.2% and 95.8% of the total institutions, respectively). This is followed by e-mail, with 84.2% of the total. These are the three main types of contact presented by museums on their websites. Other specifically digital instruments present considerably lower percentages, such as the forms requesting information online (30%) and the subscription to online newsletters (27.5%), and more modern systems for obtaining permanent and updated information, such as the syndication of content (29.2%). Finally, mobile telephone alerts are not present on the museum websites. The museums therefore prioritize traditional and passive information and feedback systems on their websites, and do not use proactive means of providing online information for their publics. 5. Conclusions and future research The Internet has gradually become increasingly important in museums’ communication and is sure to be implemented on a widespread basis in the near future, providing interactivity, flexibility, personalization and collaboration between museums and their publics. By using Internet applications, museums develop various tools with high dialogic potential for engaging in dialogue with their various publics. However, the museums analyzed are not currently using all the advantages that the Internet offers as a means for interactive, multidirectional and symmetrical communication. As regards content management, our conclusion is that museums prioritize general information about the institution and its products/services (exhibitions and activities) over sections aimed
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at visitors to the institution. In other words, priority is given to general information important to the museum, rather than specific relevant information for each separate public. In their interaction management, museums basically use exhibitive resources for presenting information on their websites. In addition, they make a very limited use of the web 2.0 resources available, of either a conversational or a one-way nature, and mostly use passive information and feedback resources. This leads us to conclude that the websites of the museums studied are highly one-way instruments of communication. Museums therefore prioritize the use of highly one-way/monologic resources and do not take full advantage of the interactive opportunities and resources of Internet and social web tools to create platforms that foster an open conversation and the establishment of dialogic relations with their publics. The vast majority of the museums are still in the initial evolutionary phase of their websites, with monologic communication with their publics, little attention paid to their visitors on the Internet and priority given to the production and dissemination of information in their own interest. Many museum institutions are simply using the Internet and the web 2.0 as new means to create and present old media (electronic bulletins, electronic leaflets, etc.) and are therefore reproducing the one-way passive forms and processes of traditional offline communication. The dialogic loop is still a long way from being applied by the museums studied in this research. Although the scope and depth of the study enables us to make a series of considerations and suggest specific conclusions on museums’ communication, the results obtained cannot be directly extrapolated to all Spanish museums or those of other countries. A possible future line of research will be to apply the methodology developed in this study in order to undertake a comparative analysis of museums’ communication via the Internet with that of various institutions in different countries and cultural environments, which would provide a broad-based and comprehensive perspective of the current situation and future challenges for museums’ communication using the Internet. Finally, some aspects identified during the research work and the results obtained lead us to consider other future areas of study. First, it will be important to investigate and analyze the trend suggesting the shift in the development of content and consumption habits from institutional web platforms towards platforms in mobile devices, which use the Internet but are not consumed via web browsers, and cannot therefore be called websites. According to Anderson and Wolff (2010), the shift from “wide-open webs” to “semi-closed platforms” has been decisive in consumer habits in recent years, due to the growth of development models based on consumption via mobile platforms. There has been a growth in consumption of applications native to mobile devices such as the AppStore, VoIP telephony, Peer to Peer files, streaming consumption, geolocalization interaction, online games, and platforms for listening to music or podcasts. This trend will reach museums’ communication on the Internet, and the next step in this area of research would be to study the use of mobile platforms in museums’ communication. This alludes to examples like the competitive spirit of the check-ins on Foursquare, the museums or exhibitions influence report with platforms as Klout, the instant communication seen on Twitter, the consumption of questions on Quora and hundreds of other mobile applications focusing on immediate gratification. The development of the vast number of applications and various formats also requires an in-depth study on transmedia storytelling (Jenkins, 2006; Scolari, 2009) in museums’ communication using the Internet. Museums storytelling using multiple Internet tools or platforms, in which each one makes a distinctive contribution to the museum’s or exhibitions’ story, will have a decisive influence on the interaction management and the production of content, which will create greater complexity to develop the institutional communication of museums. Acknowledgements This paper is part of a broader research about “Museums’ communication in Catalonia”, granted by the Repsol-URV Chair in “Excellence in Communication” of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain). References Allen-Greil, D., & Mac Arthur, M. (2010). Small towns and big cities: How museums foster community on-line. Museum and the Web 2010: Proceedings. 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Paul Capriotti is PhD in Communication Sciences (Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain). He is Professor of Public Relations and Corporate Communication at Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain). Prior to joining the University, he was Advisor on Strategies in Corporate Communication. His last book is Branding Corporativo (2009, online in www.bidireccional.net). He is author of different articles in international journals like Public Relations Review, Journal of Communication Management, Business & Society and Corporate Communications. Hugo Pardo Kuklinski is PhD in Communication Sciences (Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain). Professor and researcher of Digital Communication at Universitat de Vic (Spain). Member of the Interactive Media Lab (LMI, Universitat de Barcelona). Executive Director, Imagine Postdigital Barcelona 2012. CEO & founder of Funky Mobile Ideas/CampusMovil.net. Author of Geekonomía. Un radar para producir en el postdigitalismo (2010) and Planeta Web 2.0. Inteligencia colectiva o medios fast food (2007). He has published several articles in national and international journals.
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Public Relations Review
Assessing dialogic communication through the Internet in Spanish museums Paul Capriotti a,∗ , Hugo Pardo Kuklinski b a b
Department of Communication Studies, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Av. Catalunya, 35, Room 323, 43002 Tarragona, Spain School of Business and Communication, Universitat de Vic, Vic, Spain
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 11 July 2011 Received in revised form 14 May 2012 Accepted 15 May 2012 Keywords: Public relations Dialogic communication Internet Websites Social web Museums
a b s t r a c t Dialogic communication is being boosted by the strong development of the social web. The web 2.0 is generating significant changes in the manner that organizations engage in dialogue with their publics, opening the way towards the interactive communication. In this way, web 2.0 tools will foster the dialogic communication between museums and their publics. Through them, the relationship between museums and publics is changing towards more interactive and collaborative forms. The objective of this article is to assess the level of dialogic communication developed by museums on the Internet, by analyzing the use of web platforms and social web applications as tools for dialogic communication by 120 museums in Spain. Two key aspects of communication between museums and publics using the Internet were identified to that end: content management and interaction management. These aspects enable a matrix which makes a distinction between the phases of evolution of the institutional web communication. The results obtained show that the museums studied are predominantly in a phase of monologic communication with their publics. © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction In recent years museums’ communication has been redefined by the emergence of the network society and the social web. Previous studies (Capriotti, 2010; Crenn & Vidal, 2007; Pardo Kuklinski, 2008; Sigala, 2005; Tallon & Walker, 2008) confirm that the relationship between museums and publics is changing towards more interactive and collaborative forms. The role of the Internet in museums is increasingly relevant, and it will be even more influential in the future in view of the new interactive perspectives for communication created by the web 2.0 (Crenn & Vidal, 2007) and mobile communications (Proctor, 2005; Tallon & Walker, 2008). Museums’ web applications are in the midst of a transition from being static sites containing basic information to becoming platforms for real interaction with their publics, involving their audiences in an open conversation on the Internet. Are all these changes taking place in Spanish museums? According to Capriotti (2010), individuals are increasingly seeking ˜ information about museums’ activities using the Internet. However, previous studies (Celaya & Vinarás, 2006; Monistrol, Rovira, & Codina, 2006) show that in Spain, these institutions are not using all the advantages that the Internet offers as an interactive medium for communication. The basic objective of this article is to assess the level of dialogic communication developed by museums on the Internet, by analyzing the use of web platforms and social web applications as tools for dialogic communication by 120 museums in Spain.
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 622 090 060. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (P. Capriotti), [email protected] (H. Pardo Kuklinski). 0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2012.05.005
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Two key aspects of institutional communication between museums and publics using the Internet were identified to that end: content management and interaction management. These aspects enable an analysis matrix to be defined, which makes a distinction between the three phases of evolution of the institutional web communication: monologic communication, expanded monologic communication and dialogic communication. The results obtained show that the museums studied are predominantly in a phase of monologic communication with their publics. 2. Theoretical background Research in the Public Relations field on the use of the Internet as a dialogic tool has increased considerably in recent years, and has mainly focused on analyzing the opportunities for the dissemination of information and interaction between organizations and their publics, on their websites (Capriotti & Moreno, 2007a; Jo & Jung, 2005; Kent & Taylor, 1998; Kim, Park, & Wertz, 2010; McAllister-Spooner, 2009), in blogs (Kelleher & Miller, 2006; Kent, 2008; Seltzer & Mitrook, 2007; Yang & Lim, 2009) and in social networks (Muralidharan, Rasmussen, Patterson, & Shin, 2011; Rybalko & Seltzer, 2010; Sevick-Bortree & Seltzer, 2009; Waters, Burnett, Lamm, & Lucas, 2009). Dialogic communication is today a basic and essential expectation in the online communication of any type of organization, and museums are no exception. In a work that has proven to be seminal over the last decade in the analysis of public relations on the Internet, Kent and Taylor (1998) state that dialogic communication is the theoretical framework for constructing relationships between organizations and their target audiences. These authors (Kent & Taylor, 1998) established five principles for effective dialogic communication using the Internet: (1) The Dialogic Loop; (2) Usefulness of Information; (3) Generation of Return Visits; (4) Intuitiveness/Ease of the Interface; and (5) Rule of Conservation of Visitors. From our perspective, the dialogic loop is not simply a principle, but is instead the framework for dialogic communication, and is the concept that provides the best interpretation of the notion of intercreativity, which was a cornerstone in the origins of the World Wide Web (Berners-Lee, 1999). If the dialogic loop is implemented on an institutional web platform, the objective of intercreativity is fulfilled and this platform becomes an efficient space for interrelations. We believe that the concept of a dialogic loop has evolved since the idea originally expressed by the authors (“a dialogic loop allows publics to query organizations and, more importantly, it offers organizations the opportunity to respond to questions, concerns and problems,” Kent & Taylor, 1998: 326), and now takes in a broader, more continuous and balanced conception of interaction, i.e. the dialogic loop must be seen as an ongoing interaction between organizations and their publics using Internet tools, which enables information, comments, opinions, assessment and experiences to be exchanged on a continuous basis. The dialogic loop is therefore the result of the correct management of the other principles conceptualized by Kent and Taylor (1998). In other words, if those principles are complied with, the dialogic loop will be effective. The principles highlighted by Kent and Taylor (1998) for the development of the dialogic loop are essentially based on two key aspects in the management of institutional communication on the Internet: (a) content management (principles of usefulness of information and intuitiveness/ease of the interface) related to the type of information managed on the Internet and how it is organized and structured in order to be accessible to publics; and (b) interaction management (the principles of generation of return visits and conservation of visitors), which is linked to the types and levels of interaction between the organization and its publics by means of the integration of various digital resources on web platforms. These two key aspects are very closely related and influence each other, given that management of the tools for interaction has a decisive effect on the way in which web platform content is managed (how it is created, developed, prioritized and distributed), and appropriate content management will also facilitate improved management of the interaction with its publics (prioritized and specific content for different publics). A conceptual design including both aspects (content and interaction) is therefore essential for the configuration of productive platforms which identify and connect with the target publics. 2.1. Content management In the early years of the Internet, organizations offered the information they were interested in circulating or disseminating on their websites in an up-down strategy. The Internet expanded organizations’ capabilities for the controlled massive dissemination of information quickly, easily and internationally (Capriotti, 2011). The emergence of the web 2.0 has radically altered this approach. The birth of platforms for collaborative writing has led to the development of technological uses that simply reflect the original essence of intercreativity (Berners-Lee, 1999), the basic principle behind the creation of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s. The concepts of prosumer (Toffler, 1980) and cognitive surplus (Shirky, 2010) define the proactive nature of publics and the productive use that individuals make of their free time, with a distinction between passive leisure time spent consuming mass media and productive consumer leisure on the social web. As a result, on the social web the importance or usefulness of contents and services is not exclusively defined by the organizations producing content, but rather by publics using them. This idea is based on bottom-up consumption of content, with key values such as openness, collaboration, decentralization and crowd-working. Li and Bernoff (2009) provide a broader perspective on this phenomena using the definition of groundswell, i.e. waves of opinion generated on a bottom-up basis, or in other words by publics towards organizations, and the tendency for people to use Internet applications based on their own needs and interests (EuroRSCG Worldwide, 2009; Li & Bernoff, 2009). There is also a shift from broadcasting to egocasting (Pardo Kuklinski, 2010), i.e. the construction of personal spheres – me spheres – in which the individual is at
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the center and all the other actors are located in different positions within the sphere, at varying degrees of proximity to the center. This narcissistic transformation of the users in social networks is a vital factor in each user becoming a node that lives on the Internet and transfers his/her experience to the community. Publics thus create their own spaces for information and interaction and also want organizations to develop spaces with information that is specific and relevant to them. Therefore, an analysis of the content management of an institutional website platform should consider not only the type of information provided to its publics, but also how the information is organized, identifying and assessing the areas/sections created for (and by) each public, the creation of specific content for each one and their distribution and hierarchical arrangement.
2.2. Interaction management In the first years of the Internet, publics had very limited opportunities to give opinion and establish any interaction with organizations. The arrival of the web 2.0 in the early twenty-first century has led to significant changes in the relations between organizations and their publics, contributing to the development of the interaction and negotiation between them, thereby opening the way towards fully interactive communication (Ingenhoff & Koelling, 2009; Jo & Kim, 2003). Web 2.0 tools meet the demands for interactive and symmetrical communication (Jo & Jung, 2005) and foster dialogic relations between organizations and publics. For Li and Bernoff (2009), technology is valued in positive terms by its users if it: (a) fosters communication between individuals in a simple and productive way; (b) transfers power from institutions to citizens based on social validation; (c) encourages synergies with other groups of interest via open platforms. Pardo Kuklinski (2010) points out that the evolution of the social web is generating a continuous change in social conversation that goes beyond the bounds of technological applications. And Capriotti (2011) suggests that these digital tools facilitate multidirectional communication and foster the shift from focal relationships between the organization and its publics (oneto-one and one-to-many) towards multilateral relationships (many-to-many): between organizations and publics, among members of the same public and among different publics. Websites and portals with a one-to-many communication focus are tending to disappear, and open and distributed manyto-many platforms are becoming relevant (Cobo & Pardo Kuklinski, 2007; Jarvis, 2009). Tools that favor easily organized and accessible information and information management in real time are becoming increasingly valuable. This design perspective is changing the productivity of all online platforms. Social design is the buzzword related with this change, going beyond the human-computer interaction to empower the human-human emphasis. Facebook’s Timeline is a clear example of this (Boyd, 2012). Web platforms are increasingly used as a vital community hub (Allen-Greil & Mac Arthur, 2010), that is, points for interaction between various groups with similar interests. Native platforms designed for mobile devices, which work on the Internet but not on the Web, accentuates this trend (Anderson & Wolff, 2010). As a result, when assessing the level of interaction on corporate websites it is important to analyze the way in which organizations integrate the various digital tools available, and the degree to which they use their interactive potentialities in order to develop stable and long-lasting relationships with their publics through their web platforms.
2.3. Institutional website phases The evolution of institutional websites has been gradual and constant since the emergence of the World Wide Web in the 1990s. A gradual change can be seen from what was a basically informative/monologic tool in the beginning to today’s conversational/dialogic instrument (Pardo Kuklinski, 2008). Within this continuum consisting of the evolution of institutional websites, we can identify three major phases of analysis (with blurred boundaries between them, which are gradual and which include the previous phase) based on the type of content management and management of the interaction by the organizations with their publics using their corporate web platform (Table 1).
3. Methodology Based on Kent and Taylor’s (1998) conclusion that dialogic communication is the framework for guiding relationship building between organizations and publics, the main objective of this paper is to analyze the level of dialogic communication established by museums by means of their corporate web platforms, and to study how these organizations manage web contents and interactivity to engage in dialogue with their publics. To achieve our aim, our research study was undertaken in Catalonia, a region in north-eastern Spain, with a population of 6,000,000 people (similar to Denmark), and an area of 32,000 km2 (similar to Belgium). Catalonia was selected because with Madrid, it is the region in Spain with the largest amount and highest quality of museums, and because it is one of the most active regions in terms of museum activities. The subject for this study was all the museums in Catalonia with more than 1000 visitors in 2007 and in 2008: 270 institutions, according to the Junta de Museus, the governmental authority for museums in Catalonia (Junta de Museus, 2009). The selected sample included 120 websites of these institutions, i.e. 45% of the total universe, selected on a representative basis from the various types of museums (public and private; large, medium and small institutions).
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Table 1 Institutional website phases.
Content–interaction relationship
Phase 1 Monologic communication
Phase 2 Expanded monologic communication
Phase 3 Dialogic communication (Dialogic Loop)
The content is separated from the interaction.
The content is separated from the interaction.
The content and the interaction are very closely linked.
Completely top-down content.
Mostly top-down, incipient bottom-up content. Produced by the organization for the different publics and adapted to their interests, but consider publics’ requests and suggestions. Dissemination of information from the organization, with restricted participation by publics.
Mostly bottom-up content. Developed by and for publics based on shared interests and collaboration. Mutual control and institutional transparency. Ongoing exchange of information and co-creation of content between organizations and publics.
Limited interaction Asymmetrical dialogue with predominance and control of the organization over publics. Publics give opinions and comments on the content generated by the organization.
Full interaction. Symmetrical dialogue between organization and publics. Conversation on the Internet. Balanced and fluid dialogue between the organization and publics.
Mainly one-way, although there are some tools providing opportunities for participation, such as blogs, websites for photos and videos.
Interactive and collaborative tools, dialogic and conversational, such as websites based on collaborative writing and social networks.
Content Generated by the organization to provide information to its publics about the institution, and its products, and services. Dissemination of information from the organization, with minimal participation of publics.
Interaction
Minimal interaction Informative monologue by the organization. Publics ask questions or demand extra information about the contents.
Tools
Basically one-way, such as email or forms for requesting information.
Table 2 Categories of content management.
Typology of contents
Types of information
Institutional Products/Services Activities News
Location of information
Publics Sections Thematic Sections
Hierarchy of information
Level 1 (Home) Level 2 (Other)
Organization of information
The general aim of the study was set out using five research questions (RQs), the first two of which were related to content management, and the last three linked to the interaction management of institutional websites: RQ1: What kind of content is present on the museums’ websites? RQ2: How is the information organized on their websites? RQ3: What kind of information formats are used to present their contents? RQ4: What type of Web 2.0 tools are used/integrated on their websites? RQ5: Which information systems are available to facilitate contact and feedback? In order to answer the research questions, a content analysis methodology was applied to the websites under study. Two types of categories were established for RQ1 and RQ2 (related to content management): one category of content typology (RQ1) and two categories of information organization (RQ2) (Table 2). The methodology suggested by Capriotti and Moreno (2007a, 2007b) was used as the starting point in developing our own framework for content analysis. The Type of Information category enables identification of the issues related to museums activity. An exploratory analysis was undertaken of 20 websites of different kind of museums (public and private; large, medium and small institutions). Four types of information were identified: Institutional (general information about the institution), Products/Services (information about the museum’s permanent collection and about the temporary exhibitions), Activities (information about the educational projects and other activities) and News (museums’ news and agenda). Two categories were established for the organization of information: (a) the Location of the Information identified the sections where the information was located, if it existed. Two types of sections were defined to that end: Thematic Sections (generic sections relating to different types of information) and Publics Sections (specific sections for each public). (b) The Information Hierarchy enables establishment of the hierarchical level that is allocated to the majority of the information (and/or to the specific section, if there is one). Two levels were established to that end: Level 1 (Home) is the homepage of
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Table 3 Categories of interaction management. Presentation of information resources
Expositive Interactive
Web 2.0 resources
One-way/monologic Conversational/dialogic
Information and feedback systems
Passive feedback systems Proactive information systems
a museum’s website, and Level 2 (other levels) is subsequent levels based on the number of clicks necessary to reach the information from the homepage. Three types of categories were established for RQ3, RQ4 and RQ5 (relating to interaction management): the presentation of information resources, web 2.0 resources and information and feedback systems (Table 3). The Presentation of Information Resources showed us the different resources used to present the information about the institutions and their products, services and activities. Two types of resources were found: (1) Expositive: those enabling the dissemination of information, with a mainly passive visitor. This type of resource was classified as Graphic (written text and fixed images, photos, graphics), Audio and Video. (2) Interactive: resources facilitating the obtaining of information through active interaction, with a mainly active and participative visitor. This type of resource was classified as Interactive Resources (hypertexts, interactive graphics and charts, etc.) and Virtual Visits (organized systems for virtual visits of the institution’s collection and exhibitions). Web 2.0 Resources refers to the various social web tools used on websites as complementary systems for information and interaction. We made a distinction between (1) Monologic tools (such as websites for videos, photos, presentations or downloading files), in which interaction with the visitor is low-level, limited, and mainly one-way, and (2) Dialogic tools (such as blogs, wikis, discussion forums, social networks, microblogging, etc.) where interaction with the visitor is high-level, open and multidirectional. The Information and Feedback Systems facilitate the identification of the tools available on corporate websites for giving an opinion, assessing institutional issues or asking for information. Two types of resources were laid out: (1) passive feedback systems: those provided on the website for publics to contact the organization, in which the entity has a passive attitude (such as telephone numbers, e-mails and information request forms); (2) proactive information systems: the tools available on the website that enable the institutions to inform visitors about products, services and activities on a proactive basis (such as subscriptions to news, online newsletters and mobile alerts). After the coding sheet had been prepared, an initial analysis was conducted on 20 websites representing institutions of various sizes. This initial approach enabled us to assess the suitability of the tools for obtaining the information needed to answer the RQs. Once the necessary modifications and changes were made, the actual data collection process was conducted on the entire sample. The information obtained was codified in Excel coding sheets. 4. Results The results obtained show a surprising figure: only 77.5% of the museums analyzed have their own website. This means that at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, 22.5% of museums do not have their own website. 20% of the institutions have their own space on the website of another institution (normally a town council or other public institution) and the remaining 2.5% have no website. However, almost all these museums without a website are small local-level institutions. 4.1. Content management As regards the different types of information available on the websites (RQ1), there is a significant presence of general institutional information, with a percentage of 93.2%. Information relating to the institution’s permanent collection (75%), temporary exhibitions (70.6%) and educational activities (73%) are on a second level. Information about other museum activities (47.7%) and sections for news and agenda (52.3%) are on a third level. Thus, the museums mostly have information areas about the institution itself and its “products and services” (collections, exhibitions and activities). However, there are few sections or areas focused on the continuous presentation of updated information, such as news sections. This can generate an image of a lack of dynamism in the information management of institutions. In relation with the organization of the information (RQ2), the segmented information available for the various publics of the institution shows that museums allocate specific sections mainly to virtual visitors to the website, especially generic visitors (98.3% of websites), and to a lesser extent to schools or academic institutions (75.5%). Expert publics or researchers are at a lower level, with a presence on 52.5% of the websites. Beneath these, with a presence on a third of websites, are three types of publics: Friends of the Museum associations (35.6%), sponsors/patrons (31.4%) and the mass media (28.7%). Finally, a negative point is that both employees and suppliers have a token presence (1%) on the museums’ websites. Therefore the museum websites studied are essentially designed for end users of the institutions (individual and family visitors and
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Table 4 Presentation of information resources. Type of information
Institutional Permanent collection Temporary exhibitions Educational activities Other activities News/agenda
Expositive tools (%)
Interactive tools (%)
Graphic
Audio
Video
Interactive resources
Virtual visits
87.0 71.6 79.0 87.0 76.5 97.3
0.8 2.8 3.8 2.2 1.7 1.4
8.4 8.5 10.5 6.5 12.2 1.4
3.1 14.2 3.8 4.3 9.6 0.0
0.8 2.8 2.9 0.0 0.0 0.0
educational centers), while other very important publics such as sponsors/patrons, experts, associations and the media have a very limited presence. A negative feature is the lack of specific information areas for the institution’s employees, a key group for the effective operation of this type of institutions. In terms of the hierarchical organization of information, the institutional information has the greatest presence on the museums’ homepage (the section is on the homepage on almost 89.1% of the websites). This is followed by “news” and “temporary exhibitions” sections, which are on 73.2% and 71.4% of the homepages, respectively. These are followed by sections relating to the educational activities (64.2%) and the permanent exhibition (61.9%) of homepage presence. In last place in terms of presence on the museums’ homepages are sections on “other activities” (a presence of 51.9%). However, all the sections dedicated to specific publics have a significantly lower presence on the homepage than the information sections about the museum and its activities. None of the specific sections for publics has a homepage presence of 50%. Then, the general information about the museum is prioritized on the specific information for each public. 4.2. Interaction management The results about the presentation and information resources (RQ3) clearly show that the information in the museums (either of an institutional nature or about their products, services and activities) is presented by means of mainly one-way or expositive tools (Table 4). However, the main resources used are Graphics (fixed images and texts), with percentages of over 70%, and as such the use of audiovisual resources (audio and video) is also very limited (between 10% and 15% of institutions). Meanwhile, interactive instruments are applied in very few cases and are used by a minority of the institutions, of not more than 10%, except for information on the permanent collection, for which they are used by 17% of the museums. Museums are therefore not taking advantage of all the opportunities provided by the online resources available for greater interaction with virtual visitors. In relation with the use of the various web 2.0 tools (RQ4), very few museums integrate their websites with social web tools. The three most popular web 2.0 tools present very low percentages of use on the museums’ websites: blogs are in 16.5% of websites, social networks are in 12.4% and video accounts are in 14.7%. The other tools are used by less than 10% of the museum websites (these include one of the current key tools of social web, Twitter, which is used by 3.5% of the museums). Photo accounts are present in 7.1% of the websites, discussion forums are in 4.5% and wikis and presentation accounts have no presence. There is also no apparent distinction or preference in the use of tools depending on whether they are one-way/monologic (such as video, photo, presentation or downloads) or more conversational/dialogic (such as blogs, social networks, discussion forums and wikis). As regards information and feedback systems (RQ5), the museums use their websites to provide information about traditional forms of offline contact, such as the institution’s postal address and telephone number (with percentages of 94.2% and 95.8% of the total institutions, respectively). This is followed by e-mail, with 84.2% of the total. These are the three main types of contact presented by museums on their websites. Other specifically digital instruments present considerably lower percentages, such as the forms requesting information online (30%) and the subscription to online newsletters (27.5%), and more modern systems for obtaining permanent and updated information, such as the syndication of content (29.2%). Finally, mobile telephone alerts are not present on the museum websites. The museums therefore prioritize traditional and passive information and feedback systems on their websites, and do not use proactive means of providing online information for their publics. 5. Conclusions and future research The Internet has gradually become increasingly important in museums’ communication and is sure to be implemented on a widespread basis in the near future, providing interactivity, flexibility, personalization and collaboration between museums and their publics. By using Internet applications, museums develop various tools with high dialogic potential for engaging in dialogue with their various publics. However, the museums analyzed are not currently using all the advantages that the Internet offers as a means for interactive, multidirectional and symmetrical communication. As regards content management, our conclusion is that museums prioritize general information about the institution and its products/services (exhibitions and activities) over sections aimed
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at visitors to the institution. In other words, priority is given to general information important to the museum, rather than specific relevant information for each separate public. In their interaction management, museums basically use exhibitive resources for presenting information on their websites. In addition, they make a very limited use of the web 2.0 resources available, of either a conversational or a one-way nature, and mostly use passive information and feedback resources. This leads us to conclude that the websites of the museums studied are highly one-way instruments of communication. Museums therefore prioritize the use of highly one-way/monologic resources and do not take full advantage of the interactive opportunities and resources of Internet and social web tools to create platforms that foster an open conversation and the establishment of dialogic relations with their publics. The vast majority of the museums are still in the initial evolutionary phase of their websites, with monologic communication with their publics, little attention paid to their visitors on the Internet and priority given to the production and dissemination of information in their own interest. Many museum institutions are simply using the Internet and the web 2.0 as new means to create and present old media (electronic bulletins, electronic leaflets, etc.) and are therefore reproducing the one-way passive forms and processes of traditional offline communication. The dialogic loop is still a long way from being applied by the museums studied in this research. Although the scope and depth of the study enables us to make a series of considerations and suggest specific conclusions on museums’ communication, the results obtained cannot be directly extrapolated to all Spanish museums or those of other countries. A possible future line of research will be to apply the methodology developed in this study in order to undertake a comparative analysis of museums’ communication via the Internet with that of various institutions in different countries and cultural environments, which would provide a broad-based and comprehensive perspective of the current situation and future challenges for museums’ communication using the Internet. Finally, some aspects identified during the research work and the results obtained lead us to consider other future areas of study. First, it will be important to investigate and analyze the trend suggesting the shift in the development of content and consumption habits from institutional web platforms towards platforms in mobile devices, which use the Internet but are not consumed via web browsers, and cannot therefore be called websites. According to Anderson and Wolff (2010), the shift from “wide-open webs” to “semi-closed platforms” has been decisive in consumer habits in recent years, due to the growth of development models based on consumption via mobile platforms. There has been a growth in consumption of applications native to mobile devices such as the AppStore, VoIP telephony, Peer to Peer files, streaming consumption, geolocalization interaction, online games, and platforms for listening to music or podcasts. This trend will reach museums’ communication on the Internet, and the next step in this area of research would be to study the use of mobile platforms in museums’ communication. This alludes to examples like the competitive spirit of the check-ins on Foursquare, the museums or exhibitions influence report with platforms as Klout, the instant communication seen on Twitter, the consumption of questions on Quora and hundreds of other mobile applications focusing on immediate gratification. The development of the vast number of applications and various formats also requires an in-depth study on transmedia storytelling (Jenkins, 2006; Scolari, 2009) in museums’ communication using the Internet. Museums storytelling using multiple Internet tools or platforms, in which each one makes a distinctive contribution to the museum’s or exhibitions’ story, will have a decisive influence on the interaction management and the production of content, which will create greater complexity to develop the institutional communication of museums. Acknowledgements This paper is part of a broader research about “Museums’ communication in Catalonia”, granted by the Repsol-URV Chair in “Excellence in Communication” of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain). References Allen-Greil, D., & Mac Arthur, M. (2010). Small towns and big cities: How museums foster community on-line. Museum and the Web 2010: Proceedings. 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Paul Capriotti is PhD in Communication Sciences (Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain). He is Professor of Public Relations and Corporate Communication at Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain). Prior to joining the University, he was Advisor on Strategies in Corporate Communication. His last book is Branding Corporativo (2009, online in www.bidireccional.net). He is author of different articles in international journals like Public Relations Review, Journal of Communication Management, Business & Society and Corporate Communications. Hugo Pardo Kuklinski is PhD in Communication Sciences (Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain). Professor and researcher of Digital Communication at Universitat de Vic (Spain). Member of the Interactive Media Lab (LMI, Universitat de Barcelona). Executive Director, Imagine Postdigital Barcelona 2012. CEO & founder of Funky Mobile Ideas/CampusMovil.net. Author of Geekonomía. Un radar para producir en el postdigitalismo (2010) and Planeta Web 2.0. Inteligencia colectiva o medios fast food (2007). He has published several articles in national and international journals.