Social Media Application among Museums: Case Study on Berlin and Prague Museums

Dynamic developments in the field of information technology already demonstrated a substantial impact in many aspects of life and work. New approaches based on Internet and networking significantly influenced corporate environments, created new markets and changed the way the businesses organize their processes and perform their activities. Conceptual evolution of Internet and Web, substantiated through the Web 2.0 and the emergence of online social networks, reinvented the way the enterprises interact with their customers. Museums, as cultural institutions with an important mission, are not unaffected by that change, however. In order to fulfill their duties and societal purpose successfully, they have to attract visitor attention and engage publics effectively in highly competitive and saturated environment. The goal of this work is therefore to investigate how and in what they do that in the online world. From that point, this work analyzes the presence and activity of museums on online social networks. It focuses on museums in Prague and Berlin, considering their general web presence and dynamics of activities on Facebook and Twitter. This thesis further aims to provide an understanding of how Berlin and Prague museums leverage internet and social media networks in their interactions with audiences. Following those goals, the main research presented in this work included gathering, processing, and analysis of activities of 196 Berlin and 100 Prague museums on Facebook and Twitter. The messages posted by these museums have been gathered for the period of three months - February, March and April of 2014. The assessment included quantitative and qualitative exploration of museums' activities. The qualitative part of research considered content activity, media structure and thematic content of messages posted by museums on Facebook and Twitter. The resulting analysis provided an in-depth overview of museums' activities on Facebook and Twitter, as well as comparison of approaches pursued by Prague and Berlin museums.