The General Public and the Art Museum: <i>Case Studies of Visitors to Several Institutions Identify Characteristics of Weir Publics</i>

Hendon, William S.; Costa, Frank J.; Rosenberg, Robert

doi:10.1111/j.1536-7150.1989.tb02120.x

Cited by 17 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…Prince (1990) focused on surveys of visitors to a large number of museums. In the US, Hendon et al (1989) replicated Alt's findings to reveal that the typical museum visitor at the time had a higher education than average, and a higher income than many. These visitors also tended to be younger and more active within their communities than the average American.…”

Section: Studies Of Museum Visitssupporting

confidence: 52%

Analysing visits to English museums 1850–2015: a research note

Hansen

2018

Cultural Trends

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Understanding why people visit museums is of interest to both cultural economics and museum studies. Most existing research relies on survey data concerned with visitors, their immediate background, and their experience of a particular museum. Very few studies (e.g. Chen & Della Change, 2016;Skinner et al., 2009) have taken a more general perspective and analysed macro-level societal factors, such as inflation, educational attainment and unemployment, and their influence on the number of visits to museums. The conventional approach being reliance on surveys of museum visitors used to understand what drives visits and general views on museums. In a departure from these conventional approaches, this article presents such an approach, using a unique dataset of visit counts for 40 English museums and visitor attractions spanning the period 1850-2015, unless otherwise specified the word "museum" shall in this article cover both types It examines the effect of socio-economic factors on visits using panel data analysis and macro-level variables. The results suggest that inflation rates, average earnings, and educational level (using the indicator of secondary school attendance) all significantly influence the number of visits made. However, the most important variable is the number of visits recorded for the previous year. These findings are discussed in relation to existing studies, and some suggestions for future research are proposed.

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Section: Studies Of Museum Visitssupporting

confidence: 52%

Analysing visits to English museums 1850–2015: a research note

Hansen

2018

Cultural Trends

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“…Bourdieu's research influenced several case studies, as well as empirical research, in museums. As Bourdieu predicted, it was repeatedly shown that museum visitors are located within the upper educational, occupational, and income groups (Clarke, 1956;DiMaggio, Useem, & Brown, 1977;Hendon, Costa, & Rosenberg, 1989;Kirchberg, 1996;Merriman, 1991;Peterson, 1992;Tomlinson, 2000). Interestingly, in most studies, education appears to be the strongest determinant of arts involvement (DiMaggio & Useem, 1978;Lopez-Sintas & Garcia-Alvarez, 2002;Zuzanek, 1978).…”

Section: T Stylianou-lambertmentioning

confidence: 87%

Re-conceptualizing Museum Audiences: Power, Activity, Responsibility

Stylianou-Lambert

2010

Visitor Studies

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“…From this, we can deduce that museum visitors are located mainly in the upper educational, occupational and income groups, as Bourdieu predicted (DiMaggio, Useem and Brown 1977;Hendon, Costa and Rosenberg 1989). …”

Section: Sociological Approachesmentioning

confidence: 93%

Perceiving the art museum

Stylianou-Lambert

2009

Museum Management and Curatorship

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This paper presents a novel way of understanding art museum visitation based on the examination of people's perceptions regarding art museums and galleries. Within a discussion of the existing literature, it is argued that both socio-cultural and individual factors influence museum perceptions and visitation decisions. Using in-depth interviews with 60 participants, eight different ways of perceiving the art museum have been identified. These are called 'museum perceptual filters' (MPFs), and are as follows: (1) the professional, (2) art-loving, (3) selfexploration, (4) cultural tourism, (5) social visitation, (6) romantic, (7) rejection and (8) indifference filter. By 'colouring' our 'spectacles of perception', MPFs seem to influence our visitation decisions. IntroductionTraditional museum research has mainly asked questions regarding who, how often and, sometimes, why people visit museums. Because previous research has provided museum professionals with the main demographic and motivational characteristics of audiences, it seems that it is time for research to turn its focus to some other urgent questions, such as how people perceive art museums and how people's perceptions might influence their visitation decisions. As we will see, art museums are viewed in a variety of ways: as places of inspiration, places of exploring the world and the self, places of cultural education and places of social connection. At the same time, art museums can be viewed as exclusive places frequented by pretentious people and irrelevant to one's life, or even as places showcasing incomprehensible things.This paper presents the findings of a small-scale qualitative study whose aims were to explore people's perceptions regarding art museums and to understand how individual perceptions might influence visitation decisions. The research included indepth, semi-structured interviews with 60 participants in Nicosia, Cyprus. It asked questions regarding the interviewees' visitation frequency; reasons for visiting (motivation) or for not visiting; attitudes regarding art museums; attitudes towards people who visit art museums and people who do not; uses of art museums and what the interviewees believe they gain from the museum experience; whether the interviewees prefer to visit alone or with company, as well as questions about the interviewees' connection to art. At least eight different ways of perceiving art

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The General Public and the Art Museum: Case Studies of Visitors to Several Institutions Identify Characteristics of Weir Publics

Cited by 17 publications

References 0 publications

Analysing visits to English museums 1850–2015: a research note

Analysing visits to English museums 1850–2015: a research note

Re-conceptualizing Museum Audiences: Power, Activity, Responsibility

Perceiving the art museum

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