310 | nº 30, pp. 309-330 | doxa.comunicación
January-june of 2020
Tourist functionality of the communication management on Malaga’s museums’ social networks
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
1. Introduction
Strategic communication in cultural institutions has had satisfactory results in the last decade (Merín, 2018), especially when achieving objectives and carrying out projects and activities that take place in the framework of the name of these organizations (Lazzeretti, Sartori & Innocenti, 2015).
The global awareness of the need to democratise culture has fostered public involvement. This process involves both those who directly participate in these institutions’ operations; the staff who visit them, recommend or assess them, and those groups that “can support the entity’s activities, such as experts, the media or associations” (Oliveira & Capriotti, 2013: 213).
In general, the studies on cultural organisations in Spain have focused on the centres in the country as they are among the most important in the world. The studies have primarily been based on the dimension of these institutions’ heritage or the number of visits they receive. (Losada & Capriotti, 2015; Mas, 2018; Cano & Rostoll, 2018; Claes & Deltell, 2019; Mateos, 2019). However, there are less well-known institutions in Spain, whose heritage or cultural identity value attracts tourists as sources of knowledge and leisure activity. This is the case of some museums, often located outside the nation’s or region’s capital, which have artworks that position the cities where they are found as a cultural destination within the international tourist network.
Abstract:
This research focuses on the communication management of cultural heritage that the Contemporary Art Centre of Malaga, Picasso Museum, Casa Natal, the Pompidou, and Carmen Thyssen carry out. They are institutions from Malaga that are competitive touristic attractions, allowing the capital of the Costa del Sol to position itself as a city of museums. Based on the content analysis of the institutional profiles of these centres on social networks and from semi-structured interviews with communication managers, these new forms of communication have fostered new ways of consuming the museums’ cultural products. Simultaneously, communication management in the digital space has had an impact on the tourist functionality of these institutions, increasing the number of visitors they receive annually. It can be seen that museums are a tourist attraction as a result of both institutional communication management and the content generated by users on their websites, who contribute to great.
Keywords:
Strategic communication; tourism; culture; museums; social media.
Resumen:
Esta investigación centra su objeto de estudio en la gestión comunicativa del patrimonio cultural que realizan en redes sociales el Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, el Museo Picasso y la Casa Natal, el Pompidou y el Carmen Thyssen; instituciones malagueñas que constituyen un reclamo turístico competitivo, y que permiten que la capital de la Costa del Sol se posicione como una ciudad de museos. A partir del análisis de contenido de los perfiles institucionales de estos centros en redes sociales y de la realización de entrevistas semiestructuradas a las responsables de comunicación, se obtiene que estas plataformas han fomentado nuevas formas de consumo del producto cultural que preservan los museos. Al mismo tiempo, la gestión de la comunicación en el espacio digital ha tenido un impacto en la funcionalidad turística de estas instituciones, lo cual se traduce en un aumento del número de visitas que reciben anualmente. Se concluye que el atractivo turístico que generan los museos es resultado tanto de la gestión institucional de la comunicación, como del contenido generado por los propios usuarios de la web, quienes contribuyen a una mayor visibilidad de los museos y a su reconocimiento como actividad de ocio y vacaciones.
Palabras clave:
Comunicación estratégica; turismo; cultura; museos; redes sociales.
Received: 15/01/2020 - Accepted: 16/04/2020
Recibido: 15/01/2020 - Aceptado: 16/04/2020
