Testing the Uses and Gratifications Approach to Museum Visiting: Adopting a Mediated Perspective in the Cultural Domain

ABSTRACT

This article examines the motivations of museum visitors and some of the primary needs they seek to satisfy in their contact with museums. The authors used a survey conducted in three regional museums of the island of Lesvos in Greece to establish a hierarchy of visitor gratifications. The survey included questions about demographic information and asked visitors to rank their motives when visiting the museums. It was filled in by 416 visitors and was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The results showed that cultural and educational gratifications were significant motivations for visitation and were ranked higher than entertainment or escape motivations. Ηaving a “cultural experience” was the primary reason visitors stated for visiting the museums. The study used a regression model to understand how the concept of cultural experience relates to demographic, educational, and motivational elements.

About the authors

Lydia Ntamkarelou (M.A.) completed her postgraduate studies in Cultural Informatics at the Department of Cultural Technology and Communication of the University of the Aegean. She specializes in media and culture and has carried out research as well as planning for museum displays and digital applications. She has held posts in marketing strategy and communication.

Philemon Bantimaroudis is a Professor in the Department of Cultural Technology and Communication at the University of the Aegean. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin (1999). His research interests include media and culture, and political and international communication. Address correspondence to Philemon Bantimaroudis, Department of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean, University Hill, Mytilene, 81100, Greece. E-mail: [email protected].

Maria Economou is Lecturer in Museum Studies at the University of Glasgow, where she holds a joint appointment in the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII), School of Humanities, and the Hunterian Museum. She holds a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford (1998). Her research interests include digital heritage and museology, evaluation, and visitor studies.