Digital innovation in Portuguese museums – new report in digital format (only available in Portuguese)

The report Digital Innovation in Portuguese Museumsmade available today, November 24th, is the result of an exploratory study by Obi.Media and analyze how innovation in the media manifests itself within the national museums managed by the Directorate General of Cultural Heritage (DGPC). It is available in open access here.

The study, conducted by Dora Santos Silva, Ana Marta Flores, and Maria João Centeno, aims to answer four research questions: 1) What digital innovation practices are present in Portuguese museums? 2) How do Portuguese museums relate to the public through their websites? 3) In which social platforms are they present and what are the forms of appropriation to innovate concerning communication with the public? 4) What narrative models are present to add value to the exhibition and the audiences’ aesthetic experience, and what creative formats and strategies are used?

With mixed methodological procedures (exploratory research, content analysis and digital methods), the corpus included the digital channels available online – official websites of each device, the Google Arts & Culture web pages and the respective profiles on social platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter). Findings, despite its limitations, show obstacles to innovation present in the current scenario, but also innovative potential to be explored in national museums, especially regarding the relationship with audiences and the formation of new audiences.