Claves para obtener información precisa sobre los públicos de los museos con encuestas en línea

Zusammenfassung

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations dedicated to the cultural industry undertookefforts to find out what was happening with their audiences once this health emergency forced thedoors of practically all cultural venues in the world to close. Two years after that moment, it canbe affirmed that the pandemic closed physical doors but opened digital windows that had beenlittle explored until then. Through these digital windows, museums around the world ventured toask their audiences about their experiences in this context, using online tools to create surveys,distribute them, analyze the data, and present their results. At that time, in Foro de Estudios dePúblicos working group in which we participated, we set out to collect and analyze more thantwenty studies on audiences with the same diversity of research strategies and with interestingfindings, but with deficiencies in fundamental methodological aspects such as the development ofthe instrument to collect data. And it is that there is a belief that online surveys obey the samerules as those for face-to-face interviews, an error comparable to thinking that a virtual museumroom must have the same characteristics as a physical one. Although both types of surveys aresimilar in general, the digital medium has specific features that require knowledge from differentfields, such as graphic design and web design (design of the person-digital world interface), socialnetwork management (community management), communication in digital environments, onlineresearch (e-research), in addition to knowing and handling constantly updated digital tools.This paper brings together key knowledge to use online surveys as part of the methodology ofstudies on museum audiences, from articles published between 2000 and 2021, as well asknowledge derived from our own experience in the field. It is intended to be a meta-analysis in theform of a practical guide to accompany those who embark on this task during its different stages:planning (distribution channels according to target audience), preparation (item formats, use ofplatforms to create surveys, adequate graphic design), information gathering (sampling, digitaldistribution channels), and information processing (confidentiality, automatic results).The goal is to obtain reliable information about the audiences who want to visit museumsphysically or virtually, based on well-founded strategies to make the most of the many advantagesof the internet.