Liu, Bingjun; (2025) Exploring the development of social media practices and user engagement on Facebook: A longitudinal analysis of London art museums from 2014 to 2021. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Online media, and particularly the adoption of social media in cultural heritage institutions, has been acclaimed for enabling a new world of communication and engagement characterised by multidirectional, user-driven exchanges on a global scale. The COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns (2020-2022) further brought opportunities for the museum sector to encourage remote participation. Within this background, the thesis explores the Facebook practices and corresponding user engagement of three large-scale art museums in London: the National Gallery, the Tate (Modern and Britain), and the V&A. Utilising a mixed-methods approach and assisted by Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, this research analysed a substantial amount of quantitative and qualitative data from Facebook spanning from 2014 to 2021. From a longitudinal perspective, the findings reveal the overall patterns of both museum social media practices and user engagement on Facebook within the socio-technical context, where technological advancements and algorithms significantly influenced these patterns. The analysis highlights the inconsistencies that exist in how museums function and how users interact with museum social media channels. It also shows that each of the three museums presented a unique public image on Facebook, leading to varied engagement patterns. Despite the potential of social media to foster communicative and equal relationships, establishing these on museum channels remains challenging. Nonetheless, there are opportunities to enhance user engagement. This interdisciplinary research contributes significantly to the fields of museum and social media studies from three aspects. From a practical perspective, it provides insights for museums in developing more targeted user engagement strategies on social media platforms, thereby facilitating an efficient utilisation of museum resources. On a theoretical level, it advances our understanding of digital engagement on social media platforms and museum users. Furthermore, it demonstrates the extent to which the use of NLP techniques is valid in addressing humanities issues, especially in the analysis of large bodies of qualitative data from museum users.

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