Web communication strategies of Portuguese museums: National museums versus foundations

Abstract

Viewing museum websites is a deciding factor when visiting these attractions. The website is a portrait of the museums' digital communication strategy, being able to use content orientation, interactive orientation or transactional orientation to a greater or lesser extent. This investigation aims to compare the web communication strategies of national museums with the strategy of museums managed by foundations. The websites of thirteen national museums and twelve foundations were analyzed. A website content evaluation model was created based on the reference literature with 56 evaluation elements and the websites were observed in the last week of May 2020. The canonical biplot and discriminant analysis allows us to conclude that the communication strategies of national and international museums foundations are globally similar, lacking in interactive and transactional orientation; but different in terms of content orientation and the presence of interactive elements.