Museum Marketing and Social Influence

Traditional museum management often operates from an inside-out perspective, while modern ones have begun to rely on various PR marketing methods and coverage by mass media to expand social influence. Mass communication defines news as “the social reality built up by journalists according to their perceived communal interest, ” which shows that news sources and media both hold influence over mediated reality, and at the same time have a critical impact on social context. Provided that museums emphasize a certain news topic, exert direct influence to the agenda setting of mass media, then spread it to the audience through news reports, the topic would have a significant connection to the perceived issues of importance in the audience’s eyes. Thus, the emphasis of this research is to bring news theory into museum practices, in order to expand social influence. Through actual museum PR operations, such as the restoration of The Yellow Tiger Flag of Formosan Republic, the collection of classic post-WWII construction blueprints, and the finding of the only remaining belonging of Mona Rudao, we analyze the awareness model, salience model and priority model of agenda-setting theory. To investigate how to arrange and allocate media coverage by importance of agenda, shape the cultural and social influence of a museum, and how individual cases create large media coverage and substantial public attention through marketing