Testing Strategies and Impacts of Communicating the Value of Museum Biological Collections

博物馆是信息中心，其使命是通过保护自然为社会服务并赋予社会权力。博物馆的生物收藏品提供了过去的快照，以前所未有的方式回答了关于现在和未来的问题。这些问题在主题和与博物馆所服务的社会成员生活的相关性方面都有很大的不同。然而，当地博物馆的覆盖范围仅限于那些亲自参观的人，以查看少量的展示标本，而其余的标本则被关在门后，甚至不在现场。用于保存这些收藏品的资金一直在减少，使这些收藏品、其工作人员和科学发现处于危险之中。因此，确定博物馆如何利用在线数字媒体来扩大其影响力，以及这些传播策略如何影响人们的看法，对于了解这些主要由公共资助的机构如何保护自己的未来至关重要。本研究将使用三个相关研究来了解和发展基于证据的传播实践，以改善公众对博物馆生物藏品及其相关研究的看法。首先，对知名博物馆在多个社交媒体平台上的帖子进行内容分析，以研究博物馆如何利用社交媒体来宣传其在有益于社会的研究中的作用。其次，将对美国成年人进行一项调查，以评估科学家作为传播者在以视频格式呈现研究摘要时是否比第三方传播者更有效，以及这种有效性是否在与受众日常生活相关性不同的研究主题中保持一致。第三，将对美国成年人进行一项调查，以评估反复接触博物馆收藏品是否-基于视频格式的研究摘要增加了对收集基础设施资金的支持，以及这种支持是否受到科学家本人是否是传播者的影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响进行评估，被认为值得支持审查标准。

Museums are information centers whose mission is to serve and empower society through conserving nature. Museum biological collections provide snapshots of the past to answer questions about the present and future in ways that were not previously imagined. These questions vary widely in both topic and relevancy to the lives of the members of society museums serve. However, the local reach of museums is limited to those who attend in-person to view the small number of displayed specimens, while the remainder of the specimens are housed behind closed doors or even offsite. Funds for the preservation of these collections have been decreasing, putting these collections, their staff, and scientific discoveries at risk. Therefore, determining how museums can use online digital media to expand their reach and how those communication strategies impact perceptions is essential to understand how these largely publicly funded institutions can safeguard their future.This research will use three related studies to understand and develop evidence-based communication practices for improving public perception of museum biological collections and their associated research. First, a content analysis of the posts of prominent museums on multiple social media platforms will be used to examine how museums use social media to communicate their role in research that benefits society. Second, a survey of U.S. adults will be conducted to assess whether scientists-as-communicators are more or less effective than third-party communicators when presenting research summaries in video format and whether that effectiveness is consistent across research topics that vary in relevancy to an audience’s daily life. And third, a survey of U.S. adults will be conducted to assess whether repeated exposure to museum collection-based research summaries in video format increases support for collection infrastructure funding and whether that support is moderated by whether the scientist themself is the communicator.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.