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

测试传播博物馆生物藏品价值的策略和影响

• 批准号: 2219533
• 负责人: Adrian Smith
• 金额: $ 27.59万
• 依托单位: North Carolina State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-10-01 至 2024-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2219533&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Testing; Strategies; Impacts; Communicating; Value

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.

博物馆是信息中心，其使命是通过保护自然来服务社会并赋予社会权力。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服务的社会成员的生活相关性上都有很大的不同。然而，博物馆的本地覆盖范围仅限于亲临现场观看少量展出的标本，而其余的标本则关起门来甚至是在场外收藏。用于保存这些藏品的资金一直在减少，使这些藏品、他们的工作人员和科学发现处于危险之中。因此，确定博物馆如何使用在线数字媒体来扩大其影响范围，以及这些传播策略如何影响感知，对于了解这些主要由公共资金资助的机构如何保障其未来至关重要。本研究将使用三项相关研究来理解和开发基于证据的传播实践，以提高公众对博物馆生物收藏品及其相关研究的感知。首先，对多个社交媒体平台上著名博物馆的帖子进行内容分析，以考察博物馆如何利用社交媒体传达其在造福社会的研究中所扮演的角色。其次，将对美国成年人进行一项调查，以评估科学家作为沟通者在以视频格式展示研究总结时比第三方沟通者更有效还是更不有效，以及这种有效性在与受众日常生活的相关性不同的研究主题中是否一致。第三，将对美国成年人进行调查，以评估反复接触基于博物馆收藏品的视频格式的研究摘要是否会增加对收藏基础设施资金的支持，以及这种支持是否受到科学家本身是否是沟通者的影响。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。