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力量。博物馆的生物藏品提供了过去的快照，以以前无法想象的方式回答有关现在和未来的问题。这些问题在主题和与博物馆所服务的社会成员的生活的相关性方面各不相同。然而，当地博物馆的范围仅限于那些亲自参观少数展出标本的人，而其余的标本则被关在门后甚至不在现场。用于保存这些藏品的资金一直在减少，使这些藏品、它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力，以及这些传播策略如何影响人们的看法，对于理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。本研究将透过三项相关研究，了解并发展以证据为基础的沟通实践，以改善公众对博物馆生物藏品及其相关研究的认知。首先，将对多个社交媒体平台上知名博物馆的帖子进行内容分析，以研究博物馆如何利用社交媒体传达其在造福社会的研究中的作用。其次，将对美国成年人进行调查，以评估科学家作为传播者在以视频形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的不同研究主题中是一致的。第三，将对美国成年人进行一项调查，以评估反复观看以视频形式呈现的博物馆馆藏研究摘要是否会增加对馆藏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。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.