Visiting museums is one of the main cultural practices of the French.
In 2016, 44% of French people visited a museum or exhibition, 9% more than 4 years ago: 29% saw a fine arts museum or exhibition, 20% a modern or contemporary art museum, and 17% a natural history, science, technology and industry museum or exhibition.
On the occasion of the digital meeting "Publics in situ et en ligne" on March 27 and 28, 2017, the Ministry's General Directorate of Heritage released the results of several surveys dedicated to digital uses in museums, exhibitions and monuments.
44% of French people have used the Internet in connection with museums and monuments
According to two surveys devoted in 2014 and 2016 to the visiting practices of the French carried out by CREDOC, 44% of the French have used the internet in connection with a heritage visit over the past 12 months (+7 points compared to June 2014).
he fastest growing uses are for more practical purposes, such as finding information (+9%) and booking tickets (+7%).
The profile of people who use the Internet to prepare or accompany these visits corresponds more or less to the profile of those who already visit museums and monuments "in situ": 79% of graduates with a bachelor's degree and above use the Internet to prepare or accompany their visits, compared to 49% of graduates with a bachelor's degree and 31% of graduates with a BEPC."Cleavages persist despite the beginning of a social decompartmentalization.
Only 15% of French people surveyed have taken a virtual tour of an exhibition, museum or monument.
42% of visitors to museums and monuments share their visit on a social network
According to surveys conducted as part of the "Listening to Visitors" program (questionnaires submitted to visitors in situ) 42% of visitors to national museums in 2015, had shared "their visit on a social network. In national monuments, the proportion would concern up to 46% of visitors.In more than three quarters of cases, online sharing takes place after the visit, not during it. These sharing practices are more common among 18-40 year olds and foreign tourists, and less common among older visitors and visitors with children.
Modest impact of digital devices on attendance
Online visits are combined with a physical visit "in situ" in more than 9 cases out of 10. Conversely, 9% of French people who had an online activity related to museums and monuments did not visit this type of place during the year.According to the head of studies at the Directorate General of Heritage, "current data do not confirm the hypothesis of a broadening of the public through digital technology, even if online uses, without physical visits, are emerging for certain populations.
Images d'art: 500,000 works from French museums to discover online
The Réunion des musées nationaux - Grand Palais opened the Images d'Art website in 2015 to provide access to photographic reproductions of more than 500,000 works presented in French museums.The "Images d'art" project has three objectives: to allow the public to consult works of art, to share them on social networks, to encourage educational uses and to develop the presence of French museums on digital networks.
Art Images is also a digital platform that includes application programming interfaces (APIs) for web developers and a white-label module to allow museums to publish their images on their own websites. Access to the API is on request: authorization will be given free of charge, for private and educational use.
Visit the museums "in situ" and consult the works online
While museums remain the privileged places for direct confrontation with works of art, they are, as illustrated by Images d'art but also by the initiatives of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (375,000 reproductions in high definition with free access), the National Gallery in Washington, the British Library or the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, increasingly called upon to offer new ways of accessing works.The digital transition thus confronts museums with new trade-offs: taking advantage of digital technology to stimulate attendance while offering new forms of exploration, sharing and reuse.
This relationship between the development of "in situ" attendance and the development of the "online" cultural offer is at the heart of the concerns of the managers of museums, heritage sites and public archives.
This was the central theme of the"Digital Culture Meeting" organized by the Ministry of Culture and Communication (MCC) on March 27 and 28.
This meeting led to the publication of a well-documented dossier in the MCC's "Culture et recherche" magazine devoted to the question of audiences in the digital age:"Les publics in situ et en ligne".
"Should cultural policies continue to prioritize attendance at institutions? Is an online visitor worth less than an in situ visitor?" asks Christopher Miles, Secretary General of the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, at the beginning of this issue. "The question of access to culture is in some ways duplicated, if not multiplied, since the modes of access and forms of participation are now so numerous,"Références :
concludes Olivier Donnat, coordinator of this dossier.
