Investigating how London museums present themselves on their websites with recommendations for Saudi museums

Abstract

Museums have been affected by technological developments and have designed websites for themselves on the Internet to display their activities and holdings and provide the opportunity to create a wider network of information that can be accessed by the public. This dissertation aims to study five museum sites in London. This study examines in depth, The British Museum, The Museum of London, The Sir John Soane’s Museum, and The Imperial War as well as The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. The purpose of this study was to know how such museums have presented themselves on their websites, to determine how museums in Saudi Arabia can emulate those museums due to the paucity of Saudi museums on the Internet. In this study, a qualitative content analysis methodology was used, and the study dealt with the description and analysis of 8 main categories on the sample websites, which were as follows: contact and visit information, museum information, visual and audio presentations, visitor services, e-commerce, educational resources, social media links, and legal issues. The results of the study show that the sample museums have a high level of similarity in the way they are presented on their sites, which focus on attracting visitors of all categories to the physical museum. In addition, the most recent developments in the use of modern technology, the strength of the content displayed on their sites, and the accuracy of the sample museums in providing information was examined too. Interestingly, the Petrie Museum appears to be merely satisfactory in the way it presents itself on its site and did not seem to be as outstanding as the rest of the sample museums. The study also presented a set of recommendations and suggestions for museums in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in light of what the author has learned from the sites of those museums that were studied.