Greek Museum Media Visibility and Museum Visitation: An Exploration of Cultural Agenda Setting

Abstract

This project investigates the classic agenda-setting hypothesis in the context of the Greek cultural market. It is hypothesized that Greek museums with higher visibility in newspaper content are related to higher visitation than museums with lower media visibility. Because of the nature of the Greek cultural market-Greece receives more than 10 million tourists during the summer months-several variables are controlled for, such as the seasonality of visitation, the type of governance of the organization, one-time events, such as the Olympic Games, which took place in the summer of 2004, and promotion initiatives undertaken by museums. When controlling for such culturally specific variables, there is evidence supporting the agenda-setting hypothesis within the Greek cultural market.

Museum promotion and cultural salience: the agenda of the Athenian Acropolis Museum

“…Although additional research is needed to explain this web of influences in the context of the cultural sector, these preliminary findings corroborate existing research, in the realm of the emerging field of cultural agenda setting (Bantimaroudis et al 2010;Zyglidopoulos et al 2012). Our case study approach provides only preliminary evidence in regards to the museum's capacity to set its primary agendas.…”

Cultural Agenda Setting: Salient Attributes in the Cultural Domain

“…Of course, it is possible that individuals facing an NFO in the cultural domain will respond differently than the way the same individuals would have responded faced with an NFO in the political domain. However, given emerging empirical evidence to the contrary (Bantimaroudis et al, 2010;Symeou et al, 2013;Zyglidopoulos et al, 2012) this is unlikely.…”

“…Assuming then that they will react in a manner similar to the way they react faced with an NFO within the political domain, it is reasonable to expect that agenda-setting theory holds within the cultural domain as well. This expectation has been supported by the few empirical studies that have investigated the transfer of salience from the media to the public, within the cultural domain (Bantimaroudis et al, 2010;Zyglidopoulos et al, 2012;Symeou et al, 2013). Moreover, cultural goods have high levels of uncertainty and relevance, both factors that increase the NFO of consumers.…”

“…In particular, Bantimaroudis et al (2010) and Zyglidopoulos et al (2012) investigated the applicability of both firstand second-level agenda-setting theory on Greek museums, and found evidence in support of cultural agenda-setting phenomena in both cases. With respect to first-level agenda-setting theory, Bantimaroudis et al (2010) found that increased coverage of Greek museums by the media is related to increased visitation, which they used to capture public salience. In addition, Zyglidopoulos et al (2012) found that the positive or negative coverage of Greek museums by the media did have an effect again on museum visitation, which they also used to capture public salience.…”

Between Ebola epidemics and Boko-Haram insurgency: Media agenda transition interplay

“…Making choice out of the competing news items upon which the media agenda is set is a media task that depends on certain number of influences ranging from media perception of reality and the nature of media environment including audience wariness to the happenings around them. Audience wariness (how active the audience) is an important factor that segregate between what the media considered important and what the audience assumed essential [9], a dichotomy that leads to 'transfer of salience'. Shifting audience attentions from what they earlier considered most important in relation to the earlier media positioning of issues reported is another area where the essence of media agenda is felt [10].…”