Exploring the role of Public Relations and Communication in Museums

Abstract

Museums are born from the need to preserve historical heritage in a space where they can research and disseminate knowledge. The evolution of museum communication, together with the use of new technologies or new forms of communication, has been an unprecedented milestone between museums and their public, as it allows them to establish interactions, contributing to the development of a greater knowledge of the cultural demands of museum visitors. Social media, blogs or mobile social media fall within this new way of communicating, being used by museums to expand their dissemination and publicize their activities. The use of these networks has created wider spaces and more open museums. Therefore, social media are already being used by museums to expand their dissemination and publicize their activities, this being a clear use of what is known as "museum 2.0". This research work carries out a bibliometric study since 1976, the first year in which publications in this field were detected. Sixty-four publications have been identified in the databases, Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus, showing a mapping of authorship networks, citation and co-occurrence of keywords or scientific interrelation between organizations and countries.