Visitors? Or Audiences? Or Both?

A few days ago I was asked to distinguish between a museum's visitors and a museum's audiences.  I have to admit, the question caught me a bit short, because I (perhaps lazily) tend to use the words interchangeably.  And as a field we talk about "visitor studies" and we also talk about "audience research." 

Yet it may be important to distinguish, and so I submit to you my first draft definitions, and ask you to agree, improve, or tell me I have it completely wrong. 

• Museum visitors can be defined as individuals who physically visit a museum, participate in a program off-site, or visit virtually by viewing a website, Facebook posting, or Tweet.  These three types of visitors should be counted in three separate categories (on-site, off-site, virtual).
• A museum audience can be defined as individuals who have an interest and engagement with a museum and its offerings.  And a potential audience can be defined as individuals who may have an interest and engagement with a museum now or in the future, depending on awareness, life stage, resources, etc.

That is, I think a visitor is not necessarily an audience member, but an audience member is also a visitor.  Visitor is broad, audience is narrower, but can be expanded to include potential audiences. 

(This brings to mind the recent articles in the New York Times about how the Brooklyn Museum of Art's attendance is down, though they have made significant progress reaching out to younger, and more diverse, uhm, audiences.  Perhaps they are receiving fewer visitors but have a stronger audience base?)

What do you think?  Have I nailed it?  Want to call me out for my total ineptness in defining these terms?  Or does it really not matter?  Let me know by simply clicking on “comments” below.  (If you are reading this from your e-mail subscription to the blog, please go to our blog's website to add a comment.)

- Susie

Comments

[Rachel Hilton]

I think you're on to something. I wonder if these qualifiers would help to solidify the meetings.

For "museum visitor" you might also consider describing them engaging as a stakeholder at various levels as well as possible donor/supporter.

For "museum audience" perhaps the word "pre-disposition to arts and culture and in particular museums" might serve in your definition.

Hope this helps.
R

[Mary Alexander]

I believe the first sentence is correct but the second one is in error. Vistors are the ones who show up (on web, tweets, blog or museum itself) thus Visitorship is NARROW even though you may get plenty of them. Audience should be described at BROAD. Why? Because if your museum is a Nautical Museum your audience may include locals, school children, military, sailors, historians, tourist etc. Basically audience are those interested in the topics you preserve or present through your site. If you museum is on the Nautical Museum is on the Chesapeake Bay, even a sailing enthusiast from Calcutta could be your audience because that person is interested in sailing and your museum interprets it. Whether or not they ever visit, they fall under the audience of sailing enthusiasts. Your many constituencies (and their numbers) make your audience BROAD, not narrow. Lastly, however, if your museum is about the Amoraic language and all of the exhibits, brochures and texts are in the ancient language then you audience will be rather small because few speak the language or would understand the exhibit text.
From Tony Cohen, Menare Foundation, Maryland

[Robert Connolly]

Concur with above - audience seems also defined by those individuals addressed in the Mission Statement.

[Tom Reitz]

We've started to morph from calling our visitors ... guests. For example, we recently created a new position entitled Supervisor of Guest Services with overall responsibility for guest services, hospitality, admissions, gift shop, and food service.

We took our cues from the hospitality sector, i.e. hotels, theme parks and attractions, where they are more likely to use the term guest. And in many situations, they do a much better job at welcoming and caring for their guests, than a lot of museums do welcoming visitors or "the audience".

It may be semantics ... but I think it's an important distinction.

[Regan Forrest]

I agree with those saying that audience is broader than visitors.

In the way I imagine it, your audience is the people who have a predisposition to your subject matter and / or an awareness of you. (Potential audiences have yet to have this awareness or interest awakened).

A visitor, on the other hand, is someone who goes a step further by acting on this interest in some way (either through a real or virtual visit). To me the semantics of 'audience' implies passive; whereas 'visitor' implies active.

So I'd actually say the opposite to you: a visitor is an audience member, but an audience member is not necessarily a visitor.

[Gwendolyn Kelly]

I agree that audience is broader than than visitors and so would include people who "participate in a program off-site" but do not physically come to the museum (or interact with it through its web presence) as part of its audience instead of counting them as visitors. The distinction - visitors make a more conscious effort to be a part of the musuesm. Audience members could be people who simply happened to be at an outreach site and encounted a mususeum program. Hopefully, it'll lead to them becoming visitors.

[Susie Wilkening, Reach Advisors]

Thanks for the comments and input! This is helpful.

I have a question for those of you who think of visitor as more active because they are on-site. What about the woman on the bus tour who has absolutely no interest in your museum? She is there, but maybe she was more interested in the day out with a friend or the previous stop.

My point is that I hesitate to say that visitors are willing, or even somewhat engaged (though we would hope they would be!) just because they are in the building or on the grounds.

Further thoughts? (And your point about semantics is well-taken, Tom. We'll come back to that!)

[ED]

I have to say I agree with what you said. When we take the time to breakdown visitor and audience we find they are smiliar but very different categories. Both should be recognized because a museum/ gallery receives attendance from both. Great points. thanks.

[Manjit]

I agree with what has already been written:
All visitors are part of a museum's audience, but not all those in your audience are visitors.

[Regan Forrest]

Hi Susie,

Re your question about the woman on the bus tour - you could still call her a visitor but her motivation is more social than content-related.

But as I said before, I think if you're going to draw a distinction, I'd go with:
Audience = passive recipient
Visitor = active engager
By this definition it doesn't matter whether you're onsite or not.