The role of Instagram for museums during and after COVID-19 lockdown

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to assess how museums have changed their presence on Instagram, how subscribers have responded to these changes, and what opportunities are opening up for museums in this regard. The study reveals an increase in the educational focus of museum Instagram during and after the lockdown, as well as an increase in subscriber activity, and offers recommendations on how to use these changes for the future development of museums. Statistical tests, namely the one-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, the t-test, and the Wilcoxon signed rank test for linked samples, are used to test hypotheses. The research sample includes 7,776 Instagram posts from 74 Russian museums and covers three time periods: before, during and after the lockdown.