Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced museum educators to invent new resources, which has led to the increased use of social media as an educational tool in the museum context. This descriptive qualitative study explores museum education through social media using an adapted museum education theoretical model (Allard & Boucher, 1998; Meunier, 2011) and considers theories of connectivism (Siemens, 2004). The more specific aim was to address the approaches, experiences, and objectives of museum educators who use social media, and how youth aged 18 to 24 years respond to it. The overarching research question that guided the study was: How does using social media as an educational tool lead to new museum education practices? Twenty-eight art museum educators answered a qualitative survey, and fifteen youth participated in in-depth focus groups. The results provide an overview of museum education through social media through a thematic analysis and suggest that social media is a new horizon for museum education which can take many forms; that short-form videos are an effective tool for teaching and learning about art in museums; that the notion of a connection between educators and visitors is complicated via social media; and that the balance between high and low cultural practices is hard to strike. The study also provides practical recommendations for educators who wish to consider young people’s experience of museums’ social media content in their future utilization of networking platforms for educational purposes. This research builds a foundation for forthcoming explorations of teaching and learning mechanisms on social media platforms.