Art museum visitors: Interaction strategies for sharing experiences

Prior research into the museum experience has prioritised the study of the visit itself, opposing the individual experience of visitors who attend alone to the social experience of those who attend accompanied. In this research, however, we study the social dimension of the art museum experience holistically, that is, before, during, and after the visit. We gathered data from 21 in-depth interviews, transcribed verbatim and analysed with the aid of computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software tools. Our interpretation suggests that visits to museums alone or accompanied are not universal categories but reflect the strategies of individuals, a finding that has several theoretical and practical implications. In consequence, social and individual experiences do not cancel each other out, but may occur simultaneously during the visit or at different times and places depending on the visitors' biographies, visit strategies and social restrictions. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.