On Sep 10, 10:49am, Zahava D. Doering wrote:
> There is no evidence that putting images on the WWW has any impact
> on attendance.  Not surprising, as the users of WWW are museum-goers
> who probably know of the museum/exhibit/program from other sources
> as well.  The notion that the WWW would increase attendance is very
> far-fetched.  I see many benefits of the WWW in the museum context,
> but audience expansion is definitely not one of them.
>-- End of excerpt from Zahava D. Doering

I feel that these results do not fairly represent the average WWW user.  With
the ease of switching back and forth from one homepage to the next, I believe
it is possible that non-"museum types" do look, out of curiousity, at some
art/museum homepages.  Of course, I could be way off base, but I know my
brother, the "anti-artist" if there ever was one, has looked occasionally at
museum home pages to see the graphic quality, the structure, to gauge the
complexity of the interactive elements, etc.  Computer users should not
automatically be assumed to have anti-cultural characteristics based on their
technological proficiency.  Just because a viewer does not physically attend
a showing/exhibition does not mean the WWW has no expanded interest, in
general, in museums or galleries.


--
Joshua Heuman
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Art History Undergraduate