ABSTRACT
New digital technologies have become important mechanisms for tracking, studying, and reconceptualising the museum audience. Digital platforms create an environment in which previously hidden dimensions of audience behaviour can be captured and analysed. Because users leave behind measurable traces of their actions, this data can be used as the foundation for new rationalisations and conceptions of the audience. Many of the tools being developed within museums to measure the audience have been influenced by developments in the measurement of media and online audiences. This chapter will trace the development of visitor and audience research in both museums and media and communications to explore some of the parallel developments that have taken place in media and communication studies, and in museums and museum studies, around the audience.
