The Audience Engagement for the TV Show of the Palace Museum : Case Study for the Social Media, Weibo account of the TV Show, There is Something New in the Palace Museum

Abstract: This study aims to analyze the audience engagement in a Chinese social media, Weibo, of the Palace Museum TV show “There is Something New in the Palace Museum”. It is new for a Chinese museum to cooperate with traditional media and digital media at the same time to generate more interest, particularly of younger generations. Weibo content is mainly about the TV show and the Palace Museum. While focusing on different types of content that create more interactions, quantitative and qualitative methods of data and content analysis of Weibo posts and in-depth interviews are used to find out the answers to the research questions. The theories of participatory culture by Jenkins and the book about edutainment “Entertainment-education and social change: History, research, and practice” are considered in this study. Based on the theory, the research demonstrates the celebrity-related content is the one that generates the most engagement with fans and followers, followed by direct interaction-trigger content and the Palace museum promotional content. Each type of posts has pros and cons; for example, the celebrity effect can produce the role model effect on the followers and generate more engagement within the fan community, but also create meaningless content. As for the direct trigger content, it can attract many zombie accounts to participate in expecting a positive result. To sum up, Weibo still connects the Palace Museum and the young generation and helps to attract more visitors in the future. These findings offer new insights for the cultural institution to make their work affect the younger generation in the digital media era.