Postmodern Museum Visitor Experience as a Leisure Activity:
The Case of Yilmaz Buyukersen Wax Museum
INTRODUCTION
The term “postmodernism” started life mainly as an academic category and was used by
artists, writers and critics in the 1960s. Notwithstanding the objections of modernists, it gained
wider usage rapidly and soon became a catchall term which explains changes in contemporary
society and culture (Ward, 2010; Featherstone, 1991). In the studies that handle the
development of museums, 20th century has implied the period in which postmodernism
gradually evolved. Indeed, in many respects museums have represented postmodern
conditions proposed by Fırat and Vankatesh (1993). These are; hyper reality, fragmentation,
reversal of consumption and production, decentering of the subject and paradoxical
juxtaposition. In a way, it is seen that functions of the museums have increasingly diversified
and gained a post-modern nature.
Museums can be classified in various ways (Duncan and Wallach, 2004: 54). A postmodern
museum may be any museum classified according to collection (history museums, art
museums etc.). Besides, any museum can be assessed as a postmodern museum regardless
of the units they belong to (university museums, military museums etc.), the region they serve
(national, regional and local museums), the audiences they appeal to (science museums,
specialized museums etc.) or the methods of exhibiting their collections (open air museums,
memorial museums etc.) (Madran, 1999). In other words, emphasized issue is whether the
museum contains the postmodern conditions or not. Hence, the type of museum isn’t a
meaningful determinative of being a postmodern museum.
Brown (1995) has argued that postmodern museums would be characterized by replacement
with an anti-elitist emphasis on participation, involvement, sound and lighting effects,
performance and the creation of spectacular multimedia experiences. Visitors of postmodern
museums, where consumption, game and entertainment coexist (Featherstone, 1991: 101),
are thought to be different from other museum visitors (Bruce, 2006: 135). This assumption
stems basically from transformation from consumer to postmodern consumer. Moreover,
postmodern consumer behavior is cited as multiple behavior (Odabaşı, 2014: 121). Their
patterns of consumption are extremely adaptable and easily changeable (Brown, 1995: 138).
Therefore, motivations and behaviors of postmodern museum visitors or what issues they heed
in their visits acquire a differ character.
This study is carried out on the visitors of Yilmaz Buyukersen Wax Museum, which is accepted
as a postmodern museum, built in 2013, in Eskişehir. Aim of the study is to answer the following
questions:
 Do Yilmaz Buyukersen Wax Museum’s visitors constitute a homogeneous group or not in
the context of their motivations?
 What is the profile of visitor clusters that generated based on motives in the context of
demographic and travel behavior variables?
 To what extent do the motives of emerging types of visitors and the motives effective in
postmodern museum visitors’ experiences overlap?
This study, in addition to investigating the evolution occuring in the museums after
postmodernism, is noteworthy in terms of providing information about postmodern museum
visitor profile. In other words, this study is unique because it will bring together the postmodern
museum experience and the postmodern museum visitor profile issues. Yilmaz Buyukersen
Wax Museum has not been the subject of any research as a postmodern museum. In addition,
a study hasn’t been made to determine the visitor profile of this museum. It is thought that
findings of this research won’t give a hint only for Yilmaz Buyukersen Wax Museum but also
for museums which have a similar (in terms of postmodern conditions) nature.
METHODOLOGY
In this study, profile of postmodern museum visitors is tried to be identified with a descriptive
research design. The study, which aims to make generalizations about postmodern museum
visitors, predict the behavior of visitors in advance, and explain the causality of behaviors,
deals with the subject with a quantitative perspective. The main goal is to examine the profile
of postmodern museum visitors in the context of Yilmaz Buyukersen Wax Museum visitors.
The literature lacks such studies that examine visitors of Yilmaz Buyukersen Wax Museum in
this scope. Moreover, there is not an academic study which refers to this museum in the
literature.
Questionnaire will be used as data collection technique and items in the questionnaire are
assumed to be adequate to support data collection process within the aims of this study. In
questionnaire development stage, previous studies in the literature, which examined the
profiles of museum visitors, have been referred. These studies can be listed as; Özgören
(2007), Gürel (2013), Uysal (2005) and Hsieh (2010). Convenience sampling technique will be
benefited for the selection of postmodern museum visitors to be taken in the context of
research. Although the rate at which the sample represents the population is not clearly known,
it is assumed that the selected sample will allow some inferences to be made about the current
situation (Kozak, 2014: 118).
In March and April of 2015, researchers plan to collect data from approximately 400 museum
visitors with a convenience sampling technique and by the help of questionnaire developed.
Appropriate statistical software programs will be used for the analysis of data collected. More
specifically, exploratory factor analysis will be conducted to identify motivation factors of
museum visitors. Consequently, these motivation factors will be used to run cluster analysis,
which will shed light on how museum visitors can be segmented based on their basic
motivations. In the last step of data analysis, profiles of museum visitors’ clusters will be
examined based on the demographic and travel behavior data.
A pilot study was conducted in order to determine the face validity of the questionnaire
developed and Yilmaz Buyukersen Wax Museum’s visitors were reached by researchers after
their visits during two days in December of 2014. A total of 45 visitors were reached for this
pilot study. The results obtained from the pilot study showed that questions were easily
comprehended. For that reason, researchers decided not to go to a structural change, except
a few minor changes in the questionnaire.
CONCLUSION (Preliminary Results)
As mentioned before, there are many studies that have tried to determine the profile of
museum visitors. But the main purpose of this research is to explain the profile of postmodern
museum visitors in the context of Yilmaz Buyukersen Wax Museum. Preliminary results of the
pilot study found that Yilmaz Buyukersen Wax Museum visitors were not conscious that the
museum has a postmodern character, but they still acted with postmodern consumers’
motivation to a certain degree. Motivations of visitors were found considerably related to the
facilities that they care about in the museum and the level of importance they attach to those
facilities during their visits. According to the findings of pilot study, visitors, who came to
experience entertaining activities provided by postmodern museums, paid particular emphasis
on the exhibition of tangible and intangible objects together. Besides, those visitors found it
important that the way of exhibiting in the museum allowed them to self-participate. In that
sense, paradoxical juxtaposition, which is one of the conditions of postmodernism (Fırat ve
Vankatesh, 1993), and active participation demand of postmodern consumer as stated by Urry
(2009) can be inferred from these preliminary findings. Likewise, visitors, who visited museums
for making social interaction with new people or sharing the same atmosphere with people who
like doing the same things as them, demanded an entertainment unit in the museums. As
discussed earlier, entertainment is an important component for postmodern museums
(Featherstone, 1999). That is why this finding is remarkable in terms of deeply understanding
the profile of postmodern museum visitors.
Results of this pilot study verified that postmodern visitors’ travel behavior is significantly
related to their motivation to visit museums. Accordingly, visitors, who did shopping from
museums’ stores, were actually the ones motivated by getting rid of stress. This situation may
represent the result of consumer culture which is put forward by postmodernism. As can be
seen, even though there wasn’t enough information to obtain an adequate profile of
postmodern museum visitors, significant relationships were detected as a result of this pilot
study, and it was inferred that these relationships overlapped with the postmodern museum
experience. As a result, it can be said that postmodern museums exist in Eskisehir, however
visitors aren’t aware of their postmodern nature. Such a result can be interpreted that
postmodernism is on the intellectual level, but very superficial and has limited effects on
museum visitors yet.
DISCUSSION
As shown in the conclusion section, findings of this pilot study reveal many questions that can
be queried for further comprehensive research. Based on the preliminary results of pilot study,
it can be said that management of Yilmaz Buyukersen Wax Museum should give priority to
marketing efforts and highlight museum’s postmodern identity. A museum guide can be formed
in collaboration with the local governments. This pilot study contains certain limitations such
as the choice of a single museum as a postmodern museum, collection of data from a small
sample size, and finally collection of data during two specified days in a month except weekend
days. These limitations are expected to be exceeded by the comprehensive quantitative
research design which will be put into action in the following months.
Based on the limitations of this study, conducting research on visitors of multiple postmodern
museums may be useful for future studies. Moreover, future studies may concentrate on
comparing visitor profiles of these postmodern museums with each other. In addition, research
designs which focus on understanding visitors’ motivation and behavior, visitors’ expectations
and satisfaction should be planned. General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums
can create a platform on its official website where visitors can share experiences about their
visits to postmodern museums. In other words, a more holistic perspective should be
displayed.
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