Global Museum Networks and Cultural Communication: Exploring Instagram as a Digital Bridge

Culture encompasses all meanings created by humanity, while cultural communication refers to the process of creating shared meanings. Museums, as carriers of cultural heritage, play a crucial role in sustaining this communication. In today's digital era, the synergy emerging from interactions among museums holds great significance. This study investigates the global museum network using Social Network Analysis (SNA) to examine centrality, community structures, and roles, complemented by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for deeper structural insight. Conducted in R, the analysis revealed that the National Gallery of Victoria leads in betweenness centrality, while the Musée du Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art dominate in closeness, degree and eigenvector centrality. The results show a Western-centric network, with museums in Paris, New York, and London occupying central positions. The findings emphasize the importance of fostering a more balanced and inclusive structure for global cultural communication.