How social media have changed the world of art and culture The case of La Fenice Opera House and Venice

Abstract

The idea for this thesis came about after having carried out two internships as an assistant social media manager in museum institutions during my university career. In the first case I was in charge of managing the social pages of the National Museum of Villa Pisani in Stra, a small town a few kilometres from Venice. In this case, the social pages had just been launched. In the second case, I worked alongside the social media manager of the La Fenice Opera House, Dr. Pietro Tessarin, managing their Instagram page independently and opening the TikTok page for them, thus making La Fenice the first opera house in Italy to have its own page on that specific platform. My study therefore focuses on the second case, given the long period of internship and the specific analysis of the insights data. The thesis, however, wants to start with an analysis of the world of social media, how they were born and how they have changed the way we communicate and the way we communicate culture. Then I will explain how La Fenice is not only an opera house, but also a museum open to visitors and its contacts with the rest of the institutions of the city of Venice and therefore how it creates a network in the city and beyond. Finally, I will explain how the communication is diversified in each platform according to the message that you want to convey and I will explain in the last chapter the data that have been produced by the posts in the last year.