Factors Determining Whether an Art Museum Will Offer Virtual Content: An Empirical Study in South Korea

This study examines the academic definition of virtual museums and the factors determining whether South Korean art museums will offer virtual content. First, this paper collects definitions of virtual museums from previous studies and identifies the key attributes to then suggest a comprehensive definition. The final definition arrived upon is as follows: A museum built within a digital space with a collection of digitized objects, such as images, audio files, text-based documents, and using virtual reality to supplement, augment, and enrich the museum experience. Next, this study assesses the current digitalization level of South Korea’s registered art museums and examines which museum attributes determine whether there is virtual content offered by the art museum. The research findings show that the number of museums with virtual content are quite limited. Additionally, the presence of collection information, the size of the collection, and the exhibition space’s size all affect the presence of virtual content significantly. Considering these outcomes, this study suggests possible practical and policy measures to enhance the experience of immersive cultural heritage.