Social media platforms act as points of convergence for museums facing the pressure to adopt more sweeping participatory techniques. They are potentially powerful instruments in the “democratisation” process; yet the possibilities they offer in terms of spreading mass information do not automatically secure a higher level of online participation. This study uses the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) model to explore the different stimuli that museums with complex codes of access use to “democratise” themselves through the agency (organism) of social media, together with evaluating the effectiveness of their work on the basis of online public response. Empirically, the analysis was carried out in nine Italian State Archaeological Museums, as exemplars of museums with complex codes of access, with an investigation into the content of their Facebook posts and the interaction that these posts generated over more than a year. The results show, firstly, the diversity among the stimulus categories ranging from messages used to communicate and promote a museum's agenda to posts that dwell on its collection. In terms of online response, information about the museum's agenda is shown to be not sufficiently appealing to engage users online, while messages about the museum's core feature (its collections) are rewarded by its followers. These findings indicate that social media do not challenge the museums’ curatorship authority and can be an instrument for the museums’ dual mission to entertain and educate.

对于面临采用更广泛参与技术的压力的博物馆来说，社交媒体平台充当了融合点。它们是“民主化”过程中潜在的强大工具；然而，它们在传播大量信息方面提供的可能性并不能自动确保更高水平的在线参与。本研究采用刺激-生物-反应(SOR) 模型探索具有复杂访问代码的博物馆通过社交媒体的代理（组织）“民主化”自己的不同刺激，并根据在线公众反应评估其工作的有效性。根据经验，该分析是在九个意大利国家考古博物馆中进行的，这些博物馆作为具有复杂访问代码的博物馆的典范，并对其 Facebook 帖子的内容以及这些帖子一年多以来产生的互动进行了调查。结果首先表明，刺激类别之间存在多样性，从用于交流和宣传博物馆议程的信息到专注于其藏品的帖子。在网上回应方面，有关博物馆的信息“ 事实证明，博物馆的议程不足以吸引在线用户，而有关博物馆核心特色（其藏品）的信息则受到关注者的奖励。这些调查结果表明，社交媒体不会挑战博物馆的策展权，并且可以成为博物馆娱乐和教育双重使命的工具。