GAMIFICATION, MULTIMODALITY, AND AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT IN BRITISH MUSEUMS’ INSTAGRAM CONTENT

Julia E. Biliuk

Email:  JuliaBiliuk@gmail.com

ORCID ID: 0009-0000-0242-0250

PhD Student,

Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/StudLing2025.27.9-20

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ABSTRACT

British museums increasingly employ Instagram as a space where gamification intersects with multimodality, producing new discursive forms of audience engagement. The study analyses posts and Stories published between 2022 and 2025 by the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, and the National Gallery, focusing on the interplay of text, image, and interactive tools such as polls, quizzes, emoji-centred puzzles, and gamified video clips. The analysis shows that Instagram content functions as a discursive environment in which entertainment, education, and institutional aims are integrated. Story sequences and micro-tours create digital narratives that guide users through thematic content, while emoji puzzles and interactive videos present collections through participatory engagement. The audience is positioned as a co-participant, whose responses become part of the communicative process and contribute to the ongoing construction of meaning. These strategies maintain attention, generate affective involvement, and encourage knowledge exchange, linking online activity with the physical museum visit and reinforcing the institution’s long-term presence. Humour and irony are used as rhetorical strategies that adapt museum communication to everyday social media interaction. Gamification emerges as a discursive mechanism that reshapes museum communication into participatory interaction, integrating play and co-creation in the visitor’s digital experience. A cross-platform comparison of gamified formats across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and other media, together with analysis of inclusivity and accessibility, emerges as a further dimension of understanding how audiences engage with museums in digital space.

Keywords: gamification, multimodality, museum, Instagram, digital discourse, Instagram Stories, media

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Illustrative material:

  1. The British Museum Instagram profile (2025). https://www.instagram.com/britishmuseum
  2. The National Gallery Instagram profile (2025). https://www.instagram.com/nationalgallery
  3. The Natural History Museum Instagram profile (2025). https://www.instagram.com/natural_history_museum