This thesis will explore the concept of cultural citizenship by researching visitor’s responses to five exhibitions across two museums in the Lower Hutt region of New Zealand. The thesis will also examine museum management and staff’s perspectives on these exhibits, and compare these to visitor’s. The aim of the thesis is to understand how museum visitors reflect upon and use museum exhibits as tools in relation to their cultural heritage and cultural citizenship. This approach provides a focus for reflection regarding the cultural importance of museum exhibitions. Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model will serve as an overall framework for the study, and the theoretical concepts of memory, rhetoric, meaning making and cultural citizenship will further inform the analysis. The results indicate that museum visitors reflect upon exhibits as tools for reminding, and also indicate that exhibits are seen important for learning and representation. Furthermore, the study finds that visitors do not find exhibits particularly challenging or personal. Museum staff provide other perspectives on the importance of museum exhibits, such as their art historical, representational and community-museum relationship building potential, but the study finds that these themes are seldom explicitly recognised by visitors. The concluding discussion reflects on these results, and suggests avenues for future research.

Parks and protected areas are often created to protect important social, ecological, or cultural resources from impairment. In the United States, a large majority of these parks and protected areas are also public land where recreational activities such as hiking or scenic driving are allowed. Managers of many parks and protected areas must therefore try to protect resources while also allowing for recreation use that may put these resources at risk for damage. The field of recreation ecology is interested in understanding how recreation use in parks and protected areas can sometimes cause ecological impacts to vegetation, soil, wildlife, water, air, and soundscapes. This information is then used to help managers prevent undesirable ecological change. When visitors to parks and protected areas leave designated sites such as trails or roads, there is a greater chance that ecological impacts will occur. The studies presented here are designed to help managers better understand how visitor behavior off of designated trails may result in damage to plant communities. These studies examine data on both the social aspects of recreation use (such as visitor behavior and the number of visitors recreating) and the ecological aspects (specifically the plant communities found at popular recreation destinations). By looking at social and ecological data together, these studies can predict locations in parks or protected areas where ecological impact may occur as a result of recreation use. Managers can use these predictions to better allocate resources and time to managing recreation use at locations that are most at risk of impairment.

Questionnaires which assessed attitudes toward wilderness policies and behavioral norms were distributed to individuals at the Irish Wilderness, in the surrounding communities, and to conservation groups. Questions were designed to describe general wilderness policies and also those policies specific to the Irish Wilderness. The Irish Wilderness, located in southeastern Missouri, was designated as a national wilderness area in 1984. Prior to this 1986 study, no previous studies had been conducted in the area to describe visitor characteristics and attitudes toward wilderness management policies. A comparison was also made between the attitudes of the Irish Wilderness visitor and of Pacific Northwest wilderness visitors (Hendee et al., 1968). Three hypotheses were tested: (1) differences exist between experienced and nonexperienced individuals in their perception of what constitutes wilderness norms as defined by the 1964 Wilderness Act, (2) differences do not exist between western and midwestern wilderness visitors and their attitudes toward proper wilderness behavior and norms, and (3) individuals with prior Irish Wilderness visits will exhibit a more purist attitude toward administrative goals set for the Irish Wilderness than those individuals with less wilderness experience. The findings of this study show that visitors with the most wilderness experience respond more favorably to statements which reflect the ideals and goals of the 1964 Wilderness Act. This corresponds with information provided in Young's (1982) study which stated that the experienced visitor would exhibit a more purist attitude in regards to wilderness behavior. Also, respondents from the Irish Wilderness study differed from the respondents in the Pacific Northwest study in their attitudes toward acceptable wilderness norms and behaviors. In most cases, Irish Wilderness respondents were more favorable to statements which reflected the goals of the 1964 Wilderness Act, although the amount of time which had elapsed between the two studies (15 years) should be taken into consideration. Previous experience in the Irish Wilderness appeared to play a role in the individual's concurrence and compliance with the administrative policies of the area. This may also coincide with the fact that particular needs of the individual are being met within the wilderness area. Successful management of wilderness areas may be enhanced by recognizing the needs of the individual and seeing that those needs mesh with the area's entire realm of wilderness attributes, of which recreational activities are a small part.

Outdoor recreation participation has increased during the Covid-19 pandemic and the Jämtland mountains have felt the impacts like many other geographical areas. Increased pressure from outdoor recreation risks of decreasing visitor experience and the physical conditions of the recreational landscape. The focused area of this study (the mountain area of the Jämtland triangle) experienced problems already before the Covid-19 pandemic hit due to increasing pressure from visitors as well as from differing interests among stakeholders. The pandemic has especially increased the visitor numbers and pressure from them. This study focused on the viewpoints of the visitors in relation to outdoor recreation impacts and their landscape and land-use perspectives. Moreover, their views on the possible future planning and management of the area, with emphasis on the management practices. Methods used to achieve the objectives were of embedded mixed methods (concurrent nested design): observations, contact cards and semi-structured interviews with the emphasis on qualitative data. Visible impacts in the landscape (crowding, litter, tear, and wear as well as impacts on the fauna) were discovered and that they were also experienced by the visitors to different degrees. In general, their experiences from the contact cards identified higher experiences on tear and wear of the trails as well as crowdedness. This was supported by the interview participants experiences, where each participant experienced erosion (tear and wear) and crowdedness to some degree, and numerous also noticed littering. Noise in both quantitative and qualitative aspect was only experienced to minor degree. The experiences of the visitors differed based on how many times the visitor had been in the area (besides their personal perspectives and values). In general people saw less impacts in the social and physical aspects during their first visit.The eco-strategies framework assisted the analysis of different users and user groups perspectives on the landscape, the land-use of the landscape and conflicts between different types of users (passive use “admire and enjoy the landscape” to the other end of spectrum “factory” of activities). Moreover, carrying capacity was used as a support of the analysis in combining the visitor experience, physical landscape, and the social limits. Besides viewing the public right of access as necessity, stronger restrictions and management practices were viewed as beneficial if these would help the nature recover from the outdoor recreation impacts. Inclusion of visitors and as many stakeholders as possible in the planning process was seen as beneficial. At the end, the results are reflected on in regard to future necessities planned by Länsstyrelsen Jämtlands län (2018). / <p>2022-01-22</p>

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Masters of Art / The rapid increase in urbanisation and tourism in the Cape Peninsula has increased the rate of human-wildlife interaction. The Cape Peninsula is unique in terms of placing urban areas next to protected natural areas with no physical barriers, thus allowing animals, especially baboons, to travel between the two areas, occasionally leading to conflict between humans and wildlife. Visitors to popular tourist sites may also actively participate in feeding baboons or through negligence by leaving food items in the open. As a result, changing the habits of the baboons as human food and food waste are seen as the preferred option in terms of dietary habits. The main aim of this study was to investigate the perceptions and social construction of visitors in the Cape Peninsula towards baboons at tourist sites. Social constructionist theory was used as the theoretical framework for the study, which looks at the way people perceive nature and wildlife, which is unique to each person. The study uses an exploratory sequential mixed methods design, with a qualitative section that includes three semi-structured interviews, followed by a quantitative section consisting of a questionnaire survey, with 201 questionnaires being completed. The survey was conducted at key tourist sites around the Cape Peninsula that are well known for baboon sightings, including Bordjiesrif Picnic Site, Buffels Bay viewpoint, Cape of Good Hope/Cape Point and Dias Beach. The study used discourse analyses and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to analyse the data, which allowed for ideas to be labelled and linked to opinions in the literature, and patterns identified during the data collection. Visitors viewed tourism spaces as anthropocentric areas, and thus perceived baboon-visitor interactions through conditional acceptance. Visitor perceptions and social construction of baboon-visitor interactions may be positive when conditional acceptance is adhered to, and negative when conditional acceptance is broken. Recommendations for further research includes more research on non-consumptive tourism activities and its impact on human-wildlife interactions, with a need for more literature on the influence of education on people’s attitudes towards wildlife, and finally, more research that focuses on the changing behavioural ecology of baboons, due to an increase in tourism/visitation.

The environmental and economic implications of the increase in Information and Communication Technology energy consumption have become a topic of research in energy efficiency. Most studies focus on the energy estimation and optimization of lower tiers of the hardware and software infrastructures. However, the software itself is an indirect driver of energy consumption, therefore, its energy implications can be to some extent controlled by the software design. Software design patterns belong to high-level software abstractions that represent solutions to common design problems. Since patterns define the structure and behavior of software components, their application may come at energy efficiency costs that are not obvious to the software developers. The existing body of knowledge on energy consumption of software design patterns contains a number of gaps, some of which are addressed within the scope of this thesis project. More specifically, we conducted a series of experiments on the estimation of energy consumption of Visitor and Observer/Listener patterns within the context of non-trivial data parsing in Python. Furthermore, we considered a Patternless alternative for the same task. Additionally, our measurements include runtime duration and memory consumption. The results show that the Visitor pattern led to the largest energy consumption, followed by Observer/Listener and finally the Patternless version. We found a strong relationship between runtime duration and energy consumption, thus coming to the conclusion that the longest-running pattern is the most energy-consuming one. The findings of the current study can be beneficial for Python software developers interested in the energy implications of software design patterns.

Outdoor recreation is an ongoing global trend that has been boosted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This trend has contributed to an increase in visitor numbers in protected areas in Sweden. This qualitative interview study aims at exploring how the increasing outdoor recreation trend can proceed alongside nature conservation. Semi structured interviews were conducted with eight visitor centre supervisors and six park managers in eight protected areas in Sweden. The results suggest that most protected areas have seen an increase in visitor numbers. The negative effects of an increase in visitor numbers experienced by the informants include trampling, effects on wildlife and littering. Preventive visitor management strategies are used by visitor centre supervisors and park managers to mitigate negative effects in protected areas. These include providing information about rules and regulation, physical presence, collaboration, physical measures and dispersal of visitors. Apart from these strategies, the result show that future action to mitigate the negative effects of high visitor numbers can include creating visitor engagement, performing studies on trampling effects and wildlife disturbance as well as bans and limitations. However, further research is needed to determine the effects and accuracy of these strategies.

Museums play a vital role in society as institutions that bear the cultural and historical heritage of the public. In the last decade, visitors' digital habits have steadily been increasing as well as the digital technologies available for museums to use in their exhibitions. Some museums have the desire to accommodate the changes in the visitors' behaviours and embrace new technologies, but they often do not know how to do this sustainably. Previous research indicates that there is a need for guidelines and standards in building digital strategies for museums, this research investigates this issue within Swedish art museums. The purpose of this study is to give a background on digital technology strategies employed by art museums in Sweden. Exploring how the relationship between current strategies and previous research on visitor experience, could benefit the management of art museums and their visitors. A qualitative study with semi-structured interviews was carried out with seven art museums across Sweden about their use of digital technologies and their strategies. The data was then thematically analysed, resulting in five common themes: (1) Prolonged digital development, (2) Digital technology should be purposefully and logically used, (3) Adapting to digital habits as an institution for public access, (4) Museums have limited knowledge of the potential benefits of digital technologies and (5) Museums are trying to meet the visitors' needs and expectations. The research findings show that museums are struggling with the adoption of digital technologies, despite wanting to meet the expectations of visitors, having budget issues, lack of in-house expertise and having difficulties with the complexity of technology. The  data also suggests that Swedish museums need guidance for developing their digital strategies, though the extent of that differs from museum to museum. Museums need to be informed of the possibilities of digital technologies in enhancing visitor experience. Moreover, how digital technology can be used in their specific organisation. Further research can build upon the findings of this study to create guidelines for museums and explore how the research questions can be applied to other countries.

This thesis is a study of how communication takes place in museum exhibitions. The curatorial teams send themessages and the visitors are the receivers. The author uses the British Museum’s free admission special exhibition, Sir Stamford Raffles: collecting in Southeast Asia 1811-1824, as the case study. The study is done through visitor surveys and interviews with British Museum staff and its visitors. The author has also studied museological literatureand theories to strengthen and have a closer understanding of the topics and themes brought up in the study. The study and discussion on politics and identities in cultural heritage have been addressed in previous studies and so has researches on visitors’ behaviours when visiting museums and/or galleries. With the review on previous studies and the survey and interview research model, this study examines the communication flow in museum exhibitions. In interviews with the curator and the head of interpretation of the exhibition, challenges and thoughts about the process of designing the exhibition are presented. With the comparison with the results from the visitor survey, the author can then compares the results from both parties and echo with the research question of the thesis, on how communication takes place in museum exhibitions; between senders and receivers. This research is not meant to be a decider that makes a statement that all exhibitions fit this framework, but rather be considered as a model that future designers can take into consideration when planning for an exhibition. This is a two-year master’s thesis in cultural heritage and sustainability.