Digital Resilience and Communication Strategies in Underfunded Museums in Argentina and Spain (2020–2024)

Abstract

Between 2020 and 2024, museums underwent accelerated digital transformation driven by the global health crisis and technological advances, exposing deep inequalities in access to technology and communication capabilities. Museums with limited resources had to rethink their digital strategies to sustain audience engagement and cultural relevance. This article presents a comparative study of museums in Argentina and Spain with restricted budgets, analyzing how they responded to challenges of uncertainty and scarcity. Using a mixed methodology—surveys of 22 professionals, interviews with directors of four representative museums, and qualitative case studies—this study examines the implemented solutions and their impacts. The findings highlight innovative practices grounded in creativity, strategic alliances, and intensive use of social media. Argentine museums excelled in tactical adaptation amid economic instability, while Spanish institutions showed stronger strategic planning. Private museums proved more flexible than their public counterparts, which faced greater bureaucratic constraints. This work contributes to debates on institutional resilience and offers a framework for sustainable digital communication in resource-limited contexts.

1. Introduction

The global health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic marked a turning point for the international museum sector, accelerating digital transformation processes that, until then, had developed gradually and unevenly [1]. The forced closure of over 95% of museums in 2020, as reported by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) [2], prompted these institutions to radically reconfigure their communication and public engagement strategies. This situation revealed both structural vulnerabilities and the adaptive potential of the cultural sector, particularly in institutions with limited economic, technological, and human resources.

In this context, digital communication evolved from a secondary function to a central strategic component of institutional sustainability [3,4,5]. Social media, in particular, emerged as a low-cost, high-impact tool for audience segmentation, cultural participation assessment, and content dissemination [6]. For underfunded museums, this shift represented both an opportunity and a challenge, requiring strategic creativity, inter-institutional alliances, and ongoing training efforts [7].

1.1. Motivation

The unequal conditions in which digital transformation unfolded during the COVID-19 pandemic underscored the importance of investigating institutional responses under resource-constrained circumstances. Latin America, for instance, faced an exacerbation of pre-existing inequalities in infrastructure, funding, and technical capabilities. According to [8], over 60% of Latin American museums lacked technical staff trained to generate digital content at the onset of the crisis, increasing their reliance on informal networks. Nonetheless, as the author in [9] notes, conditions of scarcity can also foster peripheral innovation, sparking creative processes that prove symbolically and technologically effective—even beyond dominant cultural centers.

In this light, analyzing how museums with limited resources navigated digital adaptation offers critical insights into institutional resilience, innovation, and the redefinition of public cultural service in times of uncertainty.

1.2. Background

The concept of deep mediatization from [10] proves especially relevant in this scenario, as it refers to the integration of digital environments into the fabric of social life. In museums, this manifests in the growing use of algorithms, AI, and data systems to facilitate interaction with audiences and enhance the circulation of cultural content [11]. For instance, the authors in [12] demonstrated that convolutional neural networks can significantly increase social media content sharing, highlighting AI’s potential to amplify cultural reach.

The authors in [13] conducted a systematic review, identifying five key digital technologies that have transformed museums: artificial intelligence, immersive technologies, additive manufacturing, the Internet of Things, and cloud computing. Although ICOM data indicate only a 5.6% increase in digital activities in 2021 [2], multiple studies have interpreted this figure as a signal of deeper systemic change in how museums manage communication, heritage, and their public mission.

However, digital transformation has unfolded unevenly. The differences between institutions—especially those defined by geography, funding models, and governance structures—have shaped varied responses and degrees of resilience. While some museums have capitalized on digital tools to expand their audiences, others have struggled to maintain relevance, highlighting the need for comparative, context-sensitive analyses.

Recent comparative work confirms that the pandemic functioned as a catalyst rather than a mere disruption. The authors in [14] analyzed the digital pivoting of twelve heritage museums in Ouro Preto (Brazil) and documented how scattered trials became institution-wide programs in less than six months. A regional report by the Inter-American Development Bank [15] echoed this acceleration across Latin America, but stressed the persistence of a “two-speed” sector, in which small or provincial museums trail behind large flagships by up to five years in skills and infrastructure. In the United States, the 2022 TrendsWatch study [16] lists digital inclusion as a top strategic priority and calls on museums to serve as “community digital hubs” for neighborhood connectivity.

During 2020–2024, European and transatlantic studies documented how museums reconfigured digital communication and programming. In particular, the authors in [17] reported sustained social media engagement among art and heritage institutions and the institutionalization of pandemic-born formats. Moreover, the authors in [18] highlighted approval workflows and staffing as key determinants of posting cadence and format retention. In addition, NEMO’s pan-European survey [19] observed that temporary surges in output often receded in institutions with limited discretionary budgets. Finally, the authors in [20] combined a survey and interviews to describe platform portfolios and audience-development strategies in the UK and the US. Collectively, these studies converge on three motifs: (i) the rapid digital acceleration during lockdowns, (ii) partial retention of new formats post-pandemic, and (iii) the decisive role of governance and resources in sustaining routines.

Scholars now distinguish three overlapping waves of post-2020 innovation: emergency digitization (2020–2021), dominated by ad hoc livestreams and 360° tours; platform consolidation (2021–2023), when analytics-driven social media calendars and hybrid events became standard practice in Spain and elsewhere [18]; and an emerging “smart-museum” phase (2023–) marked by IoT sensors, AI chatbots, and data-rich visitor journeys [21].

Within this third wave, immersive technologies are shifting from pilot to profit center [22,23,24]. A multi-site European study in [25] reported significant gains in learning outcomes and emotional engagement when Virtual-Reality/Augmented-Reality (VR/AR) layers are embedded within coherent narrative scaffolds. Popular evidence aligns with this: the Louvre’s VR experience Mona Lisa—Beyond the Glass logged more than 150,000 virtual visits in its first quarter, offsetting ticket-office losses during lockdowns [26].

Artificial-intelligence interfaces are proliferating too. At Versailles, an on-site QR scan now opens a GPT-powered “talking statue” that answers visitor questions in real time [27]. Smaller institutions can follow suit: the municipal museum in Autun, France, deployed the Eve chatbot in 2025; preliminary analytics show session lengths 28% longer than with traditional audio-guides [28].

Beyond engagement, additive manufacturing and 3D imaging support accessibility and conservation. The authors in [29] describe how a Greek regional museum produced tactile PLA (polylactic acid) replicas of fragile artifacts, prompting a 40% rise in repeat school visits. A similar program is being rolled out in Spain’s Castilla–La Mancha to reduce handling of Bronze Age ceramics during traveling shows.

Digital progress is not uniformly positive. A World Bank briefing warned that Latin America has registered the fastest growth in cyber incidents worldwide, yet scores lowest on preparedness [30]. Staffing pressures are equally acute: the UK-wide Digital Impact in Museums & Galleries survey identified “critical burnout risk” among digital teams after prolonged out-of-hours work [31].

Meanwhile, audience expectations keep rising. A MuseumNext sector poll noted that visitors increasingly view free Wi-Fi, real-time way-finding, and bilingual multimedia as baseline services—even in small regional museums—yet many institutions cite lack of in-house expertise as the chief barrier [32]. Such asymmetries reinforce the need for cross-institutional alliances and open-source toolkits, particularly for under-resourced museums in Argentina and comparable contexts.

Taken together, this evolving body of work underscores a paradox: while digital tools can democratize access and resilience, they may also widen existing gaps if support ecosystems are absent. Addressing this paradox requires comparative analyses—such as the present Argentina–Spain study—that integrate technological, organizational, and socio-economic variables.

1.3. Objectives and Contributions

This article advances the field of cultural management and museum studies in crisis contexts by providing one of the first comparative empirical analyses of the digital communication strategies adopted by museums in Argentina and Spain (2020–2024), while positioning the study in relation to recent European and transatlantic works. Using a convergent mixed-methods design—triangulating survey indicators with interview-derived themes and qualitative case materials—this study goes beyond descriptive accounts to derive explanatory insights. Specifically, this work

• Offers a cross-national perspective centered on small/medium, underfunded museums in two contrasting Ibero-American contexts, providing directional comparisons with [17,18,19,20], which differed in their scope.
• Employs explicit quantitative–qualitative triangulation to generate meta-inferences, rather than purely descriptive trends.
• Introduces operational metrics seldom reported in prior European studies— implementation lead time, retention rate of pandemic-originated formats, and organizational constraints (number of required approvals and discretionary budget share)—linking practices to the institutional conditions that enable them.
• Develops an explanatory typology and a policy-oriented framework that integrate organizational culture, available resources, and technological appropriation to strengthen digital resilience in resource-limited cultural institutions.

Finally, the remainder of this article is structured as follows: Section 2 presents the methodology and data collection process. Section 3 outlines the key findings and comparative analysis. Section 4 discusses the implications of the results. Finally, Section 5 provides the conclusions and future research directions.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Study Design and Setting

This study adopts an exploratory–descriptive mixed-methods design that combines quantitative and qualitative techniques to capture both the general patterns and contextual nuances of museum digital communication between 2020 and 2024. A mixed approach is appropriate for phenomena that intertwine structural factors—budgets, regulation, infrastructure—with symbolic and communicative practices, as it exploits the measurement power of quantitative data, while preserving the interpretive depth of qualitative inquiry [33]. Guided by the pragmatic paradigm [34], the design privileges methodological fitness over epistemological orthodoxy, selecting the tools best suited to answering the research question and respecting the ethical demands of working with resource-constrained institutions [35].

The investigation is binational and comparative, focusing on museums in Argentina and Spain that share cultural traditions yet operate in contrasting socio-economic environments. Comparative inquiry helps identify common mechanisms of digital resilience, while exposing contextual contingencies [36]. Following Ragin’s comparative logic [37], the two-country frame enlarges theoretical transferability: insights derived here can inform analogous low-resource museums elsewhere. In sum, the design seeks a balanced view that is broad enough to reveal cross-case regularities and fine-grained enough to honor the lived experience of the individual institutions.

2.2. Participants and Sampling Strategy

The population of this study comprised public and private museums in Argentina and Spain that operated continuously during 2020–2024 and, despite limited budgets, implemented digital communication initiatives as part of their post-COVID adaptation. This work adopted an intentional (non-probabilistic) sampling strategy—widely recommended in qualitative and mixed-methods research when the goal is depth rather than statistical representativeness [35,38]. Following [39], cases were selected for their information-rich character: museums that illustrate how scarce resources can be turned into digital resilience.

Inclusion was restricted to institutions whose annual expenditure remained below 10 million euros (EUR) in Spain, or the equivalent 15 billion Argentine pesos (ARS); maintained an active website or social-media presence; and whose senior staff consented to participate in interviews or surveys. This threshold was established to capture underfunded museums, in line with economic theories that differentiate small and medium-size institutions—characterized by limited budgets and reliance on local funding—from large, flagship museums [40]. Conversely, museums exceeding the budget threshold, lacking meaningful digital activity, or permanently closed after the pandemic were excluded. This maximum-variation logic seeks to explore how a common phenomenon—communicational resilience—plays out across diverse typologies of art, history, science, and archaeology museums and across different governance regimes [41].

The final sample encompassed twenty-two professionals—eleven per country—holding senior roles in communication, direction, or cultural management. Such purposive heterogeneity allows, as the authors in [42] note, for thematic saturation, while ensuring contrasting perspectives. By combining size, geography, and ownership differences, the sample meets Ritchie’s criterion of structural diversity, enhancing the explanatory power of the cross-case comparisons that follow in the analysis [43].

In addition, four focal institutions were selected for deeper illustration (see Figure 1): the Museo de Artes Plásticas Eduardo Sívori (Buenos Aires, public, 70,445 visitors in 2023); the privately run Museo Marítimo de Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego, 150,000 visitors, ARS 40 million budget); the Centre del Carme de Cultura Contemporània (Valencia, public, 400,000 visitors, EUR 8 million); and the Fundación Chirivella Soriano (Valencia, private, >10,000 visitors, project-based funding). These contrasting cases, summarized in

Table 1. Case study institutions overview.

Country	Institution	Type	Annual Visitors (2023)	Estimated Budget	Main Financial Dependence	Key Communication Features
Argentina	Museo de Artes Plásticas Eduardo Sívori	Public	70,445	Variable Governmental	State funding	Adaptability in unstable contexts; intensive use of social media
Argentina	Museo Marítimo de Ushuaia	Private	150,000	ARS 40 million	Own revenues, tourism, donations	Operational flexibility; campaigns linked to tourist seasonality
Spain	Centre del Carme de Cultura Contemporània	Public	400,000	EUR 8 million (2023)	Regional public funding	Professionalized communication; sustained strategic planning
Spain	Fundación Chirivella Soriano	Private	10,000+	Variable, no fixed allocation	Collaborations, agreements, self-financing	Segmented communication; strategic alliances; relational efficiency

, allow the analysis to trace how governance model, scale, and economic context shape digital-resilience strategies.

2.3. Data Collection

Three complementary techniques were deployed to capture a multidimensional view of museum communication: a structured survey, in-depth semi-structured interviews, and a brief “professional pulse” questionnaire applied at a sectoral event. Methodological triangulation of this sort enhances validity by integrating distinct but convergent evidence streams [50,51].

The structured survey was completed by 22 museum professionals from the communication area, 11 professionals were Spanish and 11 Argentinians. It was based on 16 questions: multiple options and other possible answers. The professionals were contacted through different media, to include all types of museums. Some of our contacts and others were contacted through the professional social network LinkedIn. The survey comprised five dimensions: (1) organizational characteristics—typology, size, budget, governance structure; (2) digital-communication practice—platforms, posting frequency, content mix, metrics; (3) resources and limitations—team size, tools, earmarked funds; (4) pandemic impact—emergency measures, persistence of new practices, lessons learned; and (5) results evaluation—success indicators, barriers and future outlook. Content validity was secured through expert judgment following [52], and a pilot with five practitioners refined item clarity.

Cronbach’s $\alpha$ was used to assess the internal consistency of the survey dimensions [53]. This statistic quantifies the degree to which items within a dimension are intercorrelated, thereby indicating whether they measure the same underlying construct. Values above 0.70 are commonly regarded as acceptable in social science research. In this study, all dimensions exceeded 0.85, indicating strong instrument reliability and high internal consistency. Across the five dimensions, Cronbach’s $\alpha$ ranged from 0.85 to 0.91, surpassing the recommended 0.70 threshold [53]. The detailed coefficients are presented in

Table 2. Cronbach’s $\alpha$ coefficients for each survey dimension.

Dimension	Cronbach’s $\mathit{\alpha }$
(1) Organizational characteristics	0.86
(2) Digital communication practice	0.89
(3) Resources and limitations	0.85
(4) Pandemic impact	0.90
(5) Results evaluation	0.91

.

To uncover contextual nuance, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the directors of four museums—two per country, deliberately contrasting in governance and scale (public vs. private; capital-city vs. peripheral). Interview guides balanced comparability with flexibility, enabling unforeseen themes to surface [54]. Sessions averaged ninety minutes, were recorded with informed consent, and transcribed verbatim for subsequent thematic analysis. As the authors in [55] note, such in-depth interviews furnish a “thick description” that surveys alone cannot provide, especially when institutional narratives and tacit knowledge are at stake.

A rapid questionnaire “professional pulse” was applied during the conference event “Hacer mucho con poco: gestión de presupuestos, herramientas tecnológicas y estrategias digitales en museos” developed by the REMED network on 13 March 2024. It was delivered through Google Forms and was presented at the REMED conference through a QR Code. There were 45 answers, the majority of respondents came from Argentina (11 people, 24.4%) and Spain (13, 26.7%), yielding forty-five valid responses that captured real-time priorities in budgeting, platform experimentation, and perceived obstacles. Likert scales ensured comparability with the main survey, enriching triangulation [56,57]. This agile instrument captured real-time priorities and investment intentions among a concentrated group of practitioners, a strategy Bernard [56] and Denscombe [57] recommend when field time is limited yet sectoral temperature is needed. Likert-type scales ensured comparability with the main questionnaire, enabling cross-checks of perceived challenges and planned spending.

Taken together, these three sources create a layered dataset: the survey maps broad tendencies, the interviews illuminate the rationales behind institutional choices, and the pulse questionnaire offers a contemporaneous snapshot of sector mood. Such layering not only mitigates the biases inherent to any single method, but also aligns with the pragmatic, mixed-methods stance of this study, which privileges fitness-for-purpose over methodological purity.

2.4. Data Analysis

Quantitative and qualitative strands were examined in parallel and then merged following a convergent mixed-methods logic [33]. Integration and triangulation were operationalized by contrasting quantitative indicators of digital adoption and practice— platform uptake, posting cadence, retention of pandemic-originated formats, implementation lead time, and budget share—across countries (Argentina vs. Spain) and governance models (public vs. private), alongside a codebook-based thematic analysis of interviews and case materials; a double-coded subset with adjudicated discrepancies refined categories such as approval workflows, resource constraints, institutionalization, and experimentation. Survey responses were exported to IBM SPSS Statistics 28.0, where descriptive indicators (frequencies, means, standard deviations) sketched the overall landscape of the platforms used, staffing ratios, and budget allocation. To explore associations, chi-square tests probed relationships between categorical variables such as governance regime and content frequency, while independent-sample t-tests compared mean engagement metrics across the two national groups. Although the goal was not statistical generalization, these procedures helped to detect non-obvious patterns warranting qualitative scrutiny [57,58].

Interview transcripts and open-ended survey comments were imported into NVivo 12 software and subjected to Braun and Clarke’s six-phase thematic analysis [59]. Initial inductive coding generated 74 nodes; subsequent axial clustering distilled four macro-themes: resource bricolage, platform governance, audience co-creation, and emotional labor. To ensure analytic rigor, two researchers cross-checked 20% of the material, achieving 87% intercoder agreement. Credibility, transferability, and dependability were further supported through technique triangulation and an external audit, in line with [60].

Integration occurred by juxtaposing quantitative tendencies with thematic insights, seeking corroboration or fruitful dissonance [51]. For instance, a statistically weak link between budget size and posting frequency was illuminated by the interview evidence, showing that volunteer-driven micro-museums often automate scheduling. Such cross-talk aligns with recommendations in [61] that mixed designs move beyond mere corroboration toward dialogic explanation, enriching our understanding of how digital resilience emerges under budgetary constraints.

2.5. Ethical Considerations

All procedures were cleared by the host university’s ethics committee [62] and comply with the Declaration of Helsinki, as well as international guidelines for research with human participants [63,64]. Before data collection, every participant received a plain-language statement detailing the aims, methods, potential risks, and expected benefits; informed consent was obtained in written or digital form. Interviews and surveys were voluntary, and respondents could withdraw at any stage without penalty. Identifying information was removed at transcription, and pseudonyms are used in quoted excerpts. Digital files were encrypted (AES-256) and stored on a secure institutional server accessible only to the research team. These practices reflect Flick’s call for an “ethics beyond regulation” [50] and Silverman’s emphasis on ongoing reflexivity in qualitative inquiry [65], ensuring that ethical safeguards are embedded throughout the research lifecycle, rather than treated as a bureaucratic add-on.

2.6. Methodological Limitations

Several constraints temper the transferability of the findings of this work. First, the reliance on purposive sampling inevitably introduced selection bias, as cases were chosen for their information richness rather than statistical representativeness—a trade-off inherent to exploratory mixed designs [35]. Second, both survey and interview data may suffer from response bias, with respondents tending toward socially desirable assessments of institutional performance. Third, this study’s 2020–2024 window captured only the early to mid-term arc of post-pandemic transformation, leaving long-run sustainability unanswered. Fourth, macro-economic and regulatory disparities between Argentina and Spain complicate direct cross-national comparisons. Finally, partial or restricted access to internal documents in some museums limited triangulation. Although methodological triangulation and researcher cross-checking mitigated these issues, they could not be entirely eliminated and should be borne in mind when interpreting the results [66].

3. Results

3.1. Sample Profile

The survey in Section 2.3 engaged twenty-two museum professionals—eleven from Argentina and eleven from Spain—whose roles spanned senior management (55%) and specialist communication posts (45%). Public museums predominated (59%), especially art-focused institutions (41%), while science, history, and multidisciplinary sites supplied the remaining diversity. Most teams were small: three-quarters of respondents reported working with one to three dedicated staff, underscoring the human-resource constraints that frame the subsequent findings. Full demographic and organizational details are summarized in

Table 3. Demographic and organizational characteristics of the sample.

Variable	Argentina (n = 11)	Spain (n = 11)	Total (n = 22)
Institution Type
Public	7 (63.6%)	6 (54.5%)	13 (59.1%)
Private	4 (36.4%)	5 (45.5%)	9 (40.9%)
Museum Typology
Art	4 (36.4%)	5 (45.5%)	9 (40.9%)
History	3 (27.3%)	3 (27.3%)	6 (27.3%)
Science	2 (18.2%)	2 (18.2%)	4 (18.2%)
Multidisciplinary	2 (18.2%)	1 (9.1%)	3 (13.6%)
Team Size
1–3 people	8 (72.7%)	9 (81.8%)	17 (77.3%)
4–6 people	2 (18.2%)	2 (18.2%)	4 (18.2%)
7+ people	1 (9.1%)	0 (0%)	1 (4.5%)

.

3.2. Digital Strategy Landscape

Across the two countries, social media is now a near-universal communication channel. Every museum in the sample maintains an Instagram account, 96% use Facebook, and 68% operate a YouTube channel; Twitter/X, TikTok and LinkedIn appear in roughly half of the institutions, with no statistically significant cross-national gaps (

Table 4. Adoption of digital platforms by country.

Platform	Argentina	Spain	Total	${\mathit{\chi }}^2$	p-Value
Instagram	11 (100%)	11 (100%)	22 (100%)	-	-
Facebook	10 (90.9%)	11 (100%)	21 (95.5%)	1.05	0.305
YouTube	7 (63.6%)	8 (72.7%)	15 (68.2%)	0.20	0.655
Twitter/X	6 (54.5%)	7 (63.6%)	13 (59.1%)	0.19	0.664
TikTok	3 (27.3%)	5 (45.5%)	8 (36.4%)	0.75	0.386
LinkedIn	4 (36.4%)	6 (54.5%)	10 (45.5%)	0.72	0.396

). Platform choice, then, is broadly homogeneous, but usage intensity diverges: Spanish museums publish daily in almost three quarters of cases, whereas fewer than half of their Argentine counterparts sustain that rhythm (${\chi }^2=1.65,p=0.199$). Argentine sites compensate through greater format experimentation—live improvisations, user-generated challenges—reflecting the “make-do” digital culture noted in interviews.

Content analysis confirmed five recurrent formats. Educational explainers dominate (86%); followed by behind-the-scenes glimpses (77%) that humanize curatorial work; virtual events—tours, talks, and workshops—account for two thirds of posts; interactive polls and mini-games appear in 59%; while collaborative pieces with peer institutions or influencers round out the mix (55%). Spanish museums emphasize cadence and brand consistency, exemplified by the Centre del Carme’s CCCC Stories strand, which releases age-segmented narratives for teens, families, and art professionals every weekday. Argentine peers, constrained by smaller teams, lean on episodic high-impact campaigns such as improvised livestreams during exhibition openings.

Despite limited budgets, museums deploy sophisticated engagement tactics. Almost two thirds practice audience micro-segmentation, tailoring messages to demographic niches and time-zone patterns. Half leverage strategic partnerships—content swaps, influencer takeovers, joint hashtags—to extend their reach without financial outlay. Four in ten integrate gamified elements: QR-based treasure hunts, quiz-powered Instagram reels, or smartphone AR overlays. These tactics boost interaction rates well above sector benchmarks: average Instagram engagement sits at 4.7%, Facebook at 2.3%.

Organic reach grew by 145% between 2020 and 2023, and exit-survey data show that 23.4% of on-site visitors first learned about the museum through its digital channels, underscoring the tangible spillover from online engagement to physical attendance.

Taken together, the landscape depicts digitally ambitious institutions that converge on the same toolset but diverge in operating style—Spain favoring sustained, professionalized routines, Argentina favoring agile, opportunistic bursts of creativity. The following sections unpack how those styles evolved during and after the pandemic shock.

3.3. Pandemic-Driven Change

The first pandemic semester (March–September 2020) triggered an abrupt digital pivot: 96% of the museums launched at least one new online initiative, and more than three quarters tripled their posting frequency. Virtualization was the dominant response: eight in ten institutions produced 360° tours or immersive walkthroughs to compensate for closed galleries. The Museo Marítimo de Ushuaia exemplified this shift by filming a ship’s-hold tour in a single take and releasing it on YouTube, where views spiked by 150% week-on-week. Social-media feeds grew denser and more polished as curators turned into on-camera hosts, and investment in higher-quality photography or captioned video became routine. Parallel to exhibition content, 68% of museums rolled out fully digital learning programs—live-streamed workshops, family craft sessions, scholar Q & As—that preserved the educational mission at a distance.

By 2022 most emergency fixes had matured into hybrid routines. Nearly three quarters of institutions still maintained at least 70% of the tools adopted under lockdown. In-person visits now dovetail with digital layers: Buenos Aires’ Museo Sívori embeds QR codes beside wall labels so on-site visitors can access curatorial audio in three languages or download children’s activity sheets. Digital communities forged during confinement did not dissolve once doors reopened; 59% of museums report steady participation from remote followers who may never cross the physical threshold yet contribute comments, user-generated posts, and micro-donations.

Country patterns diverged in tempo and consolidation. Argentine museums moved faster—new strategies rolled out on average three weeks earlier than in Spain—drawing on a culture of tactical improvisation honed by economic volatility. Spanish institutions, cushioned by steadier funding streams, translated pandemic experiments into long-range plans: 82% retained their new formats unchanged through 2024, compared with 55% in Argentina. Consequently, while Argentina exemplifies agility, Spain illustrates sustainability. This duality frames the comparative analyses that follow.

3.4. Comparative Patterns

The pace and staying power of digital adoption differed more by context than by tactic. Argentine museums, long accustomed to economic turbulence, pivoted rapidly toward the “smart-museum” ideal: they rolled out new online services in just under five weeks on average—almost three weeks ahead of their Spanish counterparts—and deployed a broader toolset, nearly three platforms per institution, while reallocating a quarter of their budgets to digital uses during the crisis (

Table 5. Indicators of strategic adaptability.

Indicator	Argentina	Spain	Difference	t	p-Value
Average time to implement new strategies (weeks)	4.7 ± 2.1	7.9 ± 3.4	−3.2	−2.85	0.009 **
Number of new platforms adopted during COVID	2.8 ± 1.2	1.9 ± 0.8	0.9	2.12	0.046 *
Percentage of budget reallocated to digital	23.4 ± 8.7	15.2 ± 6.3	8.2	2.67	0.014 *

* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01.

). Yet that same volatility undermined continuity: by 2024, barely half of the Argentine “smart-museum” innovations were still operative, whereas four out of five Spanish museums had translated their pandemic experiments into routine practice, buoyed by steadier public subsidies and a larger pool of specialized staff.

Governance amplified these contrasts. Private museums, free from civil service procurement rules, approved and launched initiatives in roughly one month and with minimal sign-off, while public institutions required almost double the time and four times the paperwork (

Table 6. Public vs. private operational flexibility comparison.

Variable	Public (n = 13)	Private (n = 9)	t	p-Value
Implementation time (weeks)	7.8 ± 3.2	4.1 ± 1.8	−3.42	0.002 **
Number of required approvals	4.2 ± 1.7	1.8 ± 0.9	−4.15	0.001 **
Discretionary budget (%)	8.3 ± 4.1	23.7 ± 8.9	5.67	<0.001 **

** p < 0.01.

). One Spanish director quipped that, “while we were still in committees, our private neighbours were already streaming and tweaking.” The trade-off is clear: private organizations enjoy operational nimbleness but face fragile revenue streams, whereas public museums endure procedural drag yet benefit from more predictable funding—77% reported maintaining or increasing their digital budgets in 2024, versus 56% of private sites.

Taken together, these data outline four situational quadrants. Argentine private museums blend hyper-agility with financial fragility; Argentine public sites improvise within tight bureaucratic corsets; Spanish private institutions combine moderate flexibility with partnership-driven stability; and Spanish public museums exemplify deliberate, well-resourced consolidation. Understanding how each quadrant mediates the same toolkit—live-streaming, gamification, QR augmentation—helps explain why innovations thrive in some settings and falter in others. The next section distills the cross-cutting success factors and persistent challenges that emerged from these divergent pathways.

The integration matrix in

Table 7. Quantitative–qualitative integration matrix.

Quantitative Indicator	Exact Result	Qualitative Theme	Relationship
Average time to implement new strategies (weeks)	Argentina: $4.7\pm 2.1$; Spain: $7.9\pm 3.4$	“Tactical improvisation”; “free from civil-service procurement rules… minimal sign-off” (private); “procedural drag” (public)	Convergent
Number of new platforms adopted during COVID	Argentina: $2.8\pm 1.2$; Spain: $1.9\pm 0.8$	“Deployed a broader toolset, nearly three platforms per institution”; “make-do digital culture”	Convergent/ Explanatory
Percentage of budget reallocated to digital	Argentina: $23.4\pm 8.7\%$; Spain: $15.2\pm 6.3\%$	Macro-theme: “resource bricolage”; “frugal exploitation of low-cost technologies”; “collaborative networks”	Complementary
Retention of pandemic-originated formats	Spain: $82\%$ retained unchanged through 2024; Argentina: $55\%$	“Translated pandemic experiments into long-range plans”; “well-resourced consolidation”	Convergent
Posting cadence (daily publishing)	Spain: “publish daily in almost three quarters of cases”; Argentina: “fewer than half sustain that rhythm” (${\chi }^2=1.65$, $p=0.199$)	“Professionalized routines” (Spain) vs. “agile, opportunistic bursts of creativity”/“make-do digital culture” (Argentina)	Convergent/ Explanatory
Public vs. private operational flexibility—number of required approvals; discretionary budget (%)	Approvals: public $4.2\pm 1.7$ vs. private $1.8\pm 0.9$; discretionary budget: public $8.3\pm 4.1\%$ vs. private $23.7\pm 8.9\%$	“Platform governance”; “procedural drag” vs. “operational nimbleness”; director quote: “while we were still in committees, our private neighbours were already streaming and tweaking.”	Convergent

aligns each quantitative indicator with its salient qualitative counterpart and classifies the link as convergent, complementary, or explanatory. This mapping underpins the meta-inferences in this section: higher retention of pandemic-originated formats in Spain is read alongside themes of institutionalization, professionalized routines, and workflow stability, whereas Argentina’s faster roll-out, broader platform portfolio, and larger budget reallocation are interpreted in light of resource bricolage and a make-do digital culture that fosters opportunistic experimentation under constraints. Ownership effects are likewise clarified: the greater operational nimbleness of private museums corresponds to narratives of reduced procedural drag and wider discretionary spending, while public bodies’ slower approvals co-occur with accounts of governance frictions but steadier consolidation. Overall, divergence is rare; patterns are predominantly convergent, with budget reallocation offering the main complementary link.

3.5. Success Factors and Ongoing Challenges

Behind the headline numbers, two ingredients consistently underpinned successful initiatives: an ethic of creativity that multiplies scarce resources, and the frugal exploitation of low-cost technologies. Creativity expressed itself less as artistic flourishes than as tactical recycling. Museums routinely stretched a single asset—a lecture, an exhibition preview—into a podcast, a series of Instagram Reels, a blog post, and a downloadable classroom kit, thereby reaching divergent publics without fresh expenditure. Collaborative ingenuity amplified that effect: Valencia’s Fundación Chirivella Soriano, for example, stitched together a loose federation of twelve local institutions that swapped images, cross-posted calendars, and co-hosted livestreams, multiplying collective reach six-fold, while budgets stayed flat. User-generated content provided a further multiplier: a photo contest launched by the Museo Marítimo de Ushuaia generated more than 500 organic posts in 2023 and fed the museum’s own channel for months.

Low-cost tools formed the entry-level infrastructure through which many institutions inched toward the “smart-museum” model. QR codes—adopted by 68% of the sample—created frictionless bridges between gallery walls and online deep dives, without bespoke apps. More than half the museums scheduled posts via the free tiers of Buffer or Meta Business Suite, turning irregular staff hours into a steady digital presence, while nearly three quarters relied on no-cost streaming services to keep talks, tours, and openings accessible beyond the building. These frugal choices did not dampen impact: between 2020 and 2023, organic reach climbed 145%, Instagram engagement averaged 4.7%, and almost a quarter of on-site visitors reported that social media had prompted their trip—evidence that inexpensive touch-points can feed the physical footfall essential to a fully fledged “smart-museum” ecosystem.

Yet these triumphs coexist with stubborn structural limits. Four out of five institutions point to a shortage of specialized staff; curators doubling as community managers report chronic role overload, widening skills gaps, and high turnover—especially acute in inflationary Argentina, where cultural salaries trail behind the wider tech market. Two thirds of museums also worry about technological sustainability: dependence on commercial platforms leaves them hostage to algorithmic shifts and pay-wall creep, while ageing hardware threatens the continuity of popular livestreams and immersive tours. Even initiatives that worked brilliantly during lockdown often stalled for want of a scalable plan once emergency energy ebbed.

In short, digital resilience in low-resource museums hinges on combining tactical ingenuity with judicious tool choice, but its longevity will depend on shoring up human capacity and technical autonomy. The following discussion returns to this tension between creative success and structural fragility, considering what it means for policy and practice in similarly constrained cultural settings.

4. Discussion

This research offers a detailed empirical analysis of how museums with limited resources in Argentina and Spain faced, reconfigured, and even capitalized on the digital transformation processes accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Far from acting as a brake, budgetary restrictions served as triggers for frugal innovation strategies, organizational adaptability, and inter-institutional cooperation. These findings contribute to a growing body of theory that challenges the traditional association between abundant resources and digital success, paving the way for new interpretive frameworks focused on resilience and collaborative intelligence.

One of the main contributions of this study lies in identifying institutional adaptability as a comparative advantage. Argentine museums, accustomed to managing structural uncertainty and chronic scarcity, showed greater agility than their Spanish counterparts in implementing digital strategies, with an average of 3.2 fewer weeks. This empirical evidence reinforces the notion of “organizational antifragility” [67], according to which organizations subjected to constant pressure develop adaptive responses that strengthen them. Thus, accumulated experience in volatile contexts not only does not limit innovation, but can enhance it.

However, this work also identifies a fundamental paradox: while more agile museums—those private or located in unstable economies—manage to implement changes more quickly, they tend to have greater difficulties in sustaining them over time. Conversely, public museums and those belonging to more stable contexts—such as the Spanish cases—show higher levels of institutional sustainability, albeit with less capacity for immediate innovation. This trade-off between adaptability and sustainability forces a rethinking of planning strategies in the cultural sphere, avoiding both short-termism and structural rigidity.

From a conceptual perspective, the results allow for expanding and refining existing theoretical frameworks. First, the theory of deep mediatization proposed by Hepp and Krotz [10] is extended, demonstrating that significant digitalization processes can also unfold under conditions of scarce technological infrastructure. In the “Emergency digitalization” phase—triggered by the COVID-19 lockdown—this mediatization did not rely on technical sophistication but on rapid, makeshift forms of inter-institutional articulation that allowed museums to share resources, platforms, and competencies. Such improvisation gives rise to what the authors of this work term “distributed mediatization”, an emerging model in which collaborative networks partially replace large, institution-specific investments.

Second, the evidence allows proposing a model of “adaptive cultural resilience” as an operational theoretical framework. This resilience is composed of three interdependent dimensions: institutional flexibility (capacity to modify structures and processes in the face of changing scenarios), compensatory creativity (generation of innovative solutions with limited resources), and strategic collaboration (expansion of capacities through alliances). These three vectors were present in multiple cases in this study, consolidating a replicable pattern beyond the analyzed countries.

Likewise, this research invites a redefinition of digital sustainability in the cultural heritage field. During the platform-consolidation phase, many museums demonstrated that long-term viability rests not on a steady stream of new gadgets, but on organizational enablers—team professionalization, budgetary stability, and a culture of iterative innovation. As institutions progress toward the “smart-museum” stage, the ability to renew and scale digital services depends less on cutting-edge tools and more on frameworks that secure continuity, systematic evaluation, and incremental improvement. As this work has shown, wider access to open-source software and affordable hardware is making technologies once deemed exclusive increasingly attainable. Backed by strategic partnerships and targeted training, museums operating with limited resources are therefore well positioned to incorporate smart features that enhance engagement, accessibility, and long-term sustainability.

Regarding practical implications, this work offers a set of recommendations applicable to museums with limited resources. Practices such as strategic content reuse, the evolution of informal collaborations into structured alliances, and the development of hybrid physical–digital experiences have proven to be cost-effective and high-impact strategies. Furthermore, the need to strengthen three key organizational competencies is emphasized: strategic agility (agile and effective response to digital opportunities), collaborative intelligence (ability to manage inter-institutional relationships), and systematic creativity (structuring continuous innovation processes, even with austere means).

The analysis also draws attention to the need to build evaluation systems that combine conventional digital metrics—such as engagement rates, reach, or conversion—with qualitative indicators capable of capturing deep cultural impact, the quality of the bond with audiences, and the educational value of digital proposals.

The results have direct implications for the design of cultural public policies. First, greater financial flexibility is required, to allow public institutions to reallocate funds agilely in response to emerging opportunities. Second, shared digital platforms and regulatory frameworks that facilitate inter-institutional collaboration should be promoted, thus optimizing public investment. Finally, it is urgent to design specific digital training programs for the cultural sector, considering not only technical competencies, but also the communicative logics inherent to the museum environment.

Despite its methodological robustness, this study presents some limitations. The geographical focus on two countries limits the extrapolation of results to other cultural or institutional contexts. Furthermore, the analyzed period (2020–2024), while capturing relevant trends, is not sufficient to definitively evaluate the long-term sustainability of the implemented strategies. Finally, by including only institutions that survived the pandemic, there may be a survival bias that excludes valuable lessons derived from failed institutional experiences.

These limitations open new lines of future research. It is a priority to conduct longitudinal studies that analyze the permanence and evolution of digital strategies beyond the short term. It is also suggested to broaden the comparative approach to regions with less digital infrastructure, such as sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, or rural areas of Latin America. Additionally, it is urgent to explore in greater depth the impact of these strategies on audiences: their experience, learning, participation, and loyalty. Finally, a relevant research agenda should address how emerging technologies—such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, or blockchain—can be adapted for affordable use in institutions with restricted budgets.

5. Conclusions

The COVID-19 pandemic marked a turning point in the institutional development of the museum sector globally, catalyzing a digital transformation that under normal conditions would have required decades. However, the results of this research confirm that this transformation was not fundamentally driven by access to cutting-edge technologies, but by the human capacity to adapt, create, and collaborate in situations of high pressure and resource scarcity. In this sense, this work corroborates that innovation in crisis contexts is not only possible, but can be more efficient, sustainable, and socially significant when based on organizational competencies, rather than costly technological infrastructures.

The museums analyzed in Argentina and Spain demonstrated that operational creativity, strategic collaboration, and organizational flexibility constitute critical capabilities to sustain the public function of cultural heritage in uncertain environments. The most successful institutions were not those with larger budgets, but those that knew how to turn their limitations into drivers of innovation. This finding challenges traditional cultural management paradigms, where access to funding is often considered a sine qua non condition for digital transformation.

Likewise, the findings of this study contribute to redefining the very notion of sustainability in the field of cultural heritage. While sustainability is often associated with financial stability or the efficient use of technologies, this work shows that such sustainability also depends on less visible but deeply structural factors: an institutional culture open to change, professional teams trained to act with agility, and collaborative networks capable of generating synergies without the need for large investments.

In this framework, “distributed mediatization” emerges as an alternative model of museum digitalization, especially relevant for institutions with limited resources. This approach, based on inter-institutional cooperation and the joint utilization of capacities, offers a viable path to increase the reach and social relevance of museums, without replicating models dependent on high-cost technological solutions.

This work also highlights the need to institutionalize the competencies developed during the crisis. Creativity, adaptability, and collaboration should not remain as isolated responses to emergency situations but should be consolidated as permanent organizational principles. To this end, it is essential to create more flexible cultural governance frameworks, strengthen the professional capacities of the sector, and ensure evaluation mechanisms that prioritize the social and cultural value of museum action above merely quantitative metrics.

In an international scenario characterized by the proliferation of health, economic, climatic, and geopolitical crises, the lessons learned from this study are particularly relevant. Museums, as agents of meaning-making, memory, and citizenship, need tools not only to resist, but to transform, and continue to be significant spaces for the communities that sustain them. Digitalization, understood as a situated, creative, and collaborative process, can be one such instrument if it adapts to the real conditions of the terrain in which it operates.

Ultimately, this research demonstrates that it is possible—and necessary—to move towards more resilient, equitable, and participatory cultural management, even in environments of profound scarcity. This requires rethinking sustainability models, promoting public policies that facilitate inclusive innovation, and strengthening collaborative networks as essential infrastructure for 21st-century culture. Only then can it be ensured that the lessons learned from the health crisis are not diluted, but translated into lasting improvements for the global heritage ecosystem.