The Contribution of Social Media on Heritage Experience: A Case Study of Samchuk Community and Old Market District, Suphanburi.

Alongside with their traditional roles in collecting, preserving and showcasing tangible and intangible cultures, heritage sites play a crucial role in both formal and informal education. Learning in heritage sites is often described as freechoice, informal and lifelong. Social media has significantly impacted cultural education due to its popularity and ability in engaging learners. It supports constructivist learning by promoting reciprocal learning by bringing together different people regardless of their background and their social skills. Also, the representation of the destination on the social media can potentially shape visitors’ perceptions before visiting and influence their on site experience. This paper aims to investigate the current roles of social media in supporting constructivist-based museum learning by focusing on the pre-trip perception. Samchuk Community and Old Market District in Suphanburi, a historic Sino-Thai community that has been transformed into a nostalgia-themed attraction is used as a case study. In so doing, user-generated content (UGC) on the major social platforms were reviewed to investigate how social media can construct pre-trip knowledge by analysing the presentation style and the content. The contributions of the research are as follows. The paper marks an early attempt to understand social media as a tool for promoting constructivist learning experience in Thai cultural tourism. This is an understudied issue, despite Thailand being among the world’s largest internet user community and the most visited destinations. Also, the suggestions provided in the paper can be insightful for practitioners to use social media as a tool to enhance museum learning experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]