Keeping Memories Alive and Living Again An Evaluation on Nurdağı Open Air Earthquake Museum

One of the most important areas where the dimensions of natural disasters are kept alive and concretised in the memory of the place is disaster-themed museums. Visits to these museums are part of sadness tourism and contribute to raising awareness against natural disasters and keeping public consciousness alive. The aim of this study was to convey the perception of the idea of creating Nurdağı open-air Nurdağı earthquake museum through the eyes of the main actors. In this context, the museum experiences of those who visited the museum and those within the comments on the subject in the electronic environment, the motives that pushed them to this experience, their satisfaction, types of emotions, and their approaches to the opening of an earthquake-themed museum were examined. Semi-structured interviews with 15 people who visited the museum and 113 electronic comments about the museum on social media channels and internet news were analysed. The findings obtained were subjected to content analysis and inductive coding was performed. The MAXQDA 2024 programme was used for content analysis and data coding. In the study, a main theme as "Nurdağı Open Air Earthquake Museum" and six basic categories under this theme were put forward. The points where the perception of the museum differed negatively and positively between the museum visitors and the internet comments and the points where they were in common were determined. In this context, data were analysed and theories were proposed. Accordingly, it was emphasised by the visitors that disaster-themed museums are an important tool in preserving social memory, whereas in social media, it was underlined that it may prevent the long-term preservation of social memory. In this context, it is important that such museums reach a wider audience quantitatively and qualitatively, that they are supported with rich content so that visitors can interact emotionally and intellectually and that they are integrated into educational institutions to raise disaster awareness among students.