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French Museums Host Visitors Virtually via TikTok

A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken Jan. 6, 2020. (Reuters Photo)
A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken Jan. 6, 2020. (Reuters Photo)
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French Museums Host Visitors Virtually via TikTok

A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken Jan. 6, 2020. (Reuters Photo)
A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken Jan. 6, 2020. (Reuters Photo)

The covid-19 pandemic has urged many cultural landmarks to fashion new means that keep them in touch with their audiences despite the global health restrictions. French museums signed a partnership with TikTok in order to widen their popular base among the app's users, mostly teens, a report by AFP said.

The partnership aims to offer TikTok users, aged between 15 and 25 years, the opportunity to learn more about these landmarks including the Place of Versailles, and the Musée du Quai Branly, and to encourage them to visit these places personally later.

The platform, which launched in 2016 and gathered around 100 million users in Europe, plans to expand the Culture TikTok season after its remarkable success.

From 14 to 20 December, the application streamed live shows from museums. One of these shows compared the shields and protective equipment of soldiers used during World War I and those used during the Napoleonic era at Les Invalides Museum. Another showcased an exhibit about the late French actor Louis de Funes at the Cinematheque, and a third offered a tour around the collections of the Picasso Museum.

The Citroen DS from the famous film trilogy Fantômas got 376,000 views and 8,940 likes from TikTok users, while the feathered Big Chief costume, inspired by the "Mardi Gras" carnival in New Orleans, got 168,000 views and 2,784 likes.

About 100,000 TikTok users around the world attended the dance performances at the Palais de Chaillot on December 15, the day France planned to reopen art galleries.

"This partnership helped empower the cultural landmarks that didn't have enough followers on social media, stream their first live shows," Eric Garandeau, TikTok's manager of public affairs in France Eric Garandeau told AFP, noting that ads about these cultural venues have been appearing on TikTok.

Now that the number of followers for each museum has exceeded 1,000 (the number required for live streaming), they have become able to live stream their exhibitions.

Garandeau stressed that the aim "is not to compete with museums, but to encourage young people to visit them via the Culture TikTok hashtag, and express their passion for art in short videos (15-60 seconds) speaking about a painting or a musical piece.

From the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, TikTokers had the chance to watch a presentation by an expert specialized in the era of Louis XIV.

"At the first sight, viewers would think that the background behind the expert is virtual, as the younger generation is used to live in the virtual world. Some thought the scene is fake, but, they eventually realized that they can make a tour in the hall to enjoy the exhibits," Garandeau said.

The visit to the palace got 441,000 views and 25,000 likes.

"I dream of visiting the Palace of Versailles with someone who is fond of history and hear some stories," a user commented.

In the Musée du Quai Branly, Archeologist and Anthropologist Philippe Charlier, head of research at The First Arts Department, showcased five famous art pieces from Mali, Gabon, Brazil, Papua, and Southern United States.

Head of communication Thomas Aillagon said the media policy at the Musée du Quai Branly focuses on "highlighting the geographical diversity that reflects the diversity of cultures and origins," stressing that his museum is targeting most of TikTok lovers, who are likely not interested in the Quai Branly.

Eric Garandeau, who expected this experience to prompt other museums to use TikTok, announced that more shows will be live-streamed on the app.

"We have to encourage Americans and Japanese to visit France," he added, admitting that the language is a major challenge as the streamed content on TikTok is not translated.

TikTok, the most popular platform among the young generation, believes that education should be promoted through culture in the face of VR and AR invasion.

The app plans to adopt a similar approach to science in order to promote education by providing a platform for scientists.

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Researchers Document Huge Drop in African Elephants in a Half Century

Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
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Researchers Document Huge Drop in African Elephants in a Half Century

Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo

African elephants are Earth's largest land animals, remarkable mammals that are very intelligent and highly social. They also are in peril. Fresh evidence of this comes in a study that documents alarming population declines at numerous sites across the continent over about a half century.

Researchers unveiled on Monday what they called the most comprehensive assessment of the status of the two African elephant species - the savanna elephant and forest elephant - using data on population surveys conducted at 475 sites in 37 countries from 1964 through 2016.

The savanna elephant populations fell by about 70% on average at the surveyed sites and the forest elephant populations dropped by about 90% on average at the surveyed sites, with poaching and habitat loss the main drivers. All told, there was a 77% population decrease on average at the various surveyed sites, spanning both species, Reuters reported.

Elephants vanished at some sites while their populations increased in other places thanks to conservation efforts.

"A lot of the lost populations won't come back, and many low-density populations face continued pressures. We likely will lose more populations going forward," said George Wittemyer, a Colorado State University professor of wildlife conservation and chair of the scientific board of the conservation group Save the Elephants, who helped lead the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Poaching typically involves people killing elephants for their tusks, which are sold illegally on an international black market driven mostly by ivory demand in China and other parts of Asia. Agricultural expansion is the top factor in habitat loss.

The forest elephant population is estimated to be about a third that of savanna elephants. Poaching has affected forest elephants disproportionately and has ravaged populations of both species in northern and eastern Africa.

"We have lost a number of elephant populations across many countries, but the northern Sahel region of Africa - for example in Mali, Chad and Nigeria - has been particularly hard hit. High pressure and limited protection have culminated in populations being extirpated," Wittemyer said.

But in southern Africa, elephant populations rose at 42% of the surveyed sites.

"We have seen real success in a number of places across Africa, but particularly in southern Africa, with strong growth in populations in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia. For populations showing positive trends, we have had active stewardship and management by the governments or outside groups that have taken on a management role," Wittemyer said.

The study did not track a continent-wide population tally because the various surveys employed different methodologies over different time frames to estimate local elephant population density, making a unified head count impossible. Instead, it assessed population trends at each of the surveyed sites.

A population estimate by conservationists conducted separately from this study put the two species combined at between 415,000 and 540,000 elephants as of 2016, the last year of the study period. It remains the most recent comprehensive continent-wide estimate.

"The loss of large mammals is a significant ecological issue for Africa and the planet," said conservation ecologist and study co-author Dave Balfour, a research associate in the Centre for African Conservation Ecology at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa.

The world's third extant elephant species, the slightly smaller Asian elephant, faces its own population crisis, with similar factors at play as in Africa.

Of African elephants, Wittemyer said, "While the trends are not good, it is important to recognize the successes we have had and continue to have. Learning how and where we can be successful in conserving elephants is as important as recognizing the severity of the decline they have experienced."

Wittemyer added of these elephants: "Not only one of the most sentient and intelligent species we share the planet with, but also an incredibly important part of ecosystems in Africa that structures the balance between forest and grasslands, serves as a critical disperser of seeds, and is a species on which a multitude of other species depend on for survival."