»It’s just not my thing«

Why audience members don’t use participatory features of (online) news media – insights from four German case studies.

Nele Heise, Julius Reimer, Jan-Hinrik Schmidt, Wiebke Loosen

4th European Communication Conference, Lisbon November 15, 2014

(Re-)discovering the audience. Journalism under social media conditions.

Funded by the German Research Foundation (2011-2014)

Blog: http://jpub20.hans-bredow-institut.de/Twitter: @jpub20team

From consumption to participation?

• Increasing participation in and through media (Carpentier et al. 2013) via various features in (online) journalism, e.g. discussion boards, feedback forms, social media profiles, traditional feedback channels

• Research indicates a certain reluctance or hesitance to engage with these features (Larsson 2012) participation an »interactive illusion« (Jönsson/Örnebring 2011)?

• RQ: What are reasons and causes for not using participatory features and which (potential) participation barriers can be identified from the user perspective?

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The jPub20 project: 4 German case studies

daily, information oriented weekly, debate oriented

TV

Print

Political talk show

Exploring non-usage of participatory features

• Multi-method case study design: standardized and non-standardized methods, including journalists, audience members and journalistic content

• Online user surveys: set of 16 items (cf. Springer/Pfaffinger 2012, Engesser 2010) and open answer field (exploration) respondents who do not – or rarely – use participatory features or functions (e.g. giving feedback, commenting, sharing/recommending, rating, …)

• In-depth interviews: interviews with ›passive‹/not active audience members plus non-usage as guideline element [six to eight per case study]

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Amount of non-usage

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Daily newscast

Weekly political talk show

Daily newspaper

Weekly print magazine

N = 4.686 354 525 257

% of non-usage* 49.3 43.4 27.0 12.5

Differences e.g. due to: • number and types of participatory features offered, • familiarity with (visible) audience ›traces‹ in journalistic products

(e.g. letters-to-the-editor)

* „non-usage« i.e. respondents that did not (or not anymore) use participartory features/functions

Surveys: Reasons for not using participatory features

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… it is no fun to me«

… it takes too much effort/time«

... I don't want to register«

1 2 3 4 5

3.02

3.28

3.58

3.05

3.23

3.4

2.65

2.87

3.47

2.91

3.09

3.48

Daily newscast (n=2.249)

Weekly political talk (n=155)

Daily newspaper (n=322)

Weekly print magazine (n=43)

• … I don‘t want to discuss with strangers« (lower at PT); • … the discussion standards are too low« (lower at WM); • … it is not the right medium for participation« (higher at TV case studies)

5-point Likert scale: 1=“disagree completely” to 5=“fully agree”; displayed are mean values

»I do not use participatory features, because

• Lowest agreement: »I do not use participatory features, because • … I had technical problems while uploading files or comments.«• … the journalists do not reply, answer or respond.«• (… I prefer to participate on other media websites or online

services, e.g. social media, blogs, forums etc.«)

• Differences between user groups point to digital inequalities or a »digital production gap« (Schradie 2011), particularly regarding: education (e.g. technical problems and usability, not daring to participate), age and – at the print cases studies – gender (e.g. not daring to participate)

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Surveys: Reasons for not using participatory features

Complementary findings: qualitative data

• Further aspects as articulated in open answer fields and the in-depth interviews:• People are not aware of different options for participation or do

not feel invited/engaged to participate (usability)• Satisfaction with the trusted medium and ›passive‹ recipient role,

no motivation or need to add something • »Lurking«: observing discussions and opinions of others • Critical views of participatory functions in general; users feel

overwhelmed; (online) participation is perceived as ineffective • Users and their concerns/feedback are not taken seriously• Lacking transparency of participatory conditions (e.g. comment

moderation, selection of readers’ letters)

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• Costs of participation (registration/personal data, effort/time etc.) as barriers that might outweigh potential benefits, esp. for those who do not enjoy it (»it‘s just not my thing«) or prefer ›passive‹ media usage ›lurking‹ as meaningful activity

• Negative perception of and/or experiences in comment sections as potential inhibitor of participation

• Open questions regarding the differences between different types of news media (print vs. TV, information vs. debate oriented, daily vs. weekly)

• Shift of perspectives: putting the motives, expectations and conditions on the part of the audience in a more central position

Conclusion

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Thank you.

Wiebke Loosen, Jan-Hinrik Schmidt, Nele Heise, Julius Reimerhttp://jpub20.hans-bredow-institut.de/ @jpub20team

References

• Borger, M., van Hoof, A., Costera Meijer, I., & Sanders, J. (2013). Constructing participatory journalism as a scholarly object. Digital Journalism, 1 (1), 117–134.

• Bergström, A. (2008). The Reluctant Audience. Online Participation in the Swedish Journalistic Context. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 5 (2), 60–79.

• Carpentier, N., Dahlgren, P., & Pasquali, F. (2013). Waves of Media Democratization: A Brief History of Contemporary Participatory Practices in the Media Sphere. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 19 (3), 287–294, doi:10.1177/1354856513486529.

• Engesser, S. (2010). Barrieren medialer Partizipation: Ergebnisse eines explorativen Feldexperiments. In Wolling, J., Seifert, M., & Emmer, M. (Ed.), Politik 2.0? Die Wirkung computervermittelter Kommunikation auf den politischen Prozess (pp. 151–167). Baden-Baden: Nomos.

• Jönsson, A. M., & Örnebring, H. (2011). User-Generated Content and the News: Empowerment of Citizens or Interactive Illusion? Journalism Practice, 5 (2),127–144, doi:10.1080/17512786.2010.501155.

• Larsson, A. O. (2012). Understanding nonuse of interactivity in online newspapers: Insights from structuration theory. The Information Society, 28 (4), 253–263.

• Loosen, W., & Schmidt, J.-H. (2012). (Re-)Discovering the audience: The relationship between journalism and audience in networked digital media. Information, Communication & Society, 15(6), 867-887.

• Schradie, J. (2011). The digital production gap: The digital divide and Web 2.0 collide. Poetics, 39 (2), 145–168.

• Springer, N., & Pfaffinger, C. (2012). Why users comment on online news and why they don’t. Paper presented at the 62nd Annual Conference of the International Communication Association. May 24-28. Phoenix.

• Weber, P. (2014). Discussions in the comments section: Factors influencing participation and interactivity in online newspapers’ reader comments. New Media & Society, 16, 641-957, doi: 10.1177/1461444813495165.