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Media Audience Research in CroatiaIndustry and Academia Synergies with Policy Implications

April 7, 2011Faculty of Political Science

University of Zagreb

Organizer: Zrinjka Perusko

In cooperation with the COST ProgramTransforming Audiences, Transforming Societies

Introduction: Kim Christian Schrøder

COST European Cooperation in Science and Technology

Action IS0906

Transforming Audiences,Transforming Societieswww.cost.eu

www.cost-transforming-audiences.eu

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COST is ...• funded by FP7• a framework allowing the coordination of nationally funded

research on a European level, through the support of cooperation and mobility of researchers

COST supports: Action grant:- Travels and subsistence- Meetings and conferences- Training schools- Short-term scientific missions (STSM)- Publication and dissemination- Administration of the Action

- Actions (concerted research networks)- Exploratory/strategic workshops- Conference grant for early-stage researchers

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COST domains• BMBS - Biomedicine and Molecular Biosciences

• CMST - Chemistry and Molecular Sciences and technologies

• ESSEM - Earth System Science and Environmental Management

• FA - Food and Agriculture

• FPS - Forests, their Products and Services

• ICT - Information and Communication Technologies

• ISCH - Individuals, Societies, Cultures and Health

• MPNS - Materials, Physical and Nanosciences

• TUD - Transport and Urban Development

+ Trans-Domain ProposalsIS0906

Transforming Audiences, Transforming Societies

COST 298Participation

in the broadband society

IS0801 Cyberbullying:

Coping with negative and enhancing positive

uses of new technologies, in relationships in educational settings

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Transforming Audiences, Transforming Societies

• Initiative of the Audience and Reception Studies section of ECREA

(European Communication Research and Education Association)

• Main objective: to coordinate research efforts into the key transformations

of European audiences within a changing media and communication

environment, identifying their complex interrelationships with the social,

cultural and political areas of European societies.

• Period of activity: 01/03/2010 - 28/02/2014

• 185 individual members, 30 participating countries across Europe

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1. Mapping existing research initiatives

2. Defining a research agenda

3. Scoping audience and society

transformations

4. Revitalising audience research

5. Developing recommendations

Scientific work plan

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Management structure

• Management committee: decides about work plan and

budget plan

• Steering group: carries out the day-to-day managerial work

• Coordinators: take care of the newsletter,the website, the

essays, and the short-term scientific missions

• Working groups: carry out the actual scientific work

• Grant Holder: provides the financial, administrative and

organisational support

WG1 New media genres, media literacy and trust in the media WG2 Audience interactivity and participation WG3 The role of media and ICT for evolving social relationships WG4 Audience transformations and social integration

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Opportunities• Overviewing the research field in Europe

• Inspiring new research questions and opening up new areas of

inquiry

• Fostering the integration of the field and developing a culture

of cooperation across Europe: Bringing together different (research)

cultures

• Supporting emerging scholars and research centres

• Building bridges between the academic and

non-academic worlds: Liaising with non-academic stakeholders

• Stimulating national initiatives

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Liaison – ambitious beginnings1. This morning:

Media Audience Research in Croatia: Industry and Academia Synergies with Policy Implications

2. This afternoon:1. Roundtable with non-academic groups: ”Media

literacy: ambitions, policies and measures”2. Roundtable with non-academic groups: ”Audience

research: academic and non-academic approaches and cooperation possibilities

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My take: Bridging the divide:Shared interest

• Shared interest: Mapping and understanding audiences• ”Target groups”: predicting and controlling audience

behaviour (industry perspective)• ”Everyday lifeworlds”: understanding cultural sense-making

processes, complexifying audiences (academic perspective)• Common ground:

– Developing new methodological tools for mapping audience territories

– Acknowledging the need for a complexifying lens in order to understand an increasingly hyper-complex, mediatized society

– User-orientation does not mean giving people what they say they want!

– Instead: understand their lifeworld and meet their desire for worthwhile experiences, in media and elsewhere

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Shared interest:understanding crossmedia navigation

• Audiences are inherently cross-media!

“A genuine audience perspective on the contemporary media culture must adopt a cross-media lens, because people in everyday life, as individuals and groups, form their identities and found their practices through being the inevitable sense-making hubs of the spokes of the mediatized culture” (Schrøder 2011)

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Cross-media audience research:keywords

• constellations of media• matrix of media• media choice• mediascape• media repertoires• transmedial patterns of use• mediatized (life)worlds• consumer portfolios

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”Perceived worthwhileness”:a conceptual lens

• The media user is a shopper in the supermarket of media (news)

• Worthwhileness - A radical user perspective:– A common-sensical ’scaffolding’ concept for designing

empirical audience/user research:”Is this news medium worth my while?”

– A ’inside’ audience perspective on news media, not an ’outside’ Sender’s perspective

– Departure in the individual, social news consumer.– Citizen-consumers browse the entire news universe:

rationality and ritual

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Dimensions of worthwhileness

• Interrelated factors in a personal calculation:– Temporality: availability of time– Spatiality: situational affordances– Materiality: technological affordances– Affordance of 'public connection’ (sense of belonging to

social and cultural networks)– Price– Normative constraints– Participatory affordance

• Worthwhileness by default

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How to develop academia/industry synergies?Some examples from Denmark

• Build forums of dialogue– ”Network for qualitative method innovation”: Bi-monthly sharing of

project experiences of reflective individual audience researchers• Plan collaborative research: mapping audiences

– Joint research projects, modest level of ambition (ex. developing a typology of news users): 1 university scholar and newspaper publishing house

• Plan collaborative research and development– Joint research-based design of exhibitions in/with museums and

science centres. Developing and evaluating prototypes, drawing on theories about digital literacy, creativity and learning. Large research team, large-scale public funding.

• Your locally relevant ideas for spotting synergies!

Thank you!