Media Audience Research in Croatia Industry and Academia

Media Audience Research in Croatia Industry and Academia Synergies with Policy Implications April 7, 2011 Faculty of Political Science University of Zagreb Organizer: Zrinjka Perusko In cooperation with the COST Program Transforming Audiences, Transforming Societies Introduction: Kim Christian Schrøder

COST European Cooperation in Science and Technology www. cost. eu Action IS 0906 Transforming Audiences, Transforming Societies www. cost-transforming-audiences. eu 2

COST is. . . • funded by FP 7 • 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: - Actions (concerted research networks) - Travels and subsistence - Meetings and conferences - Training schools - Short-term scientific missions (STSM) - Publication and dissemination - Administration of the Action - Exploratory/strategic workshops - Conference grant for early-stage researchers

COST domains COST 298 • BMBS Participation Molecular Biosciences - Biomedicine and • in the -broadband society Sciences and technologies CMST Chemistry and Molecular • ESSEM - Earth System Science and Environmental Management IS 0801 Cyberbullying: Coping with negative • FPS - Forests, their Products and Services and enhancing positive • ICT - Information and Communication Technologies uses of new technologies, • ISCH - Individuals, Societies, Cultures and Health in relationships in educational settings • FA - Food and Agriculture • MPNS - Materials, Physical and Nanosciences • TUD - Transport and Urban Development + Trans-Domain Proposals IS 0906 Transforming Audiences, Transforming Societies

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

Scientific work plan 1. Mapping existing research initiatives 2. Defining a research agenda 3. Scoping audience and society transformations 4. Revitalising audience research 5. Developing recommendations

Management structure • WG 1 New media genres, media literacy and trust in the media and Management committee: decides about work plan WG 2 Audience interactivity and participation budget plan WG 3 The role of media and ICT for evolving social relationships • WG 4 Audience transformations and social integration 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

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

Liaison – ambitious beginnings 1. 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

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

Shared interest: understanding crossmedia navigation • Audiences are inherently cross-media! “A genuine audience perspective on the contemporary media culture must adopt a crossmedia 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)

Cross-media audience research: keywords • • constellations of media matrix of media choice mediascape media repertoires transmedial patterns of use mediatized (life)worlds consumer portfolios

”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

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

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! 16