Too often we conflate our own objectives with that of an organisation. Recently, I've noticed this happening with audience engagement and audience first-thinking. While extremely important, it is still a means to an end, a methodology that we must try to embody. It isn't an end point. So, here is a flow chart:
Video
Facebook wants Live Video to be the future, paying close to $50mn to celebrities and publishers to create live video and prioritizing it in their newsfeed algorithm. While Facebook may be making the most headlines right now, it’s not the only company putting the spotlight on live video. In the last year Meerkat (now pivoted), Periscope (now owned by Twitter), YouNow and most recently YouTube and tumblr launched live streaming.
So, why is Facebook prioritizing streaming video? Because it “is looking to compete for television advertising... [and] is anxious about the future. People are sharing less about themselves, which slows Facebook’s growth and cuts at the heart of its most profitable product, the News Feed…[this] is one attempt to solve that problem.”
Live streaming may very well be a Facebook driven play for revenue and relevance, and not necessarily a question of demand. For instance, this recent Reuters study reports that over 3/4ths of people rely on text for their news, finding it faster and more convenient than video. What’s more, these findings apply to video at large -- not just live video; a majority of people prefer text to any type of video when getting their news.
Here, we look at different video formats:
Mediascape or Media-escape?
The omnipresence of the media is summed up in Appadurai's use of the term 'mediascape'. The word is very well chosen because, like landscape, it carries with it not only the sense of omnipresence, but also the notion that people are immersed in the media which are largely taken for granted.
Audiences, Nicholas Abercrombie & Brian Longhurst (1998)
Most audiences are organised around discrete events - a show, film, speech, etc - but this has changed with the digital broadcasting schedule. Simple audiences became mass audiences and mass audiences have become diffuse. But, the need to identify based on the audience experience remains. However, the sheer number of media products make this difficult, as not all media products are meaningful to the audience. Resultantly, those that remain important are elements typically used to construct the individual's narrative. One goes to a classical music concert, one watches Jersey Shore while another watches a sports competition (or all of the above) - these become part of their respective identities. This is true regardless of whether consumed in the private or the public space.
The issue with the current landscape is that there is a "large and complex repertoires of images and narratives, convoluted mixtures of the world of news and the word of commodities" delivered to people throughout the world. News organisations are part of this. They add to and provide context to the saturated mediascape. Providing the words, images, that make up the narrative and influence a narrative.
Interestingly, newspapers used to counteract this inundation in part through the creation of a community. The consumption of news was a ceremony. The number, and variety, of people consuming news reassured the imagined world was rooted in everyday life. Newspapers linked the variety of images together temporally. Readers were unified in the publishing schedule. This continues to be true. However, they must also work to unify readers through something more. Newer, stronger (better, faster) communities should be created. Otherwise, these organisations risk users escaping, rather than bringing them into their personal mediascape.
Consumption versus production in the new media age
The distinction between enthusiast and producer has become less certain, particularly in the news media. Microblogging platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have made the ability to produce content and have say significantly easier. Longform platforms like Blogger, Medium and WordPress mean analysis, investigations, and more can be created and disseminated through the internet, for free. Barriers to entry to produce the news are at an all time low, and the definition of “journalist” is changing. Does it include bloggers? Influencers? What training do they need?
While the blurred distinction between enthusiast and producer is true in other areas as well, the difference remains in the means of production; whether a physical product is required, and how it is transferred between people. With news media, people are not selling the product, but the advertising around it. Yes, this is changing via paywalls, events, and other revenue opportunities. However, historically, the more eyes, the more money, the greater someone’s brand. This creates the potential to branch out and for an enthusiast to move into the professional realm at an established news organisation. Consider, for instance, a number of big name “bloggers” that reside within news organisations (Nate Silver, Paul Krugman, &c).
The advent of digital media has also had repercussions on the consumer/audience. In 1995, Tulloch and Jenkins wrote they would: “adopt a distinction between fans, active participants with fandom as a social, cultural and interpretive institution, and followers, audience members who regularly watch and enjoy media… programmes but who claim no larger social identity on the basis of this consumption.” This distinction focuses on the identity of an audience member within the particular media type - science fiction. However, this is true across media types. Similarly, it has strong links to community identification and affiliation. Indeed, the notion of community is prevalent in many of the discussions of this audience transformation, as it is inherently based on a shared understanding of the media or the images portrayed in the mediascape.
Abercrombie makes a compelling case for audience development, suggesting a continuum from consumer to fan, to cultist/enthusiast, to producer. He uses this in the context of fan fiction, relating it to novels and TV series. These categories differentiate primarily along lines of the object of focus, media usage and organisational structure. The step from enthusiast to producer (or petty producer, to use his words) passes the barrier from content creation for emotional or identity reasons to creation for commercial gain foremost. While a valuable way to contextualise audience development, this definition does not go far enough in modern times, where the distinctions are less and less relevant.