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PP 380
Introducing the Ratings Machine – Expected and Unexpected Effects of Discontinued Audience Measurement on Media Work
J. Bjur
1
1
TNS Sifo, Media, Gothenburg, Sweden
Media audiences get measured, weighted, valued - and thereby constructed. Although a real life audience is a heterogeneous assemblage of situated indi‑
viduals that feel, perceive and receive differently, media markets act upon numbers (Smythe, 1981; Ang 1991). Following this, the predominant representa‑
tion of a media audience is that of size and composition—a homogeneous mass dressed in figures (Napoli 2003, 2011; Bjur 2009). Media audiences come
as numbers, and this paper presents research devoted to following these numbers. The papers aim is to disclose everyday processes of audience construc‑
tion. It maps out how images of audiences gets invested with meaning, that are acted upon, to finally mold media production.To reach disclosure, the study
takes advantage of a clearcut shift in audience measurement technology.The actual disruption is a change inmeasurement system for Swedish radio market
in 2013. Although everything remains the same, when it comes to real life radio and radio listening, all truths taken for granted about the radio audience
and audience behavior are from one day to another overturned, by new images of the audience. It creates a natural experiment situation, with a before
and an after, where the objects under scrutiny in this specific study is the affected commercial and Public Service radio broadcaster and the audience
measurement company producing the change. The means of research tools are interviews, shadowing and observation in a close-up perspective at sites
spanning from board rooms and analysis departments to audience measurement software to news production sites. The main results underscore the fact
that although media audiences are in fact real and exist, the only images we have of them are constructions. Media audiences get measured, weighted,
valued, and thereby constructed, as real. The results illustrate that there is a break between the sites where audiences are turned into numbers (at media
measurement agencies), and the sites of media work where numbers circulate and get ascribed with meaning, political and economic value. The paper
disclose consecutive expected and unexpected effects induced by the change and show how the change in images of audiences elicit an array of rational
and irrational responses in media work and cultural production. The circulation of audience figures is thus a process whereby audiences get exchanged into
institutionally-effective constructions the take effect in the daily processes of media work (Ettema &Whitney, 1994). The paper contributes with a detailed
account of the recursive process of structuration whereby media audiences value is defined and negotiated in different corners of media markets at various
levels of media work. As itineraries are closely followed we reach a more complete understanding of how audience production takes place in everyday
media work, and how audiences are turned into meaningful entities put into everyday practice and acted upon in continuous cultural production— from
financing media through market transaction to steering creative content production and market strategies.
PP 381
Consumption of News as Democratic Resources in a Crossmedia Environment: Looking for Media Users Profiles Based on Individual
Management of Information
M.D.M. Grandío
1
, R. Zamora
2
, J.M. Noguera
3
, F. Hernández
2
, V. Miguel
4
, S. Hada
5
1
University of Murcia, Information and Communication, Murcia, Spain
2
University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain
3
Catholic University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain
4
University of Valladolid, Segovia, Spain
5
University of Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain
This paper explores the crossmedia use and news consumption experience in the new media eco-system, in order to determinate new profiles of media
users based on their “perceived worthwhileness" of information consumption (Schroder and Kobbernagel, 2011). We aim to explore possible changes on
consumption dynamics related to main news reportoires (including television, print, radio, websites, social networks, etc.) through a concept of citizenship
which more and more involves private and emotional aspects of the everyday life and cultural engagement to the media experience (Livingstone, 2005),
and described by Dahlgren in terms of "the microdynamics of democracy" (Dahlgren 2006). For that purpose, we integrate variables measuring attitudes
towards democratic deliberation (Adoni, 2012) as well as patterns of cultural, social and political participation (Carpentier, 2011). For doing so, the meth‑
odology of this research is based on a Q-sorting method (N= 36) and factor analysis, which has been applied to establish distinctive types of cross-media
profiles. Q methodology is a qualitative analysis in which statistical analysis and numbered data is used as a translation device (Schoeder, 2012). Taking into
consideration the so called “perceived worthwhileness" of news by the audience in different platforms, we gathered the data in a two-part study which
include a Q sorting interviews of 36 Spanish people to measure their media news consume and their“perceived worthwhileness”, followed by a complemen‑
tary survey to evaluate their civic participation in a specific community. This research is part of the European project driven by Hanna Adoni, Hillel Nossek
and Kim Schroeder entitled “Comsuption of News as Democratic Resources – Cross Cultural Research Project” within the COST Action IS096 “Transforming
Audiences, Transforming Societies”(2010–2014).