ECREA16-Abstract

Saturday, November 12

1 1 : 0 0 – 1 2 : 3 0

ARS15

Living Through Transformations in Audiencing

PP 615

Growing Up with Screens: (Dis)Continuities in Patterns of Use and Processes of Mediation Among Portuguese Families

C. Ponte

, J.A. Simões

, T.S. Castro

, S. Batista

Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Communication Sciences, Lisboa, Portugal

Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Sociology, Lisboa, Portugal

Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

Findings from the EU Kids Online survey (2010) placed the concerns of Portuguese parents regarding their children’s (aged 9–16) online activities at the top

in Europe (Livingstone, Ólafsson, O’Neill and Donoso, 2012). To support their child’s internet experience, Portuguese parents’ mainly used active and re‑

strictive mediation; This trend was confirmed by Portuguese children in the NCGM survey (Simões et al., 2014). Such findings on parental concerns and

mediation may be related to parents’ lack of online experience - from 2010 to 2014, the percentage of parents who accessed the internet rose from 60 to

68 percent, a relatively low position in European terms; on the other hand, they may suggest a rather conservative position grounded on the assumption

of the efficacy of panoptical and restrictive strategies. Meanwhile, interwoven factors, such as technological innovation and social and cultural practices, led

to new trends in the diffusion and appropriation of online media, giving rise to new cohorts of media users (parents and children), and challenging media

socialisation processes to both, latecomers and early adopters (Hasebrink, 2014). Bearing this longitudinal perspective in mind and recognising the lack

of national studies on younger children and mediation by parents who are themselves more familiar with the digital landscape, a current research (funded

by the Portuguese Authority for Communication - ERC) is contextualised within the scope of the above interwoven factors and guided by the aim of under‑

standing: i) How are digital media present in the daily lives of younger children (aged between 3 and 8) in the family context? ii) How do their parents pursue

the child’s digital socialization in relation to expectations, concerns and social pressures? iii) How are they balancing their children’s online opportunities and

protection? The option for mixed-method research design aims to avoid one-sidedness or distortion pitfalls and to achieve a more in-depth comprehension

of parenting in Portugal. The representative national survey targeted to parents of 3–8 years old (N= 700) includes questions on parental mediation and

related behaviour already tested in other countries (Ofcom, 2015; Nikken & Schols, 2015) and provides a view of patterns. For a focus on processes and

family dynamics, a participatory approach, adapted from recent qualitative research (Chaudron et al., 2014; Livingstone et al., 2015; Zaman et al, 2016), was

chosen to conduct research with twenty families and by give voice to each cohorts of parents and children. Participants were selected based on a purposive

sample considering different family composition and socioeconomic status. Results of this national research offer not only a significant contribution to evi‑

dence-based information and ongoing discussion on how younger children are navigating the digital landscape and how parents are mediating and guiding

children through a media environment of rapidly changing affordances and offerings. They also offer an opportunity to explore mediated (des)continuities,

analysing to what extent the cultural trends expressed by previous generations of Portuguese parents continue present among parents of younger children.

This gathered information is relevant for educators, policy makers and other stakeholders.

PP 616

Audiences Transformed: Four Dimensions of the Current Change of the Czech Audiences

J. Macek

Masaryk University, Department of Media Studies and Journalism, Brno, Czech Republic

The paper drawing on author's recently published, Czech written monograph ('Média v pohybu', December 2015), overviews the main research findings and

theoretical conclusions from a three-year research project entitled 'New and Old Media in Everyday Life: Media audiences in the time of transformational

media usage” (2013–2015). The research – employing, among others, Anthony Giddens’Theory of Structuration, the tradition of domestication research

and the theory of diffused audience – utilized qualitative and quantitative insights: the analysis included more than 100 qualitative interviews with various

members of media audiences as well as a representative survey of the Czech population (N=1998). On this basis, the paper identifies and explicates four

primary dimensions of the evolving transformation of current Czech media audiences: (1) the dematerialization of media content linked with the increased

fragmentation of media-related practices as well as transforming relations between audiences and media producers, (2) the increasing mediatization

of everyday life and social interactions, (3) notable shifts in audiences' attitude towards shared public and political spheres and (4) a spatiotemporal trans‑

formation of everyday life linked with uses of mobile media.

PP 617

Audience Practices and Fans Engagement in Multiplatform Productions for Public Service Broadcasting

P. Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt

, A. Nanì

University of Malmö, K3, Malmö, Sweden

University of Tallinn, Tallinn, Estonia

Media producers often lament about the fragmentation of the audience indicating the loss of the time and the attention given to any given media channel

is reducing. The solution seems to be to start producing multiplatform or crossmedia to follow the audiences and still make a story that meets across these

platforms. In doing so, the producers have imaginations about who their audience are and what do they do, however, these concepts are often unchallenged

and in direct conflict with the actual audiences and their behaviour. This paper is a part of a larger study that explores the tensions between the public,

‘imagined’ (the perception that producers have of their audiences) and actual audiences of crossmedia experiences. Stemming from Hartley (1987) con‑

structivist approach, following Livingstone (2005) idea of audiences and publics, borrowing Peterson (2003) and Litt (2012) paradigm of imagined audi‑

ences, and drawing from the concepts of ‘fandom’ (Fiske, 1992; Duffett, 2013) and ‘participatory culture’ (Jenkins, 2006) this paper is about the practices

of being an audience, either imagined or real for two crossmedia productions by public broadcasting services in Finland and Estonia. The empirical work

in the focus of this paper consists a set of focus groups carried out between fall 2015 and the beginning of 2016 with TV viewers and audience members