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PN 098
Engagement that’s Worth It: Valuing and Politicising Transmediality
E. Evans
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1
University of Nottingham, Culture- Film and Media, Nottingham, United Kingdom
Transmedia strategies of storytelling, distribution and marketing, where content is spread over multiple media forms and technologies, have become a key
characteristic of television’s embracing of digital technologies. Broadcasters are increasingly presenting digital devices as the ‘future’ of their industry and
as more ‘valuable’ than traditional linear television. This has manifested in radical ways through strategies such as the BBC’s transform of youth-oriented
channel BBC Three into an online only space, or how fellow UK broadcasters Channel 4 and ITV have increasingly presented their core business as a trans‑
media portfolio of interconnected services. It has also emerged in more mundane ways with the integration of social media and controlled participatory
spaces into promotional content. Whilst many of these changes have been integrated into television culture relatively easily, others have been the source
of debate and controversy over the value of both digital technologies and traditional forms of linear television. At the centre of these industrial changes
has been a prioritising of audience ‘engagement’and the ‘engaged’viewer. What this ‘engaged’viewer is actually doing, however, remains ill-defined, with
the term functioning as a loose indicator of ‘successful’content. In turn, the value of transmedia ‘engagement’equally remains only loosely defined whilst
simultaneously positioned as the new goal for television broadcasters. Alongside the industry’s lack of definition around ‘engagement’, television studies
has similarly seen limited examination of the term, especially in how ‘engagement’is articulated and understood by those involved in creating it. Although
some scholars have examined the notion of ‘engagement’ this is often focused on aspects of audience measurement (Napoli, 2011) or through a specific
prism of participatory culture (Jenkins, Ford and Green, 2013). This paper will instead explore how audience ‘engagement’, and especially the ‘value’of that
engagement, is understood by transmedia practitioners. Using interviews with transmedia producers, writers, marketers and strategists in the UK, US, Can‑
ada and Denmark, it will explore how transmedia‘engagement’is understood and used for artistic, economic and reputational leverage. In particular, it will
focus on how differences in the value of engagement for practitioners are shaped and contextualised by their broader industrial context, and the differences
between public service and commercially-oriented media. How do the experiences of audiences feature within the production process of transmedia or
digital content? How do public service ideals manifest within not only broadcaster-level strategies but also the ways in which individual practitioners value
(or de-value) their audiences’ experiences? What changes occur in how ‘engagement’ is understood and valued when shifting between public service and
commercial contexts? In exploring these questions this paper will address how audiences, and expected audience behaviour, are position within the shifting
strategies and practices of transmedia practitioners. ------ Elizabeth Evans is Assistant Professor in Film and Television Studies at the University of Notting‑
ham. She is the author of Transmedia Television: Audiences, NewMedia and Daily Life (2011). Her current project interrogates how‘engagement’is defined,
managed and valued by transmedia audiences and practitioners.
PN 099
From ‘Multiplatform’ To ‘Online TV’: Shifting Paradigms for Understanding Linear and Non-Linear Television
C. Johnson
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University of Nottingham, Culture- Film and Media, Nottingham, United Kingdom
Speaking in March 2015,Tony Hall (Director General, BBC) claimed that television was entering the‘internet era’in which‘distribution over the internet [was]
as important as over the airwaves’ (2015: online). Hall’s comments might seem anachronistic given that broadcasters have been using the internet a site
for the distribution of television content for over a decade. However, Hall was speaking to a changing media landscape in which the relationship between
television and the internet is increasingly blurred. The period since 2010 has witnessed particular growth in the uptake of smart TVs (television sets with
inbuilt internet functionality), IPTV (television services delivered over a broadband connection), tablets and smart phones, superfast broadband and 4G.
Over this period global online television revenues have increased (Ofcom 2015, 157) and new providers, such as Netflix and Amazon, have started to have
a significant impact on the television market through the delivery of on-demand television services over the internet. At the same time, legacy broadcasters
(such as the Channel 4 and CBS) have been reconceptualising their video-on-demand (VOD) players as more than just catch-up services, repositioning them
as sites for viewing live streams of linear broadcast television. This paper examines the ways in which the changing relationship between television and
the internet is being discursively positioned within the media industry. Drawing on an analysis of trade press and interviews with UK broadcasters it argues
that there is a conceptual shift away from previously dominant terms, such as ‘multiplatform’ and ‘catch-up’ that position internet services and content as
an extension of television online. These are being replaced by new terms, such as ‘online TV’, that emphasise the ways in which the internet functions as
a site for the delivery of traditional broadcast television (e.g. through live streaming). Focusing on the discourses surrounding the re-launch of the VOD
players of the three main UK terrestrial broadcasters (BBC iPlayer, Channel 4’s All 4 and ITV Hub), the paper explores the ways in which broadcasters are
negotiated a perceived breakdown of the boundaries between linear and non-linear television. These shifts have consequences, not only for our academic
understanding of television as a medium, but also for policy, as what counts as ‘television’ determines which sectors and services are subject to specific
television regulations. As such, this paper will situate its analysis in relation to broader regulatory debates, such as the EU’s review of the AVMSD, in order to
ask howwe should understand the relationship between linear and non-linear television in the‘internet era’. ------ Catherine Johnson is Associate Professor
in Film andTelevision Studies at the University of Nottingham. Her latest book (with Paul Grainge) is Promotional Screen Industries (Routledge, 2015). She is
also the author of Branding Television (Routledge, 2012) and Telefantasy (BFI, 2005) and the co-editor of Transnational Television History (Routledge, 2012)
and ITV Cultures: independent television over fifty years (Open UP, 2005). She is currently researching the development of online television.