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Mediated participation. ‘New’ technologies’
claims to increased participation, novelty and
uniqueness
Nico Carpentier Reifova
Helsinki – November 2011
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Volume 25,
Issue 4-5,
2011
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„Disputes on the nature of the audience seem to involve two
related dialectics. The first is a tension between the idea that the
audience is a mass public versus the idea that it is a small
community. The second is the tension between the idea that the
audience is passive versus the belief that it is active‟ (Littlejohn in
„Theories of human communication‟ (1996: 310)).
Macro
Micro
Passive
Active
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The active/passive
dimension in the
articulation of the
audience
1
P
A
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Passive models • Sender-message-receiver
model of Shannon and Weaver
• DeFleur‟s model adding a
feedback loop
• Media effects research
• etc
Active models • Eco‟s aberrant decoding theory
• Hall‟s encoding/decoding model
• Uses and gratifications theory
• etc
The „traditional‟ active/passive dimension emphasizes the active role
of the individual viewer in processes of signification
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The participation/
interaction dimension
in the articulation of
the
audience 1b
P
A
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Passive
Active
Participation
in media
production
Interaction
with media
content
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IN Interaction with
Passive
Active
Participation
in media
production
Interaction
with media
content
Participation in society
I
N
T
H
R
O
U
G
H
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Participation
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Participation
≠
Interaction
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Participation and em/power/ment
„The widespread use of the term […] has tended to mean that
any precise, meaningful content has almost disappeared;
―participation‖ is used to refer to a wide variety of different
situations by different people' (Pateman, 1972: 1)
Partial participation: 'a process in which two or more parties
influence each other in the making of decisions but the final
power to decide rests with one party only' (Pateman, 1972:
70)
Full participation: 'a process where each individual member of
a decision-making body has equal power to determine the
outcome of decisions.' (Pateman, 1972: 71)
„It appears that power and control are pivotal subconcepts
which contribute to both understanding the diversity of
expectations and anticipated out-comes of people's
participation.' White (1994: 17)
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Minimalist media participation Maximalist media participation
- focusing on control by media
professionals
- participation limited to access
and interaction
- focussing on micro-participation
- media as non-political
- unidirectional participation
- focussing on a homogeneous
audience
- balancing control and
participation
- attempting to maximise
participation
- combining macro- and micro-
participation
- broad definition of the political
as a dimension of the social
- multidirectional participation
- focussing on heterogeneity
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2
Mi
Ma
The micro/macro
dimension in the
articulation of the
audience
A brief note
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active audience
The specificity
of the online
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Claim 1: The shift
from one-to-many
to many-to-many
communication
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The People Formerly Known
as the Audience
The people formerly
known as the
audience are those
who were on the
receiving end of a
media system that
ran one way, in a
broadcasting
pattern, with high
entry fees and a few
firms competing to
speak very loudly
while the rest of the
population listened
in isolation from one
another— and who
today are not in a
situation like that at
all. (Rosen, 2008:
163)
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• homogenisation of audience
articulations and practices
• audience activity and the long
history of participatory practices
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BBC‟s Video Nation The BBC‟s Video Nation as a participatory media practice. Signifying everyday
life, cultural diversity and participation in an online community
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Claim 2: The re-
articulation of the
audience into the
„produser‟
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• conflation of user, producer and
audience • user ≈ active / audience ≈ passive
• user + audience ≈ active / passive?
• lack of attention for the reception
of online content
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Case: Reception of nine 16+.be films
• nine groups of youngsters
• Flemish science week
• on “the Flemish YouTube”
• reception study
• 131 respondents
• 15 focus groups
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• bizarre questions
• sound difficult to understand
• raindrops on the lens
• sometimes no introduction
• … nor a clear storyline
• … nor articulated
The films
• focused on everyday life, with a “normal” view of EDL,
without aesthetisation or narrative structure
• the raw data of everyday, without much decoration
• camera wonders from conversation to conversation,
being engaged in the everyday chit-chat
• little flaneurs that observe the singularities of EDL
• modest attempts to address the politisation of EDL
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The banal, the banal, ...
• “there was actually no single important question.
These are all banal things. They are banal things.”
(Yvette, F, 60, H, FG3)
• “The main advantage of these films is that they are
short.” (Alain, M, 52, H, FG7)
• “They are so amateurish. I even got the impression
that they did that on purpose, it was so much beyond
... That’s my impression” (Danielle, F, 50, H, FG7)
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The banal, the banal, ... (continued)
• the content: lack of relevance and
usefulness ----/---- comparisons with holiday
pictures
• (perceived) motives attributed to the
producers: being bored and having nothing
else to do
• formal quality of the film: perceived lack of
aesthetic, narrative and technical quality is
juxtaposed to the quality of professional
media productions
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Claim 3: The
convergence of
top-down business
with bottom-up
consumption and
production
practices
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Convergence
―represents a
paradigm shift – a
move from medium-
specific content
toward content that
flows across
multiple media
channels, toward
the increased
interdependence of
communications
systems, toward
multiple ways of
accessing media
content, and toward
ever more complex
relations between
top-down corporate
media and bottom-
up participatory
culture.‖
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• investing strongly into a set of
commercialised media worlds
• risks of being incorporated are
substantial
• the importance of formal
organisational participatory
structures
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Amarc labels a
community radio
station „a ―non-
profit‖ station,
currently
broadcasting,
which offers a
service to the
community in
which it is located,
or to which it
broadcasts, while
promoting the
participation of this
community in the
radio‟ (Amarc,
1994: 4).
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Civil society and community media as rhizome
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Conclusion
Audience theory & concept • quite helpful to facilitate the understanding
of the present-day conjuncture
• trans-audience?
+ shows emphasis on informally organised
audience
+ shows the need to avoid the conflation of
interaction and participation
Importance of history: • produced number of radical examples
• co-exist with the digital