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(Against a) theory of audience engagement with news
Oslo Metropolitan University, NOR.
Karlstad University, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Communication and IT, Department of Media and Communication Studies.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0501-2217
Roskilde University, DNK.
2020 (English)In: Journalism Studies, ISSN 1461-670X, E-ISSN 1469-9699, Vol. 21, no 12, p. 1662-1680Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Audience engagement has become a key concept in contemporary discussions on how news companies relate to the public and create sustainable business models. These discussions are irrevocably tied to practices of monitoring, harvesting and analyzing audience behaviours with metrics, which is increasingly becoming the new currency of the media economy. This article argues this growing tendency to equate engagement to behavioural analytics, and study it primarily through quantifiable data, is limiting. In response, we develop a heuristic theory of audience engagement with news comprising four dimensions-the technical-behavioural, emotional, normative and spatiotemporal-and explicate these in terms of different relations of engagement between human-to-self, human-to-human, human-to-content, human-to-machine, and machine-to-machine. Paradoxically, this model comprises a specific theory of audience engagement while simultaneously making visible that constructing a theory of audience engagement is an impossible task. The article concludes by articulating methodological premises, which future empirical research on audience engagement should consider.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis, 2020. Vol. 21, no 12, p. 1662-1680
Keywords [en]
Audience engagement, behavioural, emotional, metrics, normative, spatiotemporal
National Category
Media and Communications
Research subject
Media and Communication Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-79177DOI: 10.1080/1461670X.2020.1788414ISI: 000547718400001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85087779945OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kau-79177DiVA, id: diva2:1456477
Available from: 2020-08-05 Created: 2020-08-05 Last updated: 2025-02-07Bibliographically approved

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Ferrer Conill, Raul

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • apa.csl
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf