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The challenge of metrics. Examples of audience engagement with varying degrees of emotional and technical intensity
Source publication
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...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... Figure 1, which offers a heuristic overview of some common practices of engagement with the news, we can clearly see this challenge. The figure illustrates various kinds of audience engagement with news along two axes, technicality and emotionality, which also vary in terms of intensity. ...
Citations
... In a sense, the audience's parasocial interaction with the host constitutes a distinct form of news engagement. Unlike conventional news participation, which centers on audience contributions to content and creative input (Steensen et al., 2020), the audience in this study engages by critically examining journalistic practices and professionalism. This type of involvement indirectly signals an overall increase in public media literacy. ...
... Through its entertaining yet public, consistent yet flexible qualities, danmu facilitates and expresses parasociality, contributing a unique dimension to participatory journalism. In this context, audience engagement moves beyond creativity and content (Steensen et al., 2020) to allow viewers to function as critical evaluators of journalistic professionalism. Compared to other media platforms, danmu's pseudo-synchronicity enables real-time integration of supplementary content, embedding danmu comments as part of the media content itself. ...
This study examines danmu (bullet screens) as a form of parasocial audience engagement, focusing on two television interviews with women athletes. A textual analysis of 3,513 comments identified five types of parasocial interactions: addressing the athletes, the host, other viewers, social issues, and the nation. Danmu fosters multidimensional engagement, enabling audiences to shift roles and adopt diverse communication strategies. Moreover, the scope of these interactions extends beyond the video context to address broader societal and national issues. This study also highlights the concept of parakin interactions as reflected in danmu. It underscores danmu’s potential as a participatory journalism tool that complements mainstream media by fostering emotional resonance and challenging benevolent sexism in coverage. Feminism emerges as a central framework within the danmu discourse surrounding women athletes. As a form of parasocial audience engagement, danmu holds promise for empowering a wider range of marginalized groups.
... This engagement indicator is of particular relevance in TikTok, as it signals an effective and beneficial interaction between the audience and the content offered, thus contributing to the improvement of the digital presence and the increase of visibility of brands or individuals. However, the multiple dimensions of engagement (Simon et al., 2011) means that quantitative measurement may be too simple without being able to reflect the full complexity of the broad concept of the term (Steensen et al., 2020). Nevertheless, its application remains feasible, in professional contexts, and it is proposed as an indicator of social network interaction quality. ...
This study explores the use of TikTok by public broadcasters France TV, BBC and SVT to measure its informational and promotional relevance on the platform, and to identify the types of videos that generate the highest levels of engagement among users. By examining the news profile associated with the information and the corporate profile of each of the selected broadcasters, 120 publications were analyzed, counting the number of users and interactions, including likes and levels of engagement of the content. In addition, a content analysis was carried out focusing on the formal, promotional and informative characteristics of the posts. The findings revealed an interest in both promotional and informational content shared by the platforms on TikTok. In the case of SVT, higher levels of engagement are observed in comparison to the BBC and France TV profiles. Among the contents with the highest engagement, those of an informative kind with a focus on social issues stand out, highlighting proximity and immediacy. In the promotional domain, videos about events and cultural content stand out. From a structural point of view, content designed specifically for the platform predominates, as opposed to adaptations and with a duration of <1 min.
... Del mismo modo, el compromiso de la audiencia con un medio ha de comprenderse como un fenómeno multidimensional (Steensen et al., 2020). A pesar de que la tendencia habitual consiste en medir el impacto de un medio a partir de las métricas cuantitativas que se extraen de su actividad en línea, no es posible obviar cuestiones como el vínculo emocional, la percepción del medio a lo largo del tiempo o el tipo de participación -que puede incluir prácticas como el acoso o el troleo-. ...
El capítulo describe la transformación del ecosistema mediático ligada al uso de las plataformas comerciales más amplias. Los modelos de negocio basados en la recopilación de datos promueven el fomento de la interacción, la fragmentación de la comunicación y la polarización del debate. En el caso de los medios de comunicación, este contexto plantea nuevas prácticas productivas. La curación de contenidos propone formas de gestión de la información ante la sobreabundancia. El posicionamiento en buscadores resulta fundamental para la visibilidad mediática. En término generales, la interacción y participación de las audiencias en medios digitales redefine su rol, e implica el desarrollo de estrategias para captar y fidelizar usuarios.
... The rise of the internet and social media technologies have brought significant changes to the journalism landscape, creating a participatory and convergence media environment that features wider audience participation and engagement, user empowerment, and crossplatform availability of content (Ksiazek et al., 2016). Audience engagement broadly refers to exchanges or interactions between media content producers and their audiences (Belair-Gagnon et al., 2019;Steensen et al., 2020). Within digital journalism, audience engagement, also called 'user engagement', refers to 'forms of participatory culture and online interactivity that go beyond users' consumption of news' (Belair-Gagnon et al., 2019: p. 558). ...
... Indeed, the entertainment value generated by the danmu comments can be the main reason for accessing the video despite any intent by the original content producers to inform. This analysis thus, adds a further dimension to current debates on audience or user engagement (Ksiazek et al., 2016;Steensen et al., 2020) and the evolving understanding of 'participation frameworks' in digitally mediated communication in news and journalism. In this way, while the study adds to the importance of understanding audience or user engagement as technologically mediated, it also highlights that forms of engagement are becoming more dynamic as social media technologies evolve and that there are new possibilities for user engagement. ...
Along with new forms of mediated communication, social media technologies have created new forms of audience engagement with traditional broadcast talk formats. As forms of content creation and audience engagement continue to evolve, Chinese social media have developed innovative ways for users to engage with broadcast videos, especially through what is known as ‘ danmu’ technology. Danmu is a popular commenting system that allows users to post text directly onto the screen, rather than below the video, creating a layer of on-screen user engagement with the video while watching it. This study examines this new form of audience engagement by drawing upon a case study of danmu-commented English-language broadcast interviews cross-posted to Bilibili, a popular video-sharing platform in China. The analysis highlights three forms of participatory practices by danmu users: engagement with the video content, engagement with characters in the video, and interaction between danmu users. The paper argues that danmu-mediated participatory practices create a sense of co-watching and quasi-synchronous interaction that evokes a distinct participation framework in the virtual community. This study contributes to the growing literature on how social media continues to reshape audience engagement with broadcast news and the complex participation frameworks mediated through Chinese danmu technology.
... Toxicity and sentiment analysis represent pertinent methodologies for discerning viewer responses to tourist vlog videos. These analytical approaches delve into the underlying emotions and attitudes conveyed within viewer comments, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of audience engagement [21]- [24]. By employing toxicity analysis, content creators identify and mitigate harmful or inflammatory discourse within the comment sections, fostering a more positive and constructive online community [25], [26], [26], [27]. ...
This research employs the CRISP-DM framework to analyze sentiment and toxicity dynamics in tourist vlog reviews thoroughly. The study delves into sentiment classification and toxicity identification nuances by leveraging machine learning algorithms such as k-NN, SVM, NBC, and DT with SMOTE. Utilizing a dataset comprising a substantial number of posts, the analysis reveals varying levels of accuracy across different algorithms. For instance, k-NN and SVM showcase promising accuracy rates of 85.90% and 86.27% in sentiment classification, while NBC and DT with SMOTE yield 72.52% and 71.14%, respectively. Furthermore, the research elucidates the limitations of toxicity analysis, with NBC demonstrating a precision of 64.96% and DT exhibiting lower recall rates. These findings highlight the importance of robust methodologies for understanding sentiment and toxicity dynamics in online content, particularly in tourist vlog reviews.
... User data analysis is, therefore, a paramount task within media houses, as it aims to increase audience engagement by adapting the media offer to the public's demands in terms of content and the establishment of a media community (Broersma 2019). Digital technologies allow companies to access and analyze large amounts of user data via participation, interaction, and monitored navigation (Steensen et al. 2020). While third-party cookies have been employed for years to segment advertisements, first-party data is gaining importance now for news media organizations. ...
... Photos and videos used in web news stories, too, have brought another set of complications for the language strategies media use. Combining these features allows readers to indulge in the text (Steensen et al., 2020). The multimedia aspect of the text merits its language to be concise and memorable. ...
This research examines the language change in the headline titles of Pakistani digital newspapers over time and the evolution of the narrative structures in the online written articles in Pakistan. For this study, a corpus of five years (2019-2023) was used along with a source of newspaper articles from five different sources. By conducting different analyses including NLP, discourse, critical discourse, quantitative vocabulary and linguistic richness of words, sentiment analysis, and syntax structure analysis, the researchers found that there had been great changes in the way, Pakistani digital news used their language and stories with greater vocabulary diversity, shifting sentiment, and media elements are becoming more high tech. Research has concluded that the Pakistani digital news discourse in terms of language variety and narrative sophistication has been enhanced substantially, which signals societal and technological development. Digital news aggregator companies in Pakistan should continue innovating their language strategies and storyline structures to captivate their readers and continuously match the cultural and societal contexts.
... In the media management literature, qualitative studies show that consumer brand engagement in the media industry can be expressed through the three dimensions of affection, cognition, and behavior (Riskos et al., 2022). Furthermore, authors agree that reader engagement is a multidimensional phenomenon (Steensen et al., 2020) related to the level of attention and involvement (emotional, cognitive, and behavioral) (Barari et al., 2021) with media product (Ksiazek et al., 2016;Mersey et al., 2010;Vreese & Neijens, 2016). Moreover, reader engagement measurement can be divided into three broad categories: self-report (such as surveys), physiological (such as observational methods), and web analytics methods (Davoudi, 2018). ...
... , to measure reader engagement, a wide range of metrics are proposed in the literatureGoad, 2016;Grinberg, 2018;Peterson & Carrabis, 2008;Seale, 2021).However, most of the metrics are used isolated and do not cover a broader perspective of the reader engagement as a multidimensional phenomenon(Steensen et al., 2020) related to the level of attention and involvement (emotional, cognitive, and behavioral) (Barari et al., 2021). Our research analyses three questions. ...
Effective online consumer research helps companies on defining a successful strategy to increase user loyalty and shape brand engagement. Digital innovation introduced a dramatic change in businesses, particularly in the online news industry. Content consumers have a wide offer across different channels which increase the digital challenge for online news media companies to retain their readers and convert them into online subscribers. Furthermore, digital news publishers often strive to balance revenue sources in online business models. Thus, this study fills a gap in the literature on media consumer research by proposing a data‐driven approach that combines two machine learning (ML) models to allow managers dynamically improve their marketing and editorial strategies. Firstly, the authors present an online user profiling to identify consumer segments based on the interplay between several engagement’ variables substantiated in the literature research. Second, as few studies have explored the factors influencing users' intention to pay for such services, the eXtreme Gradient Boosting ML algorithm identifies the predictors of consumer's willingness to pay. Third, a dashboard presents the key performance indicators across the audience funnel. Thus, practical implications and business suggestions are presented in a two‐fold strategy to maximize revenue from digital subscriptions and advertising. Findings provide new insights into an engagement approach and the relation to acquire a digital subscription in online content platforms. We believe that the provided recommendations are potentially useful to help marketing and editorial teams to manage their customer engagement process across the funnel in a more efficient way.
... Third, many studies have approached engagement as a multidimensional concept comprising behavioral (actions), cognitive (thoughts) and affective (feelings) dimensions (Brosch, 2021;Dessart and Pitardi, 2019;Lim et al., 2020). According to Steensen et al. (2020), audience engagement with news might encompass multiple dimensionsthe technical, behavioral, emotional, normative and spatiotemporal dimensionsthat can be influenced by various modes of communication (e.g. human-to-content, human-to-machine and machine-to-machine). ...
Purpose
Most new media research focuses on behavior as a measure of engagement, while the psychological state of being occupied with its content has received little attention. This study examined news engagement beyond pure action observation by exploring young people’s psychological experiences with the news.
Design/methodology/approach
The study carried out a digital native’s survey on 212 people (18–28 years). The focus of the survey was on understanding individuals’ engagement with online news using affective and cognitive components. The authors compared the influence of each type of engagement on youth consumption of and attitudes toward online news.
Findings
The results of the hierarchical regression analysis showed that affective engagement can be a stronger predictor of online news consumption than cognitive engagement. While affective engagement significantly predicts positive attitudes toward online news, cognitive engagement had no significant effect.
Originality/value
These findings suggest that “engaging the heart” is more influential than “engaging the mind” in drawing young people to the news in today’s information environment. The study thus contributes to the understanding of the cognitive and emotional focus on news content and their importance in shaping young people’s expectations of online news. The findings from this study could have broader implications for future trends in online news consumption.
... Producers hope to achieve quality interaction in diverse ways, ranging from interactive stories, comments below news stories, and discussions online to more extensive forms of participatory journalism, where (offline) community building becomes part of the journalistic process (Nelson 2021a;Wenzel 2020). Steensen, Ferrer-Conill, and Peters (2020) argue that cues for audience engagement appear in various types, ranging from far-reaching forms of interactivity (e.g., collaborating in the journalistic process), minor forms of interactivity (e.g., making choices between predefined options by just clicking) to formats that appeal to users' empathy (e.g., narrative journalism). ...
... Our empirical analysis contributes to the debate about the transition toward so-called audience-centered journalistic practices by examining in detail the production process of interactive narratives and the agency of various actors and actants involved. Whilst much of the literature on this transition focuses on how metrics change existing journalistic practices regarding news work (Anderson 2011;Cherubini and Kleis Nielsen 2016), our study describes in detail the design of emotional and behavioral aspects of audience engagement (Nelson 2021b;Steensen, Ferrer-Conill, and Peters 2020). Surprisingly, during our interviews and focus groups, it became apparent that metrics did not play a significant role in the production process of interactive journalistic narratives. ...
