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Audience Engagement
MARCEL BROERSMA
University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Audience engagement (also, user engagement) refers to the cognitive, emotional, or
aective experiences that users have with media content or brands. Contrary to pas-
sive exposure to news content, engagement denotes an active and intentional orienta-
tion toward what users read, view, or hear. ey “invest time, attention, and emotion”
(Lehmann, Lalmas, Elad, & Dupret, 2012, p. 164) and internalize a media message.
econceptthusassumesthatusersarecaptivatedbyabrand,anewsapplication,or
media content. ese psychological experiences would motivate them to use it longer
and more intensively, and stimulate user loyalty, attentiveness, and thought formation.
Moreover, engagement is presumed to result in users acting upon their experiences
with media. It implies behavior, that is, what people do with news. is could result in
them consuming more news, interacting with online content, buying certain products,
or building upon the provided information to take political action in their personal
life. Engagement therefore is a precondition for processes of meaning-making, value
creation, and connecting to public discourses.
Audience engagement has been a common term in the twentieth-century news
industry. Newspapers and broadcasters have measured their audiences for over more
than a century in order to proof to advertisers how many consumers they have reached
and which demographic groups a certain publication has catered to. However, these
studies were mostly exposure- or impression-based. ey measured circulation and the
numbersofviewersandlisteners,butalsotimespentonconsumingnews.Ithasalways
been dicult, and rather unsatisfactory for advertisers, to show to which specic news
content people devoted time and attention, and even more dicult to say if and how
they processed the information in a news item. Moreover, the limited in-depth research
conducted in the industry was always restricted to small samples of the user population
because of time and nancial restraints. e individual “transactions” in which the
intake of media content results in some kind of output, whether cognitive, emotional,
or physical action, thus largely remained hidden in the era of mass communication.
Following the rise of the Internet, audience engagement has gained increased impor-
tance in the media and advertising industry. In newsrooms the audience traditionally
was largely taken for granted. Especially the decline in print circulation of newspapers
and magazines, but also the loss of television viewers and radio listeners, caused more
awarenessamongjournaliststhattheyshouldcatertotheneedsofnewsuserswithout
solely gearing their news production toward market demands. is was fostered by the
new opportunities for interaction that online journalism oered. “Increasingly, com-
panies are seeking to monitor (though some would describe it as surveillance) these
e International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies. Tim P. Vos and Folker Hanusch (General Editors),
Dimitra Dimitrakopoulou, Margaretha Geertsema-Sligh and Annika Sehl (Associate Editors).
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118841570.iejs0060
2AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT
networked transactions as they seek to better anticipate what kinds of content con-
sumers value, how much value they put on it, and in what contexts they are willing
to pay for content” (Green & Jenkins, 2014, p. 121). Now that consumers have more
powertochoosefreelyfromaprolicsupplyofmedia,thestruggleforattentionhas
become increasingly important.
On the advertisement side, the second traditional source of revenues for news
companies, it was considered a top priority by media companies to shi from
impression-based (quantity) to performance-based (quality) indicators. Accordingly,
engagement became the new buzzword. Online platforms have made it easier to
measure engagement on an individual level through online behavior metrics. is
would present a clearer indication of the commercial and societal value of journalism
than passive exposure does. Indeed, a range of studies have consistently found that the
level of engagement with media content is positively related to recall, receptiveness,
and persuasiveness, and positive engagement translates into a higher willingness
to purchase products. Most of these studies, though, are not about journalism and
news specically but about adjacent elds, such as social psychology, marketing, and
human–computer interaction.
ere is no agreement in academic literature, the news industry, or professional jour-
nalism practice on what engagement actually entails and how it should be measured. It
is, as Napoli (2010) notes, a complex, multidimensional, and ambiguous construct that
functions as an umbrella concept for active audience behavior. Napoli compiled a list of
20 denitions that are used and could easily be expanded based on industry reports and
scholarly work. Part of the confusion about denitions is due to the fact that engage-
ment is applied in dierent elds and on various levels (ranging from psychological
to behavioral experiences) to study dierent objects for dierent goals. is ambiguity
allows both scholars and the media industry to loosely apply engagement wherever it
ts their aims and priorities. However, “basically all of the post-exposure dimensions of
audience behavior have been associated with one or more denitions and operational-
izations of engagement” (Napoli, 2010, p. 90). For news organizations, engagement is
merely instrumental and commodied. It is a means to other ends; to create more loyal
audiences.
It is useful to distinguish between manifest and latent categories of engagement. Man-
ifest categories are derived from usage and exposure, and can be measured quantita-
tively. Metrics such as unique visitors, page views, time spent, percentages of content
that is read, shared, or liked, and click-through rates, function as proxies for engage-
ment. e presumption is that when usage is more frequent, sustained, and interactive,
users are more engaged. Although this might lead to gures that can be compared
between dierent media types and outlets, it is still unclear what these numbers actually
mean. Groot Kormelink and Costera Meijer (2017), for example, distinguished between
30 reasons that users had to click or not to click. ey showed that clicking does not
mean that people are interested in a news item or not. ey conclude that this is a awed
metric. In general, it is questionable if so-called engagement metrics actually represent
this complex and multidimensional concept in a reliable and valid way.
Latent categories of audiences’ engagement are derived from qualitative or holistic
approaches to how users perceive media content, how they interact with it, and how
AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT 3
they participate in the production of it. A classic example of the last type of engagement
is letters to the editor. ese illustrate how newspaper readers have perceived news,
attached meaning to it, phrased a well-considered response, and, based on these views,
contributed to public debate. On the Internet, this has translated into reader comments
and other forms of participation in the journalistic process. But engagement is also
increasingly provoked by journalists and newsrooms by reaching out to readers and
inviting them to put issues on the media agenda and contribute to news coverage.
Next to text-based methods, self-reported engagement is studied via interviews,
focus groups, and surveys. Users here indicate themselves how they perceive media
content, how this triggers them to develop certain attitudes, and if and how they act
upon this. Cognitive research applies an experimental setting to measure via task-based
methodshowusersinteractwithnews.Physiologicalandsensorymeasurementssuch
as eye tracking, heartbeat ratings, and recording of facial expressions and mouse
movementsaretakentoanalyzeifandtowhatextentpeopleengagewithnews.
Contrary to what many of these indicators for measurement might suggest, engage-
ment should be conceptualized as a process rather than as a measurable stable state of
being. Scholars have, albeit in dierent terms, commonly distinguished between four
stages in the process of engagement (O’Brien & Toms, 2008; Oh, Bellur, & Sundar, 2010).
First, there is a point of engagement at which passive news consumption translates into
active news use and users decide to physically interact with media content. is could
be via dierent interfaces such as the television screen, the newspaper page, the mobile
phone,orawebsiteandinvolvesvariouspracticessuchasreading,clicking,orwatch-
ing.edesignoftheinterface,theinterestsandmotivationsoftheuser,andtheirgoals
determine if they engage with content in the rst place.
Second, in the stage of actual engagement, cognitive and/or emotional attachment to
media content takes places. Users here interpret news texts and invest energy in making
sense of them by relating them to existing knowledge and integrating them in cognitive
frameworks. e degree of involvement with news can vary between simply investing
time and paying attention, to being absorbed in a story, and to interacting with news or
participating in it. e intensity of the activity, based on a continuum of use practices
ranging from more passive to more active behavior, results in various modes of engage-
ment. Scrolling through one’s social media timeline, for example, results in a dierent
kind of experience than intensively reading a newspaper article or watching the news.
Moreover, the engagement stage can be longer or shorter due to the level of interest
users have in the item and the extent to which their attention is grabbed. e latter
relates both to the content and design of media content and to the degree in which the
aordances of the platform facilitate and stimulate engagement.
In the third stage, referred to as disengagement, users stop investing time and atten-
tion in a specic news item. is could be due to reasons on the psychological level
such as negative eect, or on the contextual level when users, for example, lack time
or are interrupted. In this stage outreach take place; engagement then leads to actual
behavior. is could be immediate when users, for instance, decide to post a comment
or it could be delayed when they decide to take political action. When there is a positive
eect,thiscouldleadtoafourthstageofreengagement in which users decide to engage
4AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT
again with similar media content, for example, by following a hyperlink to a new arti-
cle or by online searching for new information on the topic. User engagement is thus a
continuous process that builds up to meaning-making, value creation, and connecting
to public discourses.
Moving from the audience perspective to news production, engagement is also
increasingly picked up by newsrooms and included in day-to-day journalism practice.
While in the second half of the twentieth century disengaged journalism, in which
the profession claimed autonomy from politics, business, and, also, from its audience
hadbecomethenorm,interactingwithnewsconsumershasmadeacomebackinthe
new millennium. is has been motivated by the fact that for news organizations the
ratio between revenue from advertisements and from paid circulation has radically
shied. ey are now dependent on news consumers for the majority of their business.
Moreover, because of the decline in audience share, news organizations have come to
realize that their legitimacy and existence is contingent on their relation to audiences
and society at large. ey have even increasingly created new positions of engagement
editors to nurture their relationship with the audience.
Engagement is conceptualized here as listening to audiences, communicating with
them, taking their needs into account, and collaborating with them. e “minimalist”
mode of considering audience engagement is rooted in the growing importance of
metrics in the news process. Many news organizations nowadays distribute lists of
high-performing news articles on a daily basis. Moreover, editors can follow live on
screens in the newsroom how news items on the website are being read. Some argue
that this functions to discipline journalists and gets them to write articles that perform
well online. Others contend that metrics help to produce better journalism. Heat maps,
for example, indicate where users have stopped reading. Taking such metrics into
account could help journalists to write stories that readers engage with longer or more
frequently.
A more active strategy for fostering engagement and improving relationships with
audiences is taking their questions and feedback seriously. A “middle way” approach
is to ask users to provide input at the end of the assembly line. eir responses to
published content might be organized through comments on the website, posts on
social media, actively asking for tips, or oine discussion meetings about topics
addressed in news coverage. is should not only make news consumers feel they are
involved in the journalistic process, but also result in valuable input for news cover-
age that is of interests to people. Especially on social media, reporters and dedicated
engagement editors interact with news consumers and try to create conversations about
the news.
A “maximalist” approach involves activating users and engaging them in the
newsmaking process. In the 1990s, the public or civic journalism movement already
madeapleafortakingtheconcernsofaudiencesaspointofdeparturefornews
coverage. It urged news media to organize audience input and debate about public
issues. Moreover, it had the ambition to not only cover issues that matter to people but
also to help solving them. Reminiscences of public journalism resonate in movements
like constructive and solution journalism. Participatory and reciprocal journalism
have similar characteristics. ey promise to not only listen to their audiences, but
AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT 5
also take their ideas and interests on board when practicing journalism. e gist is that
professional journalists and amateur citizens join forces to report on stories that matter
for communities. is would raise the level of engagement and thus create better and
more valuable relationships with audiences which can also be commodied.
As a concept, engagement oers an indicator for the value and worthwhileness of
news for individual users and society at large. Although denitions dier, it denotes
both valuable relations between journalism and its public, and between users and the
public world. For many in the news industry engagement might be merely instrumental,
geared toward securing the loyalty of news consumers which can be commodied and
sold to advertisers. Others have a more holistic and idealistic view on engagement and
contend that it should not just be about involving the public in news, but also about
activating them to participate in public life. Engagement with the news is an important
precondition for civic engagement with public issues, specic communities, and society
at large. As such, it is an important indicator for the function journalism claims to have
in society and democracy.
SEE ALSO: 21st-Century Journalism: Digital; Audience Measurement; Audience Stud-
ies; Audiences for Journalism; Citizen Journalism; Letters to the Editor; Media Market
Research; Reader Commenting
References
Green, J., & Jenkins, H. (2014). Spreadable media: How audiences create value and meaning in a
networked economy. In V. Nightingale (Ed.), e handbook of media audiences (pp. 109–127).
Chichester, UK: Wiley Blackwell.
Groot Kormelink, T., & Costera Meijer, I. (2017). What clicks actually mean: Exploring digital
news user practices. Journalism, 19(5), 668–683.
Lehmann, J., Lalmas, M., Elad, Y.-T., & Dupret, G. (2012). Models of user engagement. In J.
Mastho, B. Mobasher, M. Desmarais, & R. Nkambou (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th Inter-
national Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation, and Personalization (pp. 164–175). Berlin,
Germany: Springer.
Napoli, P. (2010). Audience evolution: New technologies and the transformation of media audi-
ences. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
O’Brien, H. L., & Toms, E. G. (2008). What is user engagement? A conceptual framework for
dening user engagement with technology. Journal of the American Society for Information
Science and Technology, 59(6), 938–955.
Oh, J., Bellur, S., & Sundar, S. S. (2010). A conceptual model of user engagement with media. Paper
presented at the 60th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association,
Singapore, June 22–26.
Further reading
Batsell, J. (2015). Engaged journalism: Connecting with digitally empowered news audiences.
New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
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Lawrence, R., Radclie, D., & Schmidt, T. R. (2017). Practicing engagement: Participa-
tory journalism in the Web 2.0 era. Journalism Practice. Advance online publication.
doi:10.1080/17512786.2017.1391712
Napoli, P. (2010). Audience evolution: New technologies and the transformation of media audi-
ences. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Nelson, J. L. (2018). e elusive engagement metric. Digital Journalism, 6(4), 528–544.
Peck, A., & Malthouse, E. C. (2011). Medill on media engagement. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Marcel Broersma is professor of media and journalism studies at the University of
Groningen. His research focuses on the current and historical transformation of jour-
nalism, changing media use, social media, and digital humanities. He has published
numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals, chapters, monographs, edited volumes,
and special journal issues on transformations in journalism, social media, and political
communication. Among his recent publications are: Rethinking Journalism Again: Soci-
etal Role and Relevance in a Digital Age (edited with Chris Peters; Routledge, 2017) and
Redening Journalism in the Era of the Mass Press, 1880–1920 (edited with John Steel;
Routledge, 2017).
