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[ecrea] new journal issue: 'Interrogating audiences: Theoretical horizons of participation' (free download)
Mon Dec 12 15:53:02 GMT 2011
Special CM Journal Issue 'Interrogating audiences: Theoretical horizons
of participation', edited by Nico Carpentier & Peter Dahlgren
The special journal issue 'Interrogating audiences: Theoretical horizons
of participation', edited by Nico Carpentier & Peter Dahlgren has just
been published in the academic journal CM (Communication Management
Quarterly). This peer-reviewed special issue aims to contribute to the
development of participatory theory within the framework of
communication and media studies. As always, this requires careful
manoeuvring to reconcile conceptual contingency with the necessary
fixity that protects the concept of participation from signifying
anything and everything. In order to deepen the theorisations of
participation, two strategies have been used in this special issue: In a
first cluster of articles, the concept of participation will be
confronted with another theoretical concept or tradition that will
enrich the theoretical development of participation. In the second
cluster of articles, the workings of the notion of participation will be
analysed within a specific topical field, which will allow deepening
participatory theory by confronting participation with the
contextualised logics of that topical field.
The entire special issue can be downloaded from the Cost TATS website at
the WG2 download page:
http://www.cost-transforming-audiences.eu/node/303
The direct link is:
http://www.cost-transforming-audiences.eu/system/files/pub/CM21-SE-Web.pdf
Alternatively, the special issue can also be downloaded from the CM
webpage, at:
http://www.fpn.bg.ac.rs/2011/10/24/cm-casopis-za-upravljanje-komuniciranjem-2/
Here, the direct link is:
http://www.fpn.bg.ac.rs/wp-content/uploads/CM21-SE-Web.pdf
The theoretical work captured in the articles of this special issue
originates from the Working Group on "Audience interactivity and
participation" of the COST Action "Transforming Audiences, Transforming
Societies" (TATS), which is financed from 2010-2014. The main objective
of the TATS COST Action is to advance state-of-the-art knowledge of the
key transformations of European audiences within a changing media and
communication environment, identifying their interrelationships with the
social, cultural and political areas of European societies. This COST
Action comprises more than 230 scholars from 30 countries. Its Working
Group on "Audience interactivity and participation" focuses on the
possibilities and constraints of mediated public participation; the
roles that old and new media institutions and professionals (including
journalists) play in facilitating public participation and in building
citizenship; the interlocking of mainstream media and non-mainstream
media and their production of new hybrid organisational structures and
audience practices.
Table of contents
Interrogating audiences: Theoretical horizons of participation
CM Communication Management Quarterly, 21, 2011
ISSN 1452-7405
Introduction: Interrogating audiences - Theoretical horizons of
participation
Nico Carpentier and Peter Dahlgren
The concept of participation. If they have access and interact, do they
really participate?
Nico Carpentier
Social capital: Between interaction and participation
Manuel José Damásio
Applying genre theory to citizen participation in public policy making:
Theoretical perspectives on participatory genres
Marie Dufrasne and Geoffroy Patriarche
Parameters of online participation: Conceptualising civic contingencies
Peter Dahlgren
Competing by participation - A winning marketing tool
Nóra Nyir?, Tamás Csordás and Dóra Horváth
Mediated public voices need theory to be heard
Nurçay Türko?lu
When the museum becomes the message for participating audiences
Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt and Pille Runnel
A critical analysis of two audience prototypes and their participatory
dimensions
Miroljub Radojkovi? and Ana Milojevi?
The participatory turn in the publishing industry: Rhetorics and practices
Francesca Pasquali
Abstracts
Introduction: Interrogating audiences - Theoretical horizons of
participation
Nico Carpentier and Peter Dahlgren
No abstract available
The concept of participation. If they have access and interact, do they
really participate?
Nico Carpentier
Summary: Participation is a concept that is being used in a wide variety
of fields, and that has obtained an evenly wide range of meanings. This
article attempts first to ground participation in democratic theory,
which allows introducing the distinction between minimalist and
maximalist forms of participation. In the second part of the article, a
broad definition of the political will be used to transcend to logics of
institutionalized politics, and to emphasize that the distribution of
power in society is a dimension of the social that permeates every
possible societal field. Both discussions are used to describe the key
characteristics of participation, and to increase the concept's
theoretical foundation. The article then zooms in on one of these
characteristics, namely the difference between access, interaction and
participation, as this distinction allows further sharpening the key
meanings attributed to participation as a political process where the
actors involved in decision-making processes are positioned towards each
other through power relationships that are (to an extent) egalitarian.
Social capital: Between interaction and participation
Manuel José Damásio
Summary: The purpose of this article is to discuss different ways of
conceptualizing social capital in order to bring out the contested and
multidimensional character of the concept and relate that with both
social interaction and participation in the context of media and network
technologies use and consumption. Throughout its history the media have
always included a mix of centralized practices and interpersonal
communication processes that shape different patterns of relationship
between subjects and technologies and generate different social
outcomes. The emergence of the communication and networks paradigm as
central to the processes of social interaction and community building,
invites us to look closely at the mechanisms that individuals use in
order to interact and participate in the social networks in which they
move themselves. Social capital is one of such mechanisms, a
multidimensional concept with different dimensions and features. We
discuss social capital's complementary and sometimes antagonistic
dimensions in relation with subjective forms of participation and
interaction with and via the media. Finally, we will also tap into the
different constructs that social capital allows for and exploit their
potential for the argument around network media potential to generate
original forms of interaction and participation.
Applying genre theory to citizen participation in public policy making:
Theoretical perspectives on participatory genres
Marie Dufrasne and Geoffroy Patriarche
Summary: This research is aimed at constructing a theoretical framework
for the study of citizen participation in public policy making, based on
genre theory. Drawing on various approaches to genre (rhetorical
analysis, literary analysis, sociolinguistics, media studies,
organisational communication, user interface design, and
computermediated communication), this paper suggests a series of
theoretical perspectives on participatory genres, a notion freely
borrowed from Erickson (1997) and applied to the methods, activities or
applications of citizen participation in public policy making (e.g.
consultations, petitions, citizens panels, opinion polls). The proposed
theoretical framework takes into account the contexts of participation
(conceived as both situations and communities) as well as the
interrelationships between participatory genres, and focuses on the
repertoires of elements (Lacey, 2000) that characterize participatory
genres in terms of 'why', 'how', 'what', 'who/m', when' and 'where'
(Orlikowski & Yates, 1998). It is argued that approaching citizen
participation in public policy making through the lens of participatory
genres is valuable to both researchers and practitioners.
Parameters of online participation: Conceptualising civic contingencies
Peter Dahlgren
Summary: The new online media obviously offer very impressive
opportunities for participation. Yet, we need to specify more carefully
what we mean by participation, and try to illuminate its key elements.
Thus, after first presenting some overarching, scene-setting
perspectives on participation and digital media, this presentation
offers five basic parameters of participation, a conceptual framework
intended to be empirically useful. The five are: trajectories,
modalities, motivations, sociality and visibility. Each parameter has
some further subcategories; for example, I suggest three basic
trajectories: consumption, civil society and politics. These obviously
are entangled with each other in the real world, yet the distinctions
allow us to focus on political participation as a specific form. To what
extent and how participation is realised depends on many factors. Here I
highlight the notion of contingency, underscoring the point that a
complex interplay of conditions and circumstances both make possible and
delimit political participation. I look at three sets of contingencies:
institutional features of online media (illustrated with a brief look at
Google), attributes of the mainstream online environments that have a
clear hegemonic character, and established social patterns of use that
can also impact on this environment. For the latter, I highlight what I
call the solo sphere as an emerging feature of online political
participation - the tendency towards isolated, individualised
communication. I then run these three types of contingencies across the
five parameters to arrive at a preliminary perspective on how the online
environment both facilitates and deflects political participation of the
non-mainstream kind.
Competing by participation - A winning marketing tool
Nóra Nyir?, Tamás Csordás and Dóra Horváth
Summary: In the new media and communications context audiences are more
empowered than ever to make their voices heard. Audiences, consumers are
actively influencing the marketing activities of firms and brands. In
the new dominant logic of marketing, firms are constrained to engage in
complex processes of exchange with their consumers. To be able to keep
up with the competition and media noise, it is crucial for companies to
involve their audiences, potential consumers. Consumer participation in
this context does not end with special attention for the brand, as
companies turned to electronic word-of-mouth and other interactive
messages concerning the company. Consumers themselves not only create
advertisements and broadcast them in favour of or against organizations,
they also create new products via a number of co-creative procedures and
they are pushing the organizations to launch new pricing models.
Therefore the scope of user-generated content is rather diverse from a
marketing perspective. By generating an overview of the participation
phenomenon in marketing and marketing communications literature, this
article endeavours to reconcile the related taxonomy used in the
business and marketing literature by an extended summary and explanation
of the key terms. This will allow us to conclude that the most important
central theme of the very diverse literature of audience participation
lies in the fact that it is inspired, facilitated, established or
maintained by the participating corporation as a core element. As such,
participating corporations manage to extract a source of additional
satisfaction and thus an added value that in a long term can be
transformed into a competitive advantage.
Mediated public voices need theory to be heard
Nurçay Türko?lu
Summary: This article, grounded in the need for critical theory for a
better comprehension of the social world, engages with the concept of
critical media literacy as an example of a combination of distance and
involvement. Critical theory, and more particularly critical media
literacy, is seen as a wordly matter that can play a significant role in
both theoretical and practical worlds. The article then focuses on the
mediation of public voices and the need for critical media literacy to
deal with media participation. Motivated by mediatic hopes, audiences,
media scholars and media professionals can appeal to critical media
literacy to go beyond the barriers of conservatism, intolerance and
consumerism. At the same time, all three groups face many different
restrictions that impede upon the organisation of critical media
literacy, and its focus on participation.
When the museum becomes the message for participating audiences
Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt and Pille Runnel
Summary: This article aims to analyse the notion of participation in the
museum context using an audience studies perspective. Museums are
increasingly competing for the attention of the public in the arenas of
leisure and education, the process of which is part of the
commercialisation of the museum institution. In addition, a turn towards
interactivity is taking place in museums, and while that might serve
well to revitalise the museum and bring it closer to its audiences, it
does not sufficiently support realisation of the change of the museum
institution into a laboratory-type museum (de Varine, 1988; van Mensch,
2005) - a concept defined through the communicative and democratic
aspects of the museum. As is the case with many public institutions, the
democratisation of society is increasing the need for transparency and
accountability, which in turn has brought public engagement to the
attention of the museum. According to Simon (2010), museums need to find
a balance between the activities of the museum and audiences: the
(potential) need to overcome the shyness of expertise combined with the
need to organise the (potential) flood of amateurs. These different
evolutions - the ambiguity of expertise, the move towards interactivity
and the need for public engagement - increase the need to understand
participation at museums. This paper discusses the ideas of what
participation means in the museum context through Giddens' framework of
democratising democracy (1995) by looking at the museum through three
key roles: as cultural, economic and public institutions, each of which
has different reasons for and meanings of museum participation.
A critical analysis of two audience prototypes and their participatory
dimensions
Miroljub Radojkovi? and Ana Milojevi?
Summary: This article discusses how the concept of audience theory has
been developed within two basic intellectual traditions, resulting in
two basic prototypes. On one side, there is the trajectory of the "mass
audience" that was created and developed parallel with the emergence of
the media of mass communication. The mass audience is regarded as a
multilayer collectivity, residing at the end of a successive linear
communication process - sender, channel, message, receiver and effects.
In this one-way communication model, the audience is primarily the
receiving structure, with little or no opportunity for feedback and
participation in the communication process. The other prototype is
linked to the development of new digital media and the internet; here
the public is theoretically considered as "cross media" and active. The
audience of new media is seen as a heterogeneous and structural
collective in the communication model that characterizes the flow of
information "many to many". This prototype attributes to the new, active
audiences or users unlimited power to participate and shape the
communication processes. We discuss features of the two prototypes,
including media usage, media access, information resources, time
engagement and functions derived from media use. The most important
feature we take up, however, is participation. We point out the problems
and limitations of both prototypes in this regard. On the one hand the
study of audiences has long been rooted in the concept of mass audience
and limited with its primal orientation towards the effects of mass
communication, while on the other hand, the emerging prototype 2 is all
too easily granted participatory capacities, especially concerning the
public sphere. Therefore, the theorists of new and old media must step
outside the prevailing postulates and consider the audience beyond the
two prevailing prototypes in order to further deepen our knowledge and
understanding of contemporary audiences and their participation.
The participatory turn in the publishing industry: Rhetorics and practices
Francesca Pasquali
Summary: One of the cultural and media areas in which the issue of
participation - with all its ambiguity - has recently emerged to full
significance is the area of literature and publishing. Following the
music, film and television industries, the publishing industry is in
fact facing a vast renewal due to digitalization processes (assuming
digitalization as a complex negotiation between social and technological
forces). New textual formats and devices (such as e-books), new forms of
distribution (e.g. online retailing), new marketing strategies (e.g. in
the social media), new models of business (e.g. the print on demand) are
becoming increasingly popular. At the same time digitalization has
enabled the creation of a whole new participatory, grassroots publishing
market, while grassroots storytelling and social media (e.g. Twitter,
Facebook), used as a collaborative writing environment, bring out
participatory forms of online writing that continue the tradition
started almost fifteen years ago by the so-called "hypertextual fiction"
and the avant-gardes before that. In this context, by addressing the
theoretical debate and recent social discourses on the e-book, this
article suggests a recognition of the diversity of the forms of
participation that are ascribed to the new publishing scenario. Secondly
- moving from the Foucauldian notion of author-function - the article
solicits the relationship between author and reader in the contemporary
digital publishing scenario and addresses the question whether and under
what conditions the supposed participatory turn in writing and
publishing we are facing promotes the construction of a polyphonic,
co-authored, recognizable, collaborative dialogue, or rather points to a
cultural landscape where "all discourses […] would develop in the
anonymity of a murmur" (Foucault, 1969).
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