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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 Nyirő, Tamás Csordás and Dóra Horváth
Mediated public voices need theory to be heard
Nurçay Türkoğlu
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 Radojković and Ana Milojević
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 Nyirő, 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 Türkoğlu
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 Radojković and Ana Milojević
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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Salvatore Scifo
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Ph.D Candidate, Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI)
University of Westminster
www.westminster.ac.uk/camri
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Executive Board Member / Webmaster, ECREA
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European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA)
4th European Communication Conference
Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
www.ecrea2012istanbul.eu