Who knows the audience best: Scandinavian media institutions’ production and use of audience data

TY - ABST

T1 - Who knows the audience best:

T2 - ECREA 2024

AU - Freudendal, Jakob

N1 - Conference code: 10

PY - 2024/9/25

Y1 - 2024/9/25

N2 - The 2010s have seen a growing ambition of connecting production and audience studies to investigate how specific meanings are embedded during the encoding stage of cultural production and how these meanings are interpreted by audiences during the decoding stage (Hill 2018; Redvall 2020). This development has, amongst other things, been prompted by the media industries’ increased focus on harnessing audience input to guide production (Redvall and Christensen 2021; Freudendal 2023). In this paper, I contribute to this connection by exploring the audience turn in screen production for young audiences from the outset of the Danish film and television industries. I focus on the encoding stage by presenting a typology of the multifaceted audience research methods used in these industries and the different types of data they yield.I draw on Ien Ang’s seminal work (1991) by critically examining institutionally produced audience research as a tool for power and control. I aim to discuss if the increased focus on audience data allows the young audiences influence on audiovisual media made for them, or whether it is ultimately used to legitimize media institutions’ relevance to the public.I pay particular attention to the difference between ‘creation of data points’ and ‘capture of data traces’ (Kammer 2023), and how small nation media industries primarily have access to the former, creating a power imbalance between small nation media ecologies and global platforms in the quest for audience insights. The methods used by the industry include qualitative mobile ethnography, quantitative semantic analysis based on AI-powered social media scraping, and various forms of tests, including biometric analysis. Methodologically, I draw on extensive fieldwork in the Danish film industry spanning empirical data from 10+ qualitative interviews with exclusive informants (Bruun 2016), and critical document analysis of audience reports and data commissioned by media institutions.

AB - The 2010s have seen a growing ambition of connecting production and audience studies to investigate how specific meanings are embedded during the encoding stage of cultural production and how these meanings are interpreted by audiences during the decoding stage (Hill 2018; Redvall 2020). This development has, amongst other things, been prompted by the media industries’ increased focus on harnessing audience input to guide production (Redvall and Christensen 2021; Freudendal 2023). In this paper, I contribute to this connection by exploring the audience turn in screen production for young audiences from the outset of the Danish film and television industries. I focus on the encoding stage by presenting a typology of the multifaceted audience research methods used in these industries and the different types of data they yield.I draw on Ien Ang’s seminal work (1991) by critically examining institutionally produced audience research as a tool for power and control. I aim to discuss if the increased focus on audience data allows the young audiences influence on audiovisual media made for them, or whether it is ultimately used to legitimize media institutions’ relevance to the public.I pay particular attention to the difference between ‘creation of data points’ and ‘capture of data traces’ (Kammer 2023), and how small nation media industries primarily have access to the former, creating a power imbalance between small nation media ecologies and global platforms in the quest for audience insights. The methods used by the industry include qualitative mobile ethnography, quantitative semantic analysis based on AI-powered social media scraping, and various forms of tests, including biometric analysis. Methodologically, I draw on extensive fieldwork in the Danish film industry spanning empirical data from 10+ qualitative interviews with exclusive informants (Bruun 2016), and critical document analysis of audience reports and data commissioned by media institutions.

M3 - Konferenceabstrakt til konference

Y2 - 23 September 2024 through 27 September 2024

ER -