Emergence of Hybrid Time for Media Consumption. Towards a New Research Agenda

Abstract

Scientific objective: The boundaries between leisure time and work time are becoming more fluid, just as barriers between media production and consumption in production of user-generated content are hard to define, yet competing with each other for customers’ attention time. This article proposes a news look at the concept of hybrid time in the context of contemporary media use – flexible, multitasking, multi-threading mixed multidimensional time, which is a consequence of the digital vortex into which our life is pulled. Research methods: While at this time we are able to merely explore the arising issues, we suggest use of qualitative methods of analysis and a critical review of qualitative methodologies used in audience measurement when referring to traditional time budget and internet use research. Results and conclusions: Exploring these issues will hopefully allow us to open a new field of research communication and formulates a number of important macro-scale reserch hypotheses. Cognitive value: The article attempts to make a contribution to a new, hitherto unexplored temporal dimension of contemporary mass communication by proposing an important category of analysis of customers’ attention which is hybrid time.