The Duality of Media: A Structurational Theory of Public Attention

Abstract

Digital media offer countless options that compete for a limited supply of public attention. The patterns of use that emerge in this environment have important social implications, yet the factors that shape attendance are not well integrated into a single theoretical model. This article posits such a theory using Giddens's notion of structuration as an overarching framework. It identifies public measures that distill and report user information as a pivotal mechanism that coordinates and directs the behaviors of both media providers and media users, thus promoting the duality of media. The theory is then used to understand evolving patterns of public attention in the digital media environment.Digital technologies offer a seemingly endless supply of media that compete for public attention. Commentators have variously celebrated or decried this new world of media, though all seem to recognize that patterns of use will be central to understanding the media's social impact. This article argues that public attention is the result of a structurational process in which institutions and users mutually construct the media environment. Central to this process are two types of public measures. The first, market information regimes, provide media institutions with the data they need to monitor and respond to the marketplace. The second, user information regimes, are new measures that offer consumers tools to navigate the digital environment. All such regimes are socially constructed and potentially biased. Increasingly, though, they determine how things come to public attention.To explore the forces that shape public attention, this article proceeds in four sections. First, it defines public attention and makes a case that it is an important, but underdeveloped, concept in media studies. Second, it outlines a theory of public attention that is derived from Giddens's (1984) work on the duality of structure and the literature on media industries and audience behavior. Third, it demonstrates the ways in which public measures affect the duality of media systems. Finally, it considers how structurational processes shape three socially consequential patterns of

Challenging Selective Exposure

“…Referring to an argument put forward by Webster (2011), we argue that news consumers' rational choices are bounded: Even if they want to be selective, their choice is constraint by structural factors, like the existence of outlets that fit their preferences. One could object that people can also be selective within a news outlet.…”

“…Nevertheless, pessimists' positions that fear an extensive fragmentation of the audience along lines of thematic interests and political viewpoints might exaggerate matters. A number of studies suggest more complex relationships (Holbert, Garrett, and Gleason 2010): While there is a long tradition of research that confirms that people seem to select information according to their political predispositions (Frey 1986;Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet 1944;Sears and Freedman 1967;Zillmann and Bryant 1985), newer studies have nuanced this picture and provided evidence that conflicting sources are not eschewed completely (Garrett, Carnahan, and Lynch 2011;Garrett 2009aGarrett , 2009bJohnson, Zhang, and Bichard 2010;Kobayashi and Ikeda 2009;Stroud 2008;Webster 2011).…”

Knock, Knock. Who's There? The Imagined Audience

“…Previous work has endorsed this approach as a helpful way to understand aspects of the media environment (Webster, 2011), particularly as it relates to the influence on the imagined audience (Hagen, 1999). Ethnographic work on the television industry also illustrates both environmental and individual influences on how television producers imagine audiences, highlighting the use of ''their experiences with audiences from previous programs, their personal projections about who their audience is, and their knowledge of the industry they work in'' (Espinosa, 1982, p. 85).…”

Navigating cross-media news use

“…Even with recent rhetoric about news users as productive and generative entities, news institutions have-under the influence of datafication (Lewis 2014)-often reduced audiences to quantifiable aggregates, which have become easy to track online with detailed traffic metrics at news producers' disposal (Anderson 2011). The rapid proliferation of news media outlets and content in combination with users' limited attention span has resulted in an increasing interest in exposure studies: simply put, finding "hard data" on what audiences do and do not use (Webster 2011).…”