TV news and social audience in Europe (EU5): On-screen and Twitter Strategies

Abstract

Social networks have altered how viewers watch television and consume information. This new context has obliged broadcasters to adapt their practices to reach viewers in all platforms. In this article, we focus on how the evening news programmes from the general-interest DTT channels in the five main European markets (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom) appeal to their social audience. This concept, although ambiguous, refers to the activity of viewers on social networks in relation to the contents broadcast by the television industry in its multiple forms. We analyse both the screen strategies and their activity on their official Twitter accounts. Although the evening news is the anchor of the prime time and one of the main assets to instil the channels with prestige and influence, the conclusions point to a certain neglect of the social audience from the industry in these key programmes. But mostly, our research reveals how the specificities of the format and the nature of the content distinguish the evening news from other live TV shows.

The curation of European Netflix catalogues on social media: The key role of transnational and local cultural traits

“…These platforms are public spaces where, according to William I Robinson, audiovisual content is constantly curated as networks 'for discussing, sorting, suggesting, critiquing, and interacting with, in, and around televisual texts ' (2017: 26). Such curation is done by users actively seeking content and sharing their viewing experiences, tastes and comments on social media; and by broadcasters and streaming platforms, which consider these networks as a tool to increase the number of viewers and engage with them (Delgado et al, 2018;Monclús et al, 2019).…”

“…Although the strategy of including local cultural identity elements is the one most widely adopted by Netflix, it is also important to highlight references to major national political and cultural events as a strategy to localise content. In the political sphere, both historical events and current affairs such as elections or other acts related to national politics are used, particularly on Twitter, the social network most connected to the daily life of users due to its ability to create synchronous conversations (Delgado et al, 2018). Large national cultural events are also another recurring element.…”

“…In addition, some of the programmes commented on such as The Eurovision Song Contest (1956-) and Game of Thrones (2011-2019) are broadcast in several countries but commented on from a local perspective. While SVoD platforms cannot take advantage of the loyalty generated by these synchronous conversations through social television (Delgado et al, 2018), except during some live events, they join the conversation of off-brand titles as a localisation strategy and thus position the brand as an established part of the local industry and digital culture (Figure 6).…”

The Past Web

“…The social television phenomenon has mainly attracted the attention of researchers in the social studies (De Michele et al, 2019;Ceron and Splendore, 2019;Delgado et al, 2018;Shokrpour and Darnell, 2017;Pfeffel et al, 2016;Gorkovenko and Taylor, 2016) but also of those working in different domains, from neuroscience (Seixas et al, 2018) to computer science (Katz et al, 2018). A tool that recreates social television activities using archived data will help social scientists to explore this phenomenon in detail, and open up new avenues of research.…”

Estrategias de activación de la audiencia social en Twitter de los programas más populares de la televisión generalista en Europa

“…Ante este reto los programas televisivos de mayor audiencia están llevando a cabo diferentes estrategias de apelación a la audiencia social que comprenden: la difusión en pantalla de las cuentas de plataformas digitales -y aplicaciones creadas ad hoc-, el uso de hashtags y menciones para incentivar la participación de la audiencia e incluso incorporar dentro de la continuidad de los programas espacios y acciones que buscan la participación de la audiencia social. Por el momento estas iniciativas tienen un alcance bastante moderado y se concentran en el género info-show y en la plataforma Twitter (Delgado et al, 2018).…”