Television audiences and digital social networks: In between an experience and a commitment

Abstract

The widespread use in France of a theoretical and methodological approach toward audiences and publics, hinged around concepts of experience and performance, has led media sociologists and information and communication science researchers to agree on the importance of observation and analysis of spontaneous comments of publics. Nowadays, TV-viewing practices resonate more and more with the use of digital social networks. How does “media convergence” encourage researchers to develop new ways of understanding television audiences, and what audience representations does it produce? The development of television programs that put pressure on viewers to participate via digital social networks seems to be a promising field for the study of television practices as experience. With the idea of integrating the use and adoption of digital tools, the experience would become the outcome of a transmedia practice or habit, called “participation”.