News, Networks and Users in the Hybrid Media system: 2nd Seminar Report

86 p.During the last few months, the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated issues have monopolized the debate on the media and social networks. Thus, the news actors in the hybrid media system have incorporated the fight against the infodemic and disinformation as another priority in a society that has demanded constant and reliable information in multiple formats and media. But in this environment in which borders are increasingly blurred, the need for citizens to receive up-to-date and truthful information on issues of high social impact is superimposed on the dynamics of social media, which can contribute to feeding back discourses that promote polarization. The information saturation typical of an information ecosystem in which information actors and sources multiply has, therefore, as a paradoxical reverse, the increased risk of misinformation. In this context, this report includes the main contributions made by the researchers of the project News, networks and users in the Hybrid Media System (RTI2018-095775-B-C41/42/44) in the 2nd Newsnet Seminar, which was held in Bilbao on November 16, 2021.News, networks and users in the Hybrid Media System (Newsnet) is a research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (RTI2018-095775-B-C41/42/44

Leveraging Transmedia Communication Strategies to Improve Engagement and Foster Collaboration in Citizen-Science Projects

The Independent Studies program closed in 2016. This thesis was one of 25 accepted by Library for long-term preservation and presentation in UWSpace.Citizen science is the term used for the practice of harnessing non-expert, volunteer efforts to further scientific research using a crowdsourcing approach to collect, record, and analyze data and to fulfill other task work related to research. Maintaining enough interest and motivation to sustain participant engagement and involvement presents a challenge for project organizers. Current research indicates that a large percentage of participants contribute enthusiastically to citizen-science projects for a short period of time, only to lose interest, disengage from the project, and stop contributing. However, communication strategies can counteract some volunteer attrition by continually underscoring the importance and value of their contributions, and by raising a project's profile to keep it top-of-mind, relevant, and interesting to participants. This thesis explores how citizen-science projects could apply or adapt transmedia storytelling, communication and engagement techniques - particularly in a context similar to documentary filmmaking - in order to reward contributors with a positive, integrated media experience to bolster engagement with the subject matters and the goals of long-term research projects. It will examine the history of public participation in science, the history of modern participatory culture, and how new media strategies can by applied toward a top-down, novice-level, biological - and environmental - monitoring project (the most abundant type of project in citizen science.

TRANSITIONS: Biophilia, Beauty and Endangered Plants

While the science continues to underline the increasing risks posed by climate change, rallying the public to the cause has proved increasingly difficult. A major challenge is finding alternatives to the despair, hopelessness and consequent sense of disempowerment that confronting the realities of climate change can provoke. It is also the case that particular silent aspects of the impact of climate change – for example on the future viability of certain plant species – receive less public and political attention than others, such as catastrophic weather events. Artists have been active in exploring the impact of climate change through a variety of aesthetic strategies in attempts to address these challenges and mobilise complex understandings of the phenomenon. The response of this thesis is to focus on a specific issue and location – endangered Australian plants – and to experiment with a range of different artistic approaches, filtered through the lens of biophilia and beauty. The experimental artwork produced builds and demonstrates a bridge between botanical science, endangered plant species, and art, in relation to climate change. The PhD research makes four substantial contributions. First, it presents a different perspective on the applied use of art as a mode of enquiry into climate change, through creative agency and advocacy on the focused theme of endangered Australian plants. Second, the research explores and assesses alternative methods for making and reconceptualising static drawings into moving images, as a strategy to engage artistically and positively with the negative ecopsychology and ecoanxiety of climate change. Third, newly initiated, collaborative projects with non-arts partners are deployed to enhance audience engagement through the application of drawings. In parallel to this, conventional international and national exhibitions, publications and workshops are also realised as additional contributions to knowledge within different communities. Fourth, the research results in a document which explores a hopeful reconnection with nature through applying and embracing an aesthetic of beauty and meditative mindfulness. A Transmedia Art method is utilised to enhance broader community understanding of Eco Art, using a mindful, practice based research process

Entertainment-Education in the New Media Landscape: Stimulating Creative Engagement in Online Communities for Social and Behavioral Change

The Entertainment-Education (EE) strategy uses dramatic serials on radio or TV to motivate audiences to engage in behavioral changes to designed to improve safety, health and equality. This dissertation explores how the EE strategy can be extended to the Internet

Ristmeedia avalikus ringhäälingus: tootjate ja auditooriumide vaheline heitlus

Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsiooneTänapäevane meediamaastik, mis hõlmab arvukalt nii traditsioonilisi kui uusi audiovisuaalide tootjaid, ajendab ühest küljest ringhäälinguorganisatsioone uurima televisiooni ja interneti ning teatud juhtudel ka muu meedia vahelise sünergia poolt pakutavaid võimalusi ning teisalt kujutab see endast võimalusterohket väljakutset meediasõnumite tõlgendamiseks auditooriumide poolt. Käesoleva väitekirja eesmärk on vaadelda, kuidas tootjad auditooriume kontseptualiseerivad, uurida erinevusi ja sarnasusi oodatavate meediaüleste tekstide tõlgendamises ideaalse publiku poolt ja selliste meediaproduktsioonide võimalikku ühtlustamist tegeliku auditooriumi poolt. Töö ülesandeks meedia muutuvas olukorras on kujutada suhet Soome ja Eesti avaliku meedia tootjate ning auditooriumide vahel kindlal ajaperioodil – täpsemalt aastatel 2016-2017. I, II, III ja IV uurimuse kombineeritud tulemused annavad üldpildi, mille kokkuvõte on järgnev: • avalikõiguslikud ringhäälinguorganisatsioonid püüavad luua avalikku väärtust, kaldudes ristmeedia poole. Nende eesmärgiks on reageerida killustuva auditooriumi probleemile ja sellest tulenevale väljakutsele säilitada oma roll ühiskonnas; • ristmeedia produktsioonipraktikale ülemineku potentsiaalset mõju ohustavad produtsentide uskumused ja meediavastuoluline vastuvõtt auditooriumide poolt; • produtsendid asetavad status quo säilitamise ristmeedia pakutavate võimaluste ära kasutamisest kõrgemale, sest ristmeedia poolt pakutavat auditooriumide osalust peetakse ohuks kvaliteedile ja vastutusele; • produtsendid kujundavad kujuteldava auditooriumi lähtudes iseendist, oma eelarvamustest ja ettekujutusest; • avalikõiguslik meedia, mille eesmärgiks on avaliku väärtuse loomine, võib kaasavaid ristmeedia võimalusi kasutades sattuda vastuollu eetiliste juhtnööridega; • auditooriumide valmisolekut olla tekstidesse aktiivselt kaasatud ei reguleeri mitte ainult meediumi ja tekstide lubatavused, vaid see, kuidas neid lubatavusi tajutakse.Today's media landscape – which includes a multitude of audio-visual providers – is, on one hand, pushing television networks to exploit the opportunities offered by the synergy of television with the internet and, in certain cases, other media and, on the other hand, it represents a potential enhanced challenge to the audience’s interpretation of media messages. The aim of this doctoral dissertation is to explore producers’ conceptualisations of audiences, and to explore the differences and similarities between the ideal audience’s expected interpretation of productions across media and the possible appropriation of such media productions by the actual audience. The objective of this work is a snapshot of the relationship between producers and audiences of the public service media of Finland (YLE) and Estonia (ERR) at a specific time, namely the period 2016-2017. The doctoral dissertation consists of an introductory article and four related studies. The combined findings of Studies I, II, III and IV provide a picture that can be summarised as follows: • Public service broadcasters strive to create public value by leaning towards cross-media. They do so in an attempt to address the fragmentation and loss of audiences and, consequentially, to maintain the role they have in society; • the effectiveness of a shift to cross-media practice is put at risk by both producers’ beliefs and by the audience reception of the different media; • producers privilege the status quo over cross-media, which, since it implies audience participation, is perceived as a threat to excellence and accountability; • producers imagine the audience to be based on their own self, leaving room for approximation; • public service media, whose aim is to generate public value, may fall into the contradiction of overruling their ethical guiding principles in the attempt to implement engaging cross-media productions. • audiences’ willingness to actively engage with a specific medium is regulated by the their perception of that medium

Communicating Climate Change: An Examination of Narrative Intuition, Transmedia Acumen, and Emotional Intelligence in the Presentation of the Transmedia Emotional Engagement Storytelling (TREES) Model

This dissertation contextualizes a new model to help design more effective communication campaigns aimed at addressing the climate emergency. My multi-pronged research approach led me to discover three key competencies, or abilities—(1) Narrative Intuition, (2) Transmedia Acumen, and (3) Emotional Intelligence—that can be combined to bring about deeper and lasting emotional engagement with climate change storyworlds. The public is inundated with climate change discourse unlike ever before, yet most of us remain superficially engaged with solutions to the crisis because of a multifaceted set of challenges that are unique to climate change communications. To this end, climate change communicators should consider the efficacy of narrative affect—or how affective experiences result in varying levels of emotional engagement and ultimately influence how people live out their lives. To transport people into climate change storyworlds, this dissertation asserts that transmedia storytelling, or the worldbuilding process, can place a renewed emphasis on the affective dimensions of our engagement with climate change. Across five chapters, I use a transmedial econarratological lens to answer two core research questions: (1) How is a successful transmedia storytelling climate change campaign structured? (2) What does a novel transmedia storytelling model for the modern climate change campaign comprise? In Chapter 1, I affirm that narrative building can serve as an effective strategy for climate change campaigns. Chapter 2 is divided into four parts that explore the prevailing challenges that surround climate change communications, as well as, theories of narrative, transmedial narrative, and engagement, and in parallel, the Degree of Narrativity, Degree of Transmediality, and Degree of Engagement—the main branches of the TREES Model I present in Chapter 5. In Chapter 3, I highlight the ethnographic methodological lens I used to conduct my research. In Chapter 4, I examine the structure and best practices of two exemplary transmedia storytelling campaigns. Finally, in Chapter 5, I elaborate on the origins of my TREES Model to introduce three key competencies used in the production of a storyworld that evokes emotional engagement with audiences. This document concludes with a summary of recommendations to inspire additional research

Tesis doctoral: Narrativas Móviles – estrategias discursivas y modos de participación en el Arte Locativo

This thesis investigates the design process of mobile-based narratives to verify whether the affordances and constraints of the supporting medium have contributed to shaping specific discursive strategies and particular participation modes. Have properties such as connectivity, location-awareness, portability, and multimodality enabled narrative formats that gained force by contesting traditional patterns and classic narrativity notions? The unveiling of the research inquiry happens through a bricolage of methods in a dialogue between artistic and scientific domains. The study of the phenomenon comprises three correlated stages. The first is a theoretical literature review that investigates the artistic use of locative and mobile media, and their influence in the basic principles governing narratives. The second is a case study of Blast Theory artistic practice grounded in an ethnographic approach with site-visit, and resulting in a qualitative analysis of four of their projects. The third moment consists of applied-theory activities that lead to the collaborative development of a geolocated narrative which serves to evaluate participant's experience.Esta tesis explora el diseño de las narrativas basadas en los dispositivos móviles, dedicándose a comprobar si los recursos expresivos y las limitaciones del medio contribuyen a la formación de estrategias discursivas y modos de participación particulares y específicos. Propiedades tales como la conectividad, la geolocalización, la portabilidad y la multimodalidad han permitido la aparición de nuevos formatos narrativos que ganan fuerza disputando los patrones tradicionales y las nociones clásicas de la narratividad? La revelación de la pregunta se da fruto la combinación de diferentes métodos, mediante un diálogo entre los ámbitos artístico y científico. El estudio del fenómeno comprende tres etapas. La primera es la revisión de la literatura teórica que investiga el uso artístico de los locative media, así como su influencia en los principios básicos que rigen las narrativas. La segunda es un estudio de caso de la práctica artística del colectivo Británico Blast Theory, basada en el abordaje etnográfico de una visita de campo y posterior análisis cualitativo de cuatro de sus obras. El estudio se extiende en un tercer lugar con actividades de teoría aplicada, incluyendo el desarrollo colaborativo de una narrativa geolocalizada que sirve para evaluar la experiencia de los participantes