An audience perspective on the second screen phenomenon

Second screen applications are among the latest of the TV industry’s innovations to retain the TV viewer’s attention in a challenging multi-screen environment. These applications can be regarded as an extension of TV content consumed on a TV set towards lightweight portable devices such as tablets. While numerous commercial instances are available internationally and the existing literature on the topic from a technical perspective is extensive, the audience side of this phenomenon has been paid far less attention to. Moreover, in the case of Flanders, the successful commercial implementation of second screen applications remains limited. In this research, we aim to elicit what TV viewers’ expectations and preferences are regarding second screen functionalities. By applying means-end theory and a laddering approach we were able to discern how these preferences subsequently relate to the TV show itself, the consequences for the viewing experience, as well as how second screen applications and usages are expected to fit in the viewer’s everyday life

Can bottom-up and unstructured locally anchored Facebook-groups be considered as hyperlocal media?

Local information exchange is often considered a crucial aspect for the viability of a neighborhood and to foster civic engagement (Barnett & Townend, 2014). This exchange happens within and across various storytelling levels, for instance interpersonally between neighbors, or from national or local news media to neighborhood residents (Ball-Rokeach, Kim & Matei, 2001). A typical midlevel example of local storytelling agents are the so-called hyperlocal media. An often cited conceptualization of hyperlocal media is the one of Metzgar, Kurpius & Rowley (2011). Typical for their approach is that hyperlocal media are considered to be organized entities, deliberately set up with a journalistic purpose, employing paid or voluntary journalists, and having the normative ideal of fostering local civic engagement. These organized hyperlocal media operations seem however not to be the only mezzo level agents in the storytelling structure of a neighborhood. Recently we see the emergence of bottomup, unstructured, loosely organized and little monitored Facebook-groups, set up by residents to aggregate both residents and information concerning a specific locality such as an urban neighborhood. A quick survey revealed about 20 of these groups and pages in the middle-sized city of Ghent, Belgium. In these online spaces we notice how people share information and news related to the neighborhood, announce and promote events, or report particular neighborhood related problems. These observations raise the question as to what extent these bottom-up online environments show the same qualities and have the same consequences that are typically attributed to hyperlocal media operations (cf. Metzgar et al, 2011). By combining an analysis of a sample of these Facebook-groups and in-depth interviews with moderators and key contributors we investigate to what extent these bottom-up and unstructured locally anchored Facebook-groups can be considered as hyperlocal media. The Facebook-group analysis comprises a content analysis and an analysis of the structural characteristics of these groups. Through the interviews we will investigate the perceptions and motivations of the contributors as well as the consequences pertaining civic engagement outcomes. Through this research we hope to contribute to the understanding of local information exchange and the changing communication environment in urban neighborhoods

Discursive community construction through collaborative digital neighborhood storytelling

Local information exchange is often considered a crucial aspect for the viability of an urban neighborhood (Barnett & Townend, 2014). This exchange happens within and across various storytelling levels (Ball-Rokeach, Kim & Matei, 2001). A typical midlevel example of local storytelling agents are the so-called hyperlocal media. Hyperlocal media are often considered to be organized entities, deliberately set up with a journalistic purpose, employing paid or voluntary journalists, and having the normative ideal of fostering local civic engagement (Metzgar, Kurpius & Rowley, 2011). These organized hyperlocal media operations seem however not to be the only mezzo level agents in the storytelling structure of a neighborhood. Recently, we see the emergence of bottom-up and unstructured Facebook-groups, set up by residents to aggregate both residents and information concerning a specific locality such as an urban neighborhood. In these online spaces we notice how people share information and news related to the neighborhood, announce and promote events, or report particular neighborhood related problems. These observations raise the question as to what extent these bottom-up online environments show the same qualities and have the same consequences that are typically attributed to hyperlocal media operations. By combining a content analysis of a sample of these Facebook-groups and in-depth interviews we investigate to what extent these Facebook-groups can be considered hyperlocal media, both in terms of content and consequences. In order to make sense of the collected data, we rely on the conceptual lenses of network media logic (Klinger & Svenson, 2014) and social capital (Hess, 2013)

Living labs for in-situ open innovation: from idea to product validation and beyond

In this paper we present the Living Lab methodology as an overall framework for in-situ open innovation involving the end-user as equal participant in the innovation process. As a specific form of distributed innovation, relying on co-creation, we demonstrate the applicability of the Living Lab-approach for home ICT innovation by means of four innovation projects in different stages of maturity. We describe the used research methodologies and reflect on the role of the user

Burgerparticipatie en sociale steun tijdens de coronacrisis : bevindingen van een survey-onderzoek in België van 8–17 mei 2020

De verspreiding van het coronavirus stelt ons voor de nodige uitdagingen, dit zowel op persoonlijk als op maatschappelijk vlak. Dit rapport beschrijft de resultaten van een survey-onderzoek, uitgevoerd bij 7146 Vlaamse gebruikers van het online buurtnetwerk Hoplr. Specifiek trachtten we met dit onderzoek burgerparticipatie en sociale steun tijdens de coronacrisis in kaart te brenge

Neighborhood hotspot and community awareness : the double role of social network sites in local communities

There is a tendency in the literature on local digital media use and neighborhood outcomes to conceptualize Social Network Sites (SNSs) as mere transmission channels, thereby ignoring SNSs’ dynamics and limiting the understanding of their role in neighborhood life. Informed by Communication Infrastructure Theory and social media literature, we propose and test a model to investigate the association between the use of SNSs, appropriated as online neighborhood networks, and neighborhood sense of community. We administered a survey to Flemish online neighborhood network users (n = 590) and found that active localized SNS use brings about an online sense of community and community awareness, which both independently lead to a neighborhood sense of community. Based on these findings, we argue that SNSs, appropriated as online neighborhood networks, function simultaneously as neighborhood hotspots in a neighborhood’s communication action context as well as community awareness media in a neighborhood’s storytelling network

OMUS : an optimized multimedia service for the home environment

Media content in home environments is often scattered across multiple devices in the home network. As both the available multimedia devices in the home (e.g., smartphones, tablets, laptops, game consoles, etc.) and the available content (video and audio) is increasing, interconnecting desired content with available devices is becoming harder and home users are experiencing difficulties in selecting interesting content for their current context. In this paper, we start with an analysis of the home environment by means of a user study. Information handling problems are identified and requirements for a home information system formulated. To meet these requirements we propose the OMUS home information system which includes an optimized content aggregation framework, a hybrid group-based contextual recommender system, and an overall web-based user interface making both content and recommendations available for all devices across the home network. For the group recommendations we introduced distinct weights for each user and showed that by varying the weights, the coverage (i.e., items that can be returned by the recommender) considerably increases. Also the addition of genre filter functionality was proven to further boost the coverage. The OMUS system was evaluated by means of focus groups and by qualitative and quantitative performance assessment of individual parts of the system. The modularity of internal components and limited imposed hardware requirements implies flexibility as to how the OMUS system can be deployed (ranging from e.g., embedded in hardware devices or more software services based)

Subjective quality assessment of longer duration video sequences delivered over HTTP adaptive streaming to tablet devices

HTTP adaptive streaming facilitates video streaming to mobile devices connected through heterogeneous networks without the need for a dedicated streaming infrastructure. By splitting different encoded versions of the same video into small segments, clients can continuously decide which segments to download based on available network resources and device characteristics. These encoded versions can, for example, differ in terms of bitrate and spatial or temporal resolution. However, as a result of dynamically selecting video segments, perceived video quality can fluctuate during playback which will impact end-users' quality of experience. Subjective studies have already been conducted to assess the influence of video delivery using HTTP Adaptive Streaming to mobile devices. Nevertheless, existing studies are limited to the evaluation of short video sequences in controlled environments. Research has already shown that video duration and assessment environment influence quality perception. Therefore, in this article, we go beyond the traditional ways for subjective quality evaluation by conducting novel experiments on tablet devices in more ecologically valid testing environments using longer duration video sequences. As such, we want to mimic realistic viewing behavior as much as possible. Our results show that both video content and the range of quality switches significantly influence end-users' rating behavior. In general, quality level switches are only perceived in high motion sequences or in case switching occurs between high and low quality video segments. Moreover, we also found that video stallings should be avoided during playback at all times