Twitter and the new regime of audience measurement

Twitter and the new regime of audience measurement
@JanSchmidt
Düsseldorf, 14.9.2011

Context & Agenda
Work on social web and audience is part of…
… research programme „Betweenreception, interaction, andproduction– changingusers‘ rolesin convergingmedia“ at the Hans-Bredow-Institute
Upcoming 2.5-year-project „(Re-)Discovery oftheaudience“ (fundedby DFG)
Short report „Audiencemetrics 2.0“ for ZDF
Various research & publication projects on the transformation of the public sphere
Perspectives on „audience“ and „audience measurement“
Twitter and audience measurement
An emerging regime?
Audience Measurement
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Three Perspectives on Audience
Audience as recipients
Audience as sum of all receivers of media content;
Considered to be more or less active (passive consumption vs. active selection and engagement with media content)
Audience as product
„manufactured audience“ asmaincommodityproducedbymediaindustry(Smythe1977)
„audience labor“ as dominant activity: media consumption as reproduction of capitalist workforce and training to participate in capitalist consumption society
Audience as empowered networks
Produsageas new mode of media use (Bruns 2008)
Participative mediation is complementing technical and professional mediation in networked public spheres (Neuberger/Nuernbergk/Rischke 2009)
Audience management as important part of self-disclosure and privacy in personal public spheres (Schmidt 2011)

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Regimes of audience measurement
Regime of audience measurement: relatively stable constellation of actors, technologies and practices which produce, with specific interests and within specific power relations, accepted data on size, composition and activities of media audience.
Regime of audience measurement in TV has stabilized over 60+ years: Usually monopolized system of „joint industry committees“ where broadcasters and advertisers put out tenders to specialized research companies (big players: AGB-Nielsen, TNS, GfK Telecontrol)
Trends in broadcast media audience measurement (following Bermejo 2009)
Automated, non-reactive „while you watch“-measuring
Individualized (instead of household-based) measuring
Measuring contact with smaller / shorter pieces of content
Near-live transfer and aggregation of measured data
Twitter (and other online media) is furthering these trends
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Articulatingthe audience on Twitter
Twitter’s communicative architecture is…
… organizing communication and information selection along articulated social connections (followers – followees)
Structures of the networked audience (clustering; centrality-periphery-patterns, etc.) can be measured
… making visible communicative references (@-replies; Re-Tweets; Fav’s; common hashtags; …)
Reach, fluidity and viral spread of de-bundled „microcontent“ as well as of particular issues can be assessed
Follow-up communication“ can be monitored
… making these information available via API’s
Both structure and communication (content & dynamic) within audience is accessible to others
 Twitter is affording extended metrics for audience measurement
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Metrics 2.0
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Assessingthequalityofindicators
For media companies (as for others interested in twitter metrics), various aspects of data quality are important, but yet unanswered
Manipulation: e.g. Fake-Accounts & Astroturfing; buyingfollowers & retweets; Twitter Spam
2nd orderreactivity: real usersgiveincorrect personal informationbecausetheydon‘ttrusttheintermediary
Openingthe „blackbox“: Howisdataconstructed by twitter or other services? Whatalgorithmsareusedtomeasureinfluence, popularity, centrality, etc.?
Puttingmetricsintocontext: e.g. over time; comparedtootheractivities; comparedtoindicatorsfrom different platforms
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Emerging regime?
Regime ofaudiencemeasurement: relativelystable constellation of actors, technologiesandpractices which produce, withspecificinterestsandwithinspecific power relations, accepteddata on size, composition and activities of mediaaudience.
Twitter is not only affording communication, but also aggregating and providing data – control over code and data provides powerful position
Additional actors include (media) companies, market researchers, academic researchers, consulting agencies, … who develop and establish their own methods and reports (e.g. Deutsche Twittercharts; Social Media Ranking; …)
Rapid technological innovation in terms of procedures and algorithms to automate the monitoring, aggregation, analysis, display etc. of audience data
No stable constellation… yet?
Twitter - for monetarization - as well as (media) companies – for evaluation of their activities on Twitter - have interest in establishing agreed-upon indicators and procedures
Technological dynamic, possibly also the transnational and transculturual nature of Twitter might prohibit stabilization of measurement regimes
Combination of science, control, consensus on procedure and trust has allowed previous regimes to emerge (Bourdon/Méadel 2011) – will the same happen with Twitter?
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Reflecting the implications
Changing regime of audience measurement is bringing about new questions
How to compensate the working audience, when audience measurement is becoming „a process of appropriation – commercialization or commodification – of interactivity“ (Bermejo 2009, 149)
Are the „people formerly known as the audience“ also becoming self-aware as an audience? Might this even lead to strategic action (e.g. collectively exerting power to influence indicators)?
How is privacy and data protection maintained when all personal and interaction data is stored and monitored? Can informed consent to data-mining be pre-supposed?
… [probably many many more.. ]
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Thank you!
Dr. Jan-Hinrik Schmidt
Hans-Bredow-Institut
Warburgstr. 8-10, 20354 Hamburg
j.schmidt@hans-bredow-institut.de
www.hans-bredow-institut.de
www.schmidtmitdete.de
www.dasneuenetz.de

Literature
Bermejo, F. (2009): Audience manufacture in historical perspective: from broadcasting to Google. In: New Media & Society, 11(1/2): 133-154.
Bourdon, J.; Méadel, C. (2011): Inside television audience measurement: Deconstructing the ratings machine. In: Media, Culture & Society, 33(5): 791-800.
Bruns, A. (2008): Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and beyond. From production to produsage. New York u.a.: Peter Lang.
Neuberger, C.; Nuernbergk, C.; Rischke, M. (2009): Journalismus im Internet: Profession, Partizipation, Technisierung. Wiesbaden: VS.
Schiffers, O. (2010): Tools und Kennzahlen für das Social Web. In: Brauckmann, P. (Hg.): Web-Monitoring. Konstanz: UVK. 267-286.
Schmidt, J. (2011): (Micro)Blogs: Practices of Privacy Management. In: Trepte, S.; Reinecke, L. (Eds.): Privacy Online. Heidelberg: Springer.
Smythe, D. (1977): Communications: blindspot of Western Marxism. In: Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, 2(2): 1-27.

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Twitter and the new regime of audience measurement

by Jan Schmidt on Sep 14, 2011

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