oa Summaries

Blogging in Dutch news media: the development of audience participation by using weblogs

With high expectations of audience participation news media started at the beginning of this century with weblogs on their websites. Journalists and readers could publish directly on the media website. The connection with the audience would be strengthened while media would get cheap and relevant content. The main question in this article we want to address is how audience participation at Dutch traditional news media has evolved and especially through blogs. We examined all major Dutch news brands in the presence of blogs from both audience and journalists and interviewed journalists about their expectations and results. The results show that their expectations were not realized and many news media quitted their blogs. Audience participation is still highly valued but blogging, the most extreme form of public participation, has become marginal while the interaction has moved to Facebook.

Keywords: audience participation, journalism, blogging, Dutch news media

Media literacy in Flanders. From parliamentary debate to the establishment of the Knowledge Centre for Media Literacy

The discussion on media literacy in Flanders starts in the Flemish Parliament in 2006. It will take until 2013 before the Flemish government will set up the Knowledge Centre for Media Literacy, Mediawijs. Flanders is therefore rather late in establishing a dedicated institute for media literacy. The same can be said for developing a formal policy framework in relation to media literacy. This article starts with a theoretical discussion of four major trends in the media literacy debate. The article moves on to describe and analyse Flanders media literacy policy debates and policy formulation. It highlights the development and remit of the Knowledge Centre for Media Literacy and discusses the innovative role of the public service broadcaster in relation to media literacy. It ends with a reflection of how Flanders media literacy policy can be situated within the theoretical discussion.

Keywords: media literacy, media education, policy, political debate, public service broadcaster

The documentary as merit good on public service broadcasting: theory, policies and practices in Flanders

Documentaries can be considered merit goods, which are products or services that carry positive externalities for society but which are underprovided by the market because of their low exchange value. Notwithstanding the consensus on the importance of documentaries in the program scheme of public broadcasters, public broadcasting organizations do not always find it a matter of course to invest significantly in such content. Documentaries are undeniably important, but are rarely big rating hits. There is a certain tension between the substantive mission of public broadcasters and the rather instrumental, though important, ambition to reach as many people possible. We examined if documentary as a merit good takes an important place in the programming and investments strategies of the Flemish public broadcaster VRT, based on expert interviews and quantitative analyses on VRT’s program schedules. This shows that VRT’s policies concerning documentary production and distribution are rather inspired by its economic features.

Keywords: documentary, public service broadcasting, Flanders, merit good, VRT

Everyday Multiscreening. How the simultaneous usage of multiple screens affects information processing and advertising effectiveness

Today, people have access to a variety of screens, such as a television, laptop, smartphone, and tablet. Screen saturation and the convergence of these technologies have led to an increase in combining different screens simultaneously, also known as multiscreening. Even though distractions in the form of different screens are ever present, it is still relatively unknown how multiscreening affects information processing and advertising effectiveness compared to single screening. Therefore, the aim of this article is to disentangle the phenomenon of multiscreening and how it affects information processing and advertising effectiveness by 1) exploring the phenomenon of multiscreening in daily life, 2) examining how multiscreening affects advertising outcomes, and 3) examining the facilitating role of task relevance. This article is an overview of a dissertation that examined these three objectives. The current article discusses one literature review and five empirical studies, all based on different datasets.

Keywords: multiscreening, advertising, cognitive effect, affective effect, task relevance