Media entrepreneurship: the value of SNS for alternative media producers

MEDIA ENTREPRENEURSHIP: the value of SNS for alternative

media producers

Dr Janet Fulton

PhD (Media and Communication) (UoN)

Lecturer in Communication

Faculty of Science and IT

School of Design, Communication and IT

26 November 2014

26 November 2014

A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au

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INTRODUCTION

• Research project: Media entrepreneurship: alternative paths for

media producers

• Funded by: University of Newcastle New Staff Grant

• Interviewing media professionals who are engaged in “the

dissemination of news and views about our world” (Simons, 2013,

p. 13) using newer forms of media.

– Bloggers (including lifestyle and news blogs)

– Online magazine producers

– Web publishers

– Broadcasters


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INTRODUCTION

Research questions

• RQ1: How have these new media professionals adapted their skills

in production environments?

• RQ2: What technologies and software, including SEOs and social

media analytics, are deployed by these new media professionals?

• RQ3: What are the evolving business models they are using?

• RQ4: What are the degrees of success of these new media

professionals according to different locations in the media scape?

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THIS PRESENTATION …

• One consistent theme – highly active on social network sites (SNS)

– Twitter

– Facebook

– Instagram

– Pinterest

– Etc.

• This high interaction is how the respondents connect with their

audience

• These respondents are very aware of their audience

• Choose the SNS that matches the audience demographic


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METHOD

• Ethnographic project

• Up to November, interviewed 20 participants via Skype, face-to-

face, email

• Interviews between 20 and 90 minutes and covered the four broad

themes

• More interviews to be done (up to 35)

• Still to conduct a thematic analysis of the participants’ sites

• Interviews are in Nvivo and analysis has started


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Interacting with the audience

• Lowrey & Latta: “Bloggers may desire more readers, but like journalists,

they do not meet or converse with most of their readers directly” (2008, p.

188)

• Not true now

– Bloggers and other new media producers have a high awareness of

their audience and a high interactivity with their audience

– Use commenting, email, RSS, various SNS

• Anderson, et al.: “… in today’s fragmented and fraying world, knowledge of

how audiences consume information, and whether what you write, record,

or shoot reaches the people whom you want to see it, becomes critical”

(2012, pp. 37-38).


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Example: Alison Mudie (e-GPS)

“…you really have to understand your audience, have to understand the

language they speak. You have to understand where they’re going and what

they’re accessing on their Smart phones or iPads or Desktop. What time of

day they might be doing it? How, you know how often people might check

their LinkedIn on the way to work but not at work. Whereas people tend to

check Facebook after lunch or, you know so there’s real patterns and

behaviours so you need to kind of understand those” (Alison Mudie, i/v

12.5.14).


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Listening to the audience

• Jenkins, et al.: “the companies that will thrive over the long term in a

‘spreadable media’ landscape are those that listen to, care about

and ultimately aim to speak to the needs and wants of their

audiences as crucially as they do their own business goals” (2013,

loc. 107).


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Example: Nikki Parkinson (Styling You)

“… [the blog] doesn’t work in isolation, you’ve got your social media

networks around it and the idea is that’s how you bring your readers into the

blog … this is the key when you’re trying to work out what social media to

be on; you need to know where your readers potentially are hanging out”

(Nikki Parkinson, Styling You, i/v 11.5.14).

Nikki Parkinson

– Lifestyle blogger with a focus on fashion and beauty

– Facebook is biggest SNS

– Most of her traffic comes via Facebook

– Uses Twitter but mainly for industry contacts

– Instagram also an important SNS


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Example: Nikki Parkinson

“it’s real, everyday people, and in my demographic if they’re on any

social media at all the number one one [sic] they’re on is Facebook”

(Nikki Parkinson, i/v 11.5.14).

“Instagram for me has become, you can’t say it’s a referrer to the blog,

but it’s a more, I’ve got a following there that is more engaged than

would be on Twitter, and I think it’s the whole visual nature of what I

write about, and it kind of gives people a little bit of an insight to my

life. I enjoy it, and I think this is the key when you’re trying to work out

what social media to be on; you need to know where your readers

potentially are hanging out” (Nikki Parkinson, i/v 11.5.14).


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Entrepreneurship: social context

• Karataş-Özkan & Chell: “entrepreneurship is embedded in a social

context, channelled and facilitated or constrained and inhibited by an

individual’s position in a social network” (2010, p. 31).

• Connection between engaging with SNS and degrees of success

• Social media used for:

– Engaging with their audience

– Keeping in contact with others in the industry

– Promoting their sites/work

“You pimp everything. You just have to now” (Anthony Caruana, i/v 9.9.14).


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Example: Zac Zavos (The Roar)

• Website that has commentary and opinion pieces on sport.

• From the website: “Australian Sports Opinion, Analysis, Live Scores

& News, combining our team of expert writers with fan-written

articles on the latest issues in sport” (http://www.theroar.com.au)

• “The Roar is kind of interesting, we’re on obviously Twitter and

Facebook but our demo is slightly older males … it’s not mind

shattering at all but I just don’t think older men share in the same

way as women and younger demographics do so most of that

community – that social media actually happens on site with The

Roar” (Zavos, i/v, 22.5.14).


26 November 2014

http://www.theroar.com.au

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Example: Josh Mason (BarTV)

• Started with videoing local rugby league matches and broadcasting them

into pubs

• From the website: “Broadcasting local sport into local venues. Our first

year has seen great success filming and broadcasting a variety of local

sport including rugby league, rugby union, soccer, ice hockey, basketball

and T20 cricket” (http://bartv.com.au).

• Main demographic 18-24 males BUT branched out because of Facebook

(friends/families of players)

• Facebook: highlight packages uploaded and friends/family tagged players,

shared clips, etc.

• Twitter: “we can be probably slightly more journalistic with Twitter” (i/v

24.9.14)


26 November 2014

http://bartv.com.au

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Example: Kayte Murphy (Woogsworld)

• Blogger: Mrs Woog “making the most out of the mundane”

(http://www.woogsworld.com)

• Uses Twitter, Instagram and Facebook

“I’ve got a really great Facebook community. And like, it feels like they know

me. It’s very strange because they’ll email me or they’ll send me something

that they’ll know that I’ll love, and or “I thought, I thought of you when I saw

this.” And, and that’s a really great Facebook page” (i/v 21.7.14).


26 November 2014

http://www.woogsworld.com

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Example: Kayte Murphy (Woogsworld)

• Facebook and blog entries are different

• “I think that they’re very different audiences … everything I do is done

deliberately. So something on Facebook, it’s, if it’s a blog post you know

people skim through that in ten seconds and you know you have to sort of

write quite a catchy headline” (i/v 21.7.14).

• “… the blog is like a big party, and then the Facebook page I liken to a, like

a smaller dinner party. And then the Twitter I liken to like a seedy all out

brawl, feralness. I love it. I love Twitter” (i/v 21.7.14).


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CONCLUSION

• Preliminary stages of research at the moment

– Wanting more interviews

– Analysis to continue

• Preliminary results

– being highly active on social media, and understanding how to

use it in relation to the audience, can help in this really difficult

area

– Not an easy path but there are certainly some out there who

are harnessing these knowledges quite successfully.


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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, C.W., Bell, E. and Shirky, C. 2012. 'Post-industrial journalism: adapting to the present', Tow Center for

Digital Journalism, Columbia Journalism School.

Fulton, J. 2012, Journalists and their audience: a changing relationship?, paper presented at Australian and New

Zealand Communication Association conference: Communicating Change and Changing Communication in the 21st

Century, Adelaide, SA, http://www.anzca.net/component/docman/doc_download/617-anzca-2012-fulton-

relationship.html - accessed 1.1.14.

Jenkins, H., Ford, S. and Green, J. 2013, Spreadable media: creating value and meaning in a networked culture, New

York University Press, New York.

Karataş-Özkan, M. and Chell, E. 2010, Nascent entrepreneurship and learning, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham.

Lowrey, W. and Latta, J. 2008, 'The routines of blogging', in Making online news: the ethnography of new media

production, (Eds) C. Paterson and D. Domingo, Peter Lang, New York, pp. 185-197.

Simons, M. 2013, What's next in journalism?: new-media entrepreneurs tell their stories, Scribe Publications,

Brunswick, Victoria.

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26 November 2014

A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014

26 November 2014

DISCUSSION

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26 November 2014

Media entrepreneurship: the value of SNS for alternative media producers

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