The framing of value

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between the television industry and participatory audiences through a rhetoric of empowerment that frames audience engagement in particular ways. I focus on how contests based on the creation of user-generated content are utilized in the industry–audience relationship; here my primary case studies are the use of user-generated video contests for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and The Office. I explore how these shows try to produce and harness the activity of participatory audiences. Further, I argue that an emphasis on understanding the regimes of value for participants is key to understanding these experiments in digital audience retention.

Keywords

Digital interactivity rhetoric of empowerment television translation value

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alexander

(2001) Interactivity, changing content, personalization are keys to Web ‘stickiness’. Kansas City Business Journal. Available at: http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2001/12/10/focus8.html (accessed 2 March 2010).

Arvidsson

(2006) Brands: Meaning and Value in Media Culture. London: Routledge.

Bolter

Grusin

(2001) Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Bourdieu

(1984) Distinction. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Burgess

Green

(2009) YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Caldwell

(2003) Second-shift media aesthetics: Programming, interactivity, and user flows. In: John

Caldwell

Anna

Everett

(eds) New Media: Theories and Practices of Digitextuality. New York: Routledge Press, pp. 127–144.

Cover

(2006) Audience inter/active:interactive media, narrative control and reconceiving audience history. New Media & Society 8(1): 139–158.

Dean

(2009) Communicative Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press.

Fiske

(1987) Television Culture. London: Routledge.

10.

Fora.tv. (2012) Value, engagement and trust in the era of social media, Fora.tv’s Edelman’s survey: Trust in the Era of Social Entertainment. Available at: http://fora.tv/2011/06/09/Value_Engagement_and_Trust_in_the_Era_of_Social_Media (accessed 13 March 2012).

11.

Hartley

(1999) Uses of Television. London: Routledge.

12.

Howe

(2008) Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business. New York: Crown Business.

13.

Jenkins

(2006) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press.

14.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (2008a) First Video Blog (12/08/08). In: Latenightwithjimmyfallon.com. Available at: http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/video/first-video-blog-12808/869181 (accessed 12 May 2010).

15.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (2008b) December 12th – Ask Jimmy’. In: Latenightwithjimmyfallon.com. Available at: http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/video/december-12th-ask-jimmy/881001 (accessed 12 May 2010).

16.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (2008c) January 20th – Diggnation. In: Latenightwithjimmyfallon.com. Available at: http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/video/january-20th-diggnation/950081 (accessed 1 May 2010).

17.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (2009a) Jimmy fallon dance challenge. In: Latenightwithjimmyfallon.com. Available at: http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/blogs/contests (accessed on 1 May, 2010).

18.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (2009b) Intern contest: We want someone as awesome as this tiny monkey. In: Latenightwithjimmyfallon.com. Available at: http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/blogs/contests (accessed 1 May 2010).

19.

Leadbeater

(2004) The Pro-Am Revolution. London: Demos.

20.

Levy

(1997) Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace. New York: Plenum Trade.

21.

McPherson

(2006) Reload: Liveness, mobility, and the web. In: Chun

WHK

Keenan

(eds) New Media, Old Media. New York: Routledge, pp. 199–208.

22.

Miller

(2010) Jimmy fallon, star wars, old spice win creative arts Emmy awards. The New York Times. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2010/08/23/23gigaom-jimmy-fallon-star-wars-old-spice-win-creative-art-89307.html (accessed 1 August 2011).

23.

Morley

(1992) Television, Audiences and Cultural Studies. London: Routledge.

24.

Noff

(2012) Big Data in the visual age. Social Media. Available at: http://www.socialmedia.biz/2012/05/07/big-data-and-the-visual-age (accessed 12 April 2013).

25.

O’Reilly

(2004) Tim O’Reilly in a Nutshell: Collected Writings of the Founder of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Sebastapol: O’Reilly Media, Inc.

26.

Peter

(1999) Speaking Into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

27.

Peter

(2006) Medias as conversation, conversation as media. In: Curran

Morley

(eds) Media and Cultural Theory. New York: Routledge, pp. 115–126.

28.

Shapiro

(1999) The Control Revolution. New York: Century Foundation.

29.

Shirky

(2010) Collective Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. New York: Penguin Press.

30.

Stanley

(2009) Fallon face the camera, conscious of the web. The New York Times. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/arts/television/06fall.html (accessed 6 March 2012).

31.

Surowiecki

(2005) The Wisdom of Crowds. New York: Anchor Books.

32.

Tapscott

Williams

(2006) Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. New York: Portfolio Press.

33.

Terranova

(2000) Free labor: Producing culture for the digital economy. Social Text 63 18(2): 33–58.

34.

Toffler

(1984) The Third Wave. New York: Bantam Books.

35.

Turkle

(2007) Evocating Objects. Cambridge: MIT Press.

36.

Turow

(2013) The Daily You. New Haven: Yale University Press.

37.

Walker

(2008) Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are. New York: Random House Publishing.

38.

Warner

(2005) Publics and Counterpublics. New York: Zone Books.

39.

Webby Awards (2010) 13th annual webby special achievement award winners. Webby Awards. Available at: http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/specialachievement13.php (accessed 1 May 2010).

40.

Wellman

(2002) The Internet in Everyday Life. London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002.

41.

Whitney

(2006) NBC: iPod boosts prime time, Television Week. Available at: http://www.tvweek.com/printwindow.cms?newsId-91911&pageType=news (accessed 16 January 2009).

42.

Zweerink

Gatson

(2002) www.buffy.com: Cliques, boundaries, and hierarchies in an Internet community. In: Wilcox

Lavery

(eds) Fighting the Forces: What's at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 239–250.