Active Audiences: Social Audience Participation in Television

Abstract

The combination of social networks, second screens and TV has given rise to a new relationship between viewers and their televisions, and the traditional roles in the communication paradigm have been altered irrevocably. Social television has spawned the social audience, a fragmentation of the real audience based on how they interact with social networks. This study is an attempt to analyze the factors which contribute to the success or failure of programs with a similar format in relation to their social audience. To do so, the study took as its subject three talent shows launched on the principal mainstream TV channels in Spain in September 2013. The study looked at the impact of these shows on the Twitter network, employing a control form [and developing a categorization and coding system for the analysis with the aim of collating all the data collected]. The results showed that the success of the shows was influenced by the activity in the social network accounts of the presenters and the judges. The conclusions reached in this analysis of the Spanish audience could be used as a development model for social audiences in other countries where social television is not so widespread..