Singapore.
The next speaker at this ICA 2010 pre-conference is Nele Simons, whose focus is on the reception side of the emerging 'TV 2.0'. The two constituent trends here are digitisation (detaching TV content from the TV screen) and convergence (leading to cross- and transmedia forms) - so what does it mean today to engage with a TV series; how may we study it?
We need to reconsider our methodological approaches - one approach, which Nele explored, is a semi-structured, online TV diary that helps researchers understand audience members' viewing practices, with online follow-up and in-depth interviews. The semi-structured diary included categories such as watching episodes of a series (in whatever format), consuming media-related extras), consuming other extras, producing related content, and communicating about the TV series.
This can be done also in an event-based fashion - rather than a time-based one: it leads to a 'pattern diary' that retrospectively maps viewers' consumption of a TV series over time, rather than tracking TV consumption from hour to hour as it happens. Researchers can follow up on this in in-depth interviews - to verify the accuracy of the data gathered through the diaries and gather more background information, but also to better understand motivations for engagement with TV series and to explore post-viewing experiences. Of course, the question of how participants in such research projects are selected is also an important one.
