Ibid.Television Culture. 109, 17.

39 Ibid.Television Culture. 109, 17.

40 Caldwell, J. "Critical Industrial Practice: Branding, Repurposing, and the Migratory Patterns of Industrial Texts," Television & New

Media 7.2 (2006): 103.

44 CHAPTER 1

Both of these models address the same fundamental problem: that the existing systems for measuring television audiences, based on the idea of “reach” and “impressions,” do not tell us anything

significant about the nature of modern media consumption. They simply gauge a viewer’s “opportunity to see” an advertising message that has been broadcast, rather than telling us about the “nature” of the viewer’s

response to, or interaction with, the content being consumed. Both of these studies, then, aim to provide a richer qualitative framework for understanding media consumption.

While each of these approaches has its flaws, they also represent a significant advance in thinking about media consumption as a meaningful, personal experience. Before attempting to set out a new

framework, then, it would benefit us to consider these existing proposals, and determine what each might contribute to our understanding of the modern television audience.

2.2.1. The “Consumer Expressions” Model

The first model, which shifts from the traditional advertising metric of “viewer impressions” to a new system of “consumer expressions” was developed as the result of a collaboration in 2002 between researchers from Initiative Media and MIT’s Program in Comparative Media Studies. Citing the need for a new system of audience measurement that better reflected the conditions of “a [new] mediascape in which

consumers experience and interact with content and advertising in new and multi-layered ways,” 41 the project’s authors suggested the development of a metric which would evolve the traditional model of impressions to incorporate several new layers of quantitative and qualitative data. In their initial proposal, the research team suggested that by layering explicit qualitative information (such as the media environment,

the viewer’s involvement and attentiveness, and the nature of the content itself 42 ) on top of a quantitative foundation (accounting for existing metrics such as attention, time spent, and satisfaction) the “expression”

41 Koerner, et al. "Pathways to Measuring Consumer Behavior in an Age of Media Convergence." 8 42 The specific list of quantitative and qualitative measures was longer, and suggested a model that would account for: the (1) creative unit; (2) media environment; (3) viewer's involvement; (4) attention; (5) message communication values; and (6) targeting affinity.

For a more detailed explanation of what these measures describe, see Ibid.22-24

THE ELUSIVE CONCEPT OF ENGAGEMENT 45

would “convey the ability of a media vehicle to deliver an actual impression and have the opportunity to elicit an enhanced engagement, perception, recognition, or response.” 43

A year after presenting their proposal, the research team published a new report elaborating on possible methods for gathering and interpreting data about expressions, illustrated with the results of an

initial field test designed to measure audience engagement with both the content and advertising of FOX’s American Idol. While the research design incorporated both quantitative and qualitative approaches, the research drew upon a relatively small pool of research subjects, and functioned more as an initial proof-of- concept than a full-fledged implementation of the consumer expressions model.

According to the researchers, the American Idol initiative was designed “to provide insights into the types of relations consumers develop with content across multiple media venues and the impact those relationships have on awareness, perception, and purchase intent of advertised goods.” 44 Of particular interest, however, were the report’s findings on the impact of “social viewing,” which seemed to result in individual viewers who were “more highly engaged in the program, more attentive to the entire show while it airs, more likely to visit show-related websites and more inclined to seek out ancillary products and content

related to the primary show.” 45

2.2.2. The “Connectedness” Model

A second useful model for thinking about the nature and intensity of the relationship between audiences and television programs surfaced in 1999, when marketing professors Cristel Russell and Christopher Puto proposed the development of a “connectedness scale.” In their initial formulation, Russell and Puto defined audience connectedness as “an intense relationship between audience and television

program that extends beyond the television watching experience into individuals’ personal and social lives.” 46

43 Ibid.16 44 Koerner, et al. "Walking the Path: Exploring the Drivers of Expression." 6 45 Ibid.16 46 Russell, C A and C P Puto. "Rethinking Television Audience Measures: An Exploration into the Construct of Audience

Connectedness," Marketing Letters 10.4 (1999): 397. Original emphasis.

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In their earliest formulations, Russell and Puto proposed that audience connectedness could be used to predict how different media consumers would “use” the media they consume. Their initial inquiries

suggested that high levels of connectedness would manifest themselves in specific behavioral patterns, including “self-definition” (in forms ranging from “the constructing of key life roles [and] the modeling of

behaviors” to “the validation of one’s lifestyle”); “creative engagement” (e.g. the production of fan fiction); “socialization” (using the show as a frequent basis for social interaction); “ritualization” (organizing and

maintaining specific social functions of viewing conditions to make consumption more enjoyable); and the purchase of show-related “paraphernalia.” 47

In 2004, Russell, Norman and Heckler published a formal proposal for the development and validation of a “connectedness scale.” In their proposal, they were careful to differentiate between “connectedness”, which “captures a show’s extended contribution to its viewers’ self-definition,” 48 , and three

related but distinct constructs: attitude, which describes a viewer’s “degree of favor or disfavor” toward a television show; involvement, which describes the viewer’s mental state during the viewing experience; and overall television viewing, a metric of “time spent” that is often used to indicate an individual viewer’s overall affinity for television.

Russell, Norman and Heckler’s research led them to conclude that the relationships which viewers form with television content can be understood in terms of six overarching dimensions, which they described as follows:

(1) ESCAPE: The cathartic element that connects a viewer to a program; immersion to forget problems. (2) FASHION: The extent to which a viewer is influenced by the characters’ appearance. (3) IMITATION: The inclination to imitate the characters’ behavior or speech patterns. (4) MODELING: The degree to which individuals relate their lives to the lives of characters (5) ASPIRATION: Aspiring to actually be on the show or meet the characters.

47 Ibid.: 398-400. The authors do an excellent job of establishing the context for their research, providing a thorough review of existing literature and academic work describing how audiences use and relate to the media they consume. Rather than duplicating

their efforts here, I refer interested readers to the original work. 48 Ibid.: 405. Original emphasis.

THE ELUSIVE CONCEPT OF ENGAGEMENT 47

(6) PARAPHERNALIA: The degree to which people collect items to bring the show into their real world.

Based on the results of their initial data gathering, Russell, Puto and Norman asserted that higher levels of viewer connectedness could be correlated with several desirable patterns of behavior. In particular,

they proposed that as connectedness increased, the following statements would also be true:

1) “Memory for product placements improves.” 2) “The ability to imagine the characters as consumers of real products/brands also increases.” 3) “So will:

a) the frequency of show-related social interaction with others, b) the relationships within the community of co-viewers,

c) the size of the viewer’s social network of co-consumers.” 49

Now, there are obviously some problems inherent to each of these models — as, indeed, there will

be with any attempt to develop a new model for understanding a complex system of behavior, relationships and interactions. Even so, both the consumer expressions and connectedness models suffer from the same fundamental weakness: they are too divided in their focus. Simply describing the range of possible relationships between media consumers and media content is difficult enough, yet both of these frameworks not only attempt this task, but at the same time endeavor to justify their work by appealing to the needs of advertisers.

Despite their shared flaw, however, both conceptual models represent important and valuable steps toward understanding viewer engagement with television. Most importantly, both of these systems embrace

a more expansive definition of television-watching and media consumption. These systems recognize, and try to account for, the various ways viewers relate to the media content they consume: how they use it, how they apply it, how they are shaped by it, how they interact with it, how it influences their interactions with others, and so on.

The “consumer expressions” framework received more attention within the industry, appearing — along with many other possible models for measuring engagement — in the first volume of an ongoing ARF

49 Russell, C A, et al. "The Consumption of Television Programming: Development and Validation of the Connectedness Scale," Journal of Consumer Research 31 (2004): 156.

48 CHAPTER 1

report 50 . This means that the language and ideas presented within the expressions model, at least in principle, are slowly gaining traction with programmers and advertisers, and might provide a foundation for

future discussion about the various forms that media consumption can take. The “connectedness” framework, on the other hand, does not appear to have much following among

television executives, which is a shame, because — putting aside the possible flaws in the model’s methodological execution, and the specific implementation its authors propose for a “connectedness scale,”

the work on connectedness seems to provide the richest, most specific framework to date – at least in quantifiable, behavioral terms – for thinking about the various types of investments and relationships that

television viewers form with their favorite programs. As each of these models suggest, it is time to move away from thinking about television audiences

through a simplistic binary of “watching” versus “not watching,” and toward a model that offers a more detailed description as to the qualities and desires that define a viewer’s overall engagement with, or

investment in, television programming.

The “consumer expressions” and "audience connectedness" models, at least in principle, are a step in the right direction, since both emphasize the importance of understanding the experiences that media

consumers have, the pleasures that compel them to deepen their relationships, and argue for the development of a model which factor these qualitative details into a more layered assessment that also

accounts for basic quantitative metrics such as “attention, time spent, and satisfaction.” 51 But even Initiative has not taken significant [visible] steps in this direction: their subsequent work, as seen in the Ad*VIZR

New Media Audit, focuses less on understanding specific qualities of the viewer’s experience than listing and quantifying the industry’s current efforts to create cross-platform engagement and the perception of “added

value.”

50 Plummer, J, et al., Measures of Engagement (Advertising Research Foundation, 2006), 32-33. 51 Koerner, et al. "Pathways to Measuring Consumer Behavior in an Age of Media Convergence." 22

THE ELUSIVE CONCEPT OF ENGAGEMENT 49