“Young people are on YouTube”: industry notions on streaming and youth as a new media generation

ABSTRACT

This article explores industry perceptions on youth and “young streamers” and how these notions inform strategies for remaining relevant for the future, drawing on 39 qualitative interviews with CEO/top-level executives working in the Norwegian music, film, television, and book industries. The article combines perspectives on sensemaking processes in organisations and critical media industry studies to account for how executives in times of shifting realities work within industry discourses to interpret new conditions and stay in action. It finds that executives share an understanding of youth as different from older audiences, representing a new “media generation”. While this notion is simplistic, it serves as a “burning platform” legitimating new strategies and practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Generational shift
• media consumption
• media industries
• media strategies
• streaming

Introduction

While each “potential generation is born into a different media landscape” (Bolin, 2017, p. 44), the media and platforms taken for granted by those born since the turn of the millennium are often interpreted as causing unprecedented competition for national and legacy media players. Across sectors, global (often US-based) streaming platforms such as Spotify, YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon have gained vital positions, thus challenging incumbent industry players and their business models and practices (Cunningham & Craig, 2019; Poell et al., 2022). In many European countries, the use of global platforms is high among teenagers, who approach them as natural go-to sites for entertainment (EBU, 2021; Ofcom, 2021; Strømmen, 2022). These developments challenge national media players, who need to make sense of a shifting world and take action to stay relevant.

This article investigates how key industry players in the Norwegian music, film, television, and book industries understand and interpret the challenges they face with market transformations and the dominance of streaming services among young audiences. The aim is to explore how industry executives perceive young people, and how these notions inform strategies for remaining relevant. The four selected industries are rooted in different paradigms of cultural production (Miège, 1989), yet digitalisation and streaming erase some of their historical differences. While streaming is an increasingly popular research topic, few studies adopt a cross-industrial approach to investigate how streaming affects industry players from various fields (see, however, Colbjørnsen, 2020; Herbert et al., 2018, 2020; Sundet & Colbjørnsen, 2021). Theoretically, we combine perspectives on sensemaking (Ancona, 2012; Mills et al., 2010; Weick, 1995; Weick et al., 2005) and critical media industry studies (Havens et al., 2009; Herbert et al., 2020) to account for how executives in times of shifting realities work within industry discourses (industry lore) to interpret new conditions and stay in action (sensemaking).

The article draws on 39 qualitative interviews with CEO/top-level executives in the Norwegian music, film, television, and book industries. The Norwegian media market is small and peripheral but also technologically mature, and streaming has taken a firm hold across industries (Lüders et al., 2021). The combination of a well-developed technological infrastructure, a high Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and a public with good English language skills, means most Norwegians have opportunities and means to explore international new media services. However, concerns with reaching young audiences do not simply reflect market conditions typical for countries such as Norway. Young people’s extensive use of global platforms is portrayed as a challenge, or even an existential threat, for legacy media players in different European countries (Potter & Steemers, 2021; Schulz et al., 2019). Consequently, we believe similar sensemaking processes of young audiences are required in all markets where streaming is or becomes popular, also those with different market structures.

Theoretically, our contribution is providing a framework for analysing industry perceptions and strategies by combining perspectives on industry lore and sensemaking. A key finding is that executives depict youth as an audience group with media habits distinctly different from older audiences. Youth are, in short, portrayed as a new “media generation”. The challenge for industry executives is to make this new reality intelligible and develop plausible strategies for staying in action. On the one hand, the perception of youth as “one group” brings a potential bias in strategy making. It lures executives to perceive youth as more similar than they are, and to exaggerate how different they are from other audience groups. On the other hand, the perception of youth as a new media generation works as a “burning platform” for sensemaking processes, legitimising the need for action. The simplified notion of “youth” hence serves an important strategic function.

Industry lore and sensemaking processes

Our analytical lens to study industry perceptions on young audiences, and how these perceptions guide strategies and practices, combines industry “sensemaking” (Weick, 1995) and “industry lore” (Havens, 2014; Havens & Lotz, 2012). The latter describes “common sense” thinking and ways of doing things among industry executives. Havens (2014, p. 50) defines industry lore as “a catch-all term that refers to any interpretation among industry insiders of the material, social, or historical realities that the media industries face”. Such knowledge discourses circulate among industry insiders and as “regimes of truths”, they shape strategies and actions. Industry lore concerns how knowledge discourses about audiences, productions, and the industry form, and how such discourses relate to the power to define specific ways of understanding (Havens, 2014; Havens et al., 2009). In Havens’ work (Havens, 2014; Havens & Lotz, 2012), lore tends to be framed as taken-for-granted collective understandings and may stall creative thinking and action in times of change.

Havens (2014, p. 50) implicitly positions industry lore discourses to be about sensemaking processes but does not engage with the vital role of sensemaking in organisational theory. We posit that a more rigorous conceptualisation of sensemaking is needed in critical media industry studies, considering how it aligns with the emphasis on micro-level practices and a dual attention to structure and agency (Havens et al., 2009). Central to our argument is how sensemaking is “about the interplay of action and interpretation” (Weick et al., 2005), and that sensemaking may alleviate how industry lore, as a “regime of truth”, impedes action (Havens & Lotz, 2012). In our framework lore represents knowledge discourses as structure, whereas sensemaking brings in agency in the form of the reflections and behaviours of individual actors, and how these actions next shape knowledge discourses.

We turn to the concept of sensemaking to account for how executives interpret market disruptions and develop plausible understandings of a shifting world (Ancona, 2012; Lowe & Maijanen, 2019; Mills et al., 2010; Weick, 1995; Weick et al., 2005). Sensemaking is considered a core leadership capability (Ancona, 2012), and it is particularly important “when the current state of the world is perceived to be different from the expected state of the world” (Weick et al., 2005, p. 409). By enquiring “what’s going on” and structuring and organising multiple sources of data, sensemaking involves the development of plausible rather than accurate understandings to guide decisions on what to do next (Ancona, 2012; Mills et al., 2010; Weick et al., 2005). A critical sensemaking approach entails focusing on how “dominant assumptions privilege some [organisational] identities over others and create them as meaningful for individuals” (Mills et al., 2010, p. 188). So, while “sensemaking is a critical part of organisational life, in which group members exchange interpretations of ambiguous situations” (Baym et al., 2021, p. 3422), some people’s interpretations are more powerful within the range of explanations available (Mills et al., 2010, p. 189).

The combination of sensemaking and industry lore facilitates a micro-macro level analysis acknowledging how organisational members are socialised into ways of understanding the reality (lore), and how sensemaking as a capability positions actors within these structures with the agency to produce macro-change over time (Weick et al., 2005). This dual attention to structure and agency is pivotal also in critical media industry studies, wherein cultural systems are conceived as operating with tacit rules and forms of knowledge (structure) that inform but do not dictate micro-level agency to adapt and negotiate the production of popular culture (Havens et al., 2009).

Two interconnected transformations are core to the industry perceptions and sensemaking processes that we investigate: the turn to streaming for a multitude of media content, and the characteristics of young people as “first movers” to global platforms and streaming services.

First, the music, film, television, and book industries are comparable sectors regarding streaming. This turn to streaming will likely reflect industry perceptions that cut across industries (Herbert et al., 2018; see also, Sundet & Colbjørnsen, 2021). These media sectors are part of what Hesmondhalgh (2019) calls “the core cultural industries”, meaning they compete for many of the same resources, including audience attention. At the same time, differences regarding “dynamics” (Hesmondhalgh, 2019) or “logics” (Herbert et al., 2020) imply that the impact of streaming may differ (Colbjørnsen, 2020). But, while business models and technological set-ups vary, the streaming experiences and basic infrastructure is similar in offering choice and convenience on a single platform (Fagerjord & Kueng, 2019; Herbert et al., 2018).

Second, the media lives of young people are dominated by media platforms that are at once global and digital (Cunningham & Craig, 2019; Davison et al., 2020; Sandvik et al., 2020), indicating that national mass media could be left behind. Unlike older generations, whose formative years were situated in homogenous and national media landscapes (Bolin, 2017), today’s teenagers hardly adopt global streaming services but have instead always assumed the place of global platforms and on-demand services as an integral part of everyday life. Today’s youth are far from the first generation to come of age in an increasingly globalised media landscape and with new media technologies (Edmunds & Turner, 2005). Yet, the media habits of contemporary teens may mark a generational shift, indicating that teens will not, as a life course effect, adapt the media habits of older generations. Studies have also shown the strategic focus media producers and decision-makers put in the production of youth content in the interest of answering the “youth challenge” (Andersen & Sundet, 2019, p. 2) or “missing audience” problem (Davison et al., 2020, p. 6). Ultimately, while young audiences do not altogether abandon old media (Evens et al., 2021), notions such as the “lost generation” (Ofcom, 2019, p. 10) signal how legacy media perceive re-engagement with youth audiences as core to their future legitimacy and existence (Lowe & Maijanen, 2019).

Research questions

Previous studies demarcate the “youth challenge” as a shared concern for national media producers (Andersen & Sundet, 2019; Davison et al., 2020; Lowe & Maijanen, 2019). This study hence starts from the proposition that industry executives are amidst a process of interpreting a shared lore about youth as audiences. We hence first ask; how do industry executives perceive young people and their media and streaming habits? We thereafter interrogate how executives act upon their knowledge about youth, considering their interpretations and agency to negotiate ways of proceeding (Ancona, 2012; Havens et al., 2009; Weick, 1995; Weick et al., 2005), and ask; how and why do notions of young audiences play into strategies for remaining relevant for future audiences? The analysis attends to how the “youth challenge” shakes up the organisational identity of national media producers (“who are we now?”), and how sensemaking in this situation concerns constructing plausible ways forward (c.f. Mills et al., 2010).

Elite interviews and industry worldviews

The article’s data consist of qualitative interviews with 39 CEO/top-level industry executives and decision-makers in the Norwegian music, film, television, and book industries. Interviewing industry elites is valuable for gaining insight into industry perceptions and strategies that can otherwise be hard to reach (Brinkmann & Kvale, 2015). Industry elites possess a special kind of industry knowledge – they are “exclusive” – and they maintain their power by functioning as “gatekeepers of information” (Bruun, 2016, pp. 132–135). The level of openness in elite interviews varies, and informants will frequently avoid questions, withhold information, and turn to “corporate talk”. According to Bruun (2016, p. 142), elite informants should be expected to have “agendas” when giving interviews and identifying such agendas should be “part of the research findings”. As indicated by our research questions, a key aim is to map industry agendas and perceptions and discuss how such perceptions might affect strategy work. Hence, identifying industry discourses and worldviews through interviews is valuable precisely because it uncovers strategies at work.

The exclusive number of informants were selected to represent the largest and most significant music, television, film, and book organisations in Norway (see, Table 1 for an overview). These informants hold powerful positions in redefining organisational identities (cf., Mills et al., 2010). We also sent interview requests to representatives of global streaming providers holding critical positions in Norway (HBO Nordic, YouTube, Netflix, Tidal, and Spotify). Except for Spotify, they all declined to participate, reflecting the crucial problem of denied access and “cold calling” (Thomas, 1995) when accessing elite informants.

Table 1. Overview of informants with titles and organisations.

Industry	Name	Title	Organisation	Company type
Film and television	Nicolai Flesjø	Head of On-demand	NRK TV	Broadcaster/ streaming platform
	Christian Birkeland	CEO	TV 2 Sumo	Broadcaster/ streaming platform
	Stine Raste Amundsen	Direct-to-Consumer Manager	Discovery Network Norway	Broadcaster/ streaming platform
	Tine Austvoll Jensen	CEO	Discovery Network Norway	Broadcaster/ streaming platform
	Børge S. Nielsen	Head of Viaplay Norge	Viaplay Norge	Broadcaster/ streaming platform
	Trygve Rønningen	Head of Channel and Publisher	TV 2	Broadcaster
	Håkon Briseid	Head of Drama	Monster	Production company
	Fridrik Mar	Head of Drama	Rubicon TV	Production company
	Knut Alfsen	Head of Union	Norwegian Actor Association	Interest organisation
	Sverre Pedersen	Head of Union	Norwegian Film Association	Interest organisation
	Åse Kringstad	Leader	The Norwegian Producers’ Association	Interest organisation
	Morten Stephanson	Sales Manager Norway	Nordisk Film Distribution	Distributor
	Aage Aaberge	Producer	Nordisk Film	Production company
	Håvard K. Bakken	Head of Research	The Norwegian Advertisers’ Association	Interest organisation
	Nils Ketil Andresen	CEO	Nordic Screens	Production company
	Vilde Batzer	Head of Podcasts	NRK	Broadcaster
Book	Håkon Havik	CEO	Storytel	Streaming platform
	Ann Kristin Vasseljen	Head of Publishing	Fabel/Lydbokforlaget	Publisher/streaming platform
	Lene Røren	CEO	Ebok.no	Streaming platform
	Kristenn Einarsson	CEO	Norwegian Publishers Association	Interest organisation
	Heidi Marie Kriznik	Leader	The Norwegian Authors’ Union	Interest organisation
	Arne Vestbø	Secretary-General	The Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association	Interest organisation
	Einar Ibenholt	Head of Strategy and Development	Gyldendal	Publisher
	Tine Kjær	Head of Publishing, Fiction and Youth	Cappelen Damm	Publisher
	Tone Krohn Clausen	Head of Strategy, Business Development and Operations	Aschehoug	Publisher
	Jorun Sandsmark	Head of Publishing	Kagge	Publisher
	Eystein Hanssen	Leader	Author’s Union	Interest organisation
	Elizabeth Sellevold	Head of Publishing	Vigmostad & Bjørke	Publisher
Music	Live McKay	Commercial Director	Universal	Record company
	Inger Elise Mey	Assistant Director, Online Media	Tono	Interest organisation
	Herman Foss	Advisor, Contracts	Tono	Interest organisation
	Johan Seidefors	Head of Content, Nordics	Spotify	Streaming platform
	Sveinung Rindal	Country Manager	The Orchard	Agency
	Hans Ole Rian	Head of Union	CREO [Musicians’ Union]	Interest organisation
	Larry Bringsjord	Chair	Fono	Interest organisation
	Marte Thorsby	Managing Director	IFPI Norway	Interest organisation
	Marius Øvrebø-Engmoen	Managing Director	Gramart	Interest organisation
	Lena Midtveit	Senior Manager	Sony Music	Record company
	Kerstin Mangert	General Manager	Arctic Rights	Publisher

The interviews were conducted from October 2019 to February 2020, before the covid-19 pandemic led to lockdown in Norway. Most informants were interviewed face-to-face, though a few were interviewed by phone for convenience. All consented to be named in the study. Interviews lasted approximately 60 minutes. We followed the same structured interview guide in all interviews, designed to allow for comparison across institutions and industries. First, we asked 17 questions on the main benefits and challenges of streaming, leading competitors, strategy work and lessons learned from neighbouring industries. Second, we asked informants to fill out a response scheme with 30 statements on streaming designed to map industry perceptions. We asked informants to fully or partly agree or disagree.¹ Five statements address industry notions on young people and their media and streaming habits. Neither “young people” nor “youth” were defined in the response scheme, leaving for informants themselves to define the terms. While some separated between “children”, “youth”, and “young adults”, none explicitly defined an age category. Yet, we believe most informants navigated according to categorisations in the most significant media surveys in Norway – Kantar (who runs the official market survey for Norwegian media houses) and Statistics Norway. They define “youth” as 15 to 24 years old (Strømmen, 2022) and 16 to 24 years old (Schiro, 2022), respectively.

All interviews were transcribed and coded in NVivo 12. The analysis combined inductive and deductive approaches. First, codes were inductively identified reading the transcripts. Next, these codes were linked to theoretical concepts of relevance for our objective of investigating perceptions on young people and their media and streaming habits. We also coded the material according to the industry informants represented.

Industry notions on young people and their media and streaming habits

The first part of the analysis is structured according to the five statements designed to uncover perceptions on youth and “young streamers” – addressing user habits, avid streamers, visibility, lessons, and insight. As a general note, and one to be further elaborated, we find a strong consensus among informants’ perceptions on young people and their media and streaming habits, implying that these perceptions are deeply embedded and shared within and across industries.

Perception 1. Young people have unique media habits

Executives across industries operate with a collective notion of young people as a different audience group, at least in terms of their media consumption. All but one (37 of 38) agreed to the statement, “Young people have a completely different media consumption than older media users”.

Informants highlighted how young people are digital, global, and social in their media consumption, meaning they are moving onto new media platforms and services. Many also noted how youth are leaving national legacy media, reflecting the general industry lore of youth as “escaping” and “missing”. To some extent, these perceptions mirror national media surveys, showing the position global streaming platforms and social media entertainment have in youth’s everyday life (Schiro, 2022; Strømmen, 2022). According to Kantar, 93% of Norwegian 15–24-year-olds use social media daily, 88% stream television, 88% stream music, and 25% listen to a podcast (Strømmen, 2022, p. 4). Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok are the most used media services (p. 29). Audience figures such as these are circulated at industry seminars, thereby informing knowledge-discourses about youth as audiences.

Some informants emphasised the amount of time youth spend on content produced by influencers, gamers, content creators and online celebrities, and the prominent role these types of content providers and facilitators play in entertainment youth cultures (see, also, Abidin, 2018; Cunningham & Craig, 2019). In short, we find executives to operate with a notion of young audiences as exploring multiple entrances across a media landscape in which both traditional legacy media and social media entertainment have their place. Such notions echo descriptions of audiences as “roaming” by taking different pathways through the media (Hill, 2019).

The collective perception of youth as having unique media habits is framed as a uniqueness resulting from youth representing a distinct media generation. Informants here mirror how the trade press and industry reports use labels such as “Boomers”, “Gen X”, “Millennials”, and “Zoomers” to account for generational differences in media habits (Sandvik et al., 2020). A generational take on youth audiences implies that their media habits are changed for good, and that the media industry needs to re-define who they are to accommodate the preferences of future audiences.

Perception 2. Young people are avid streamers

Most informants (34 of 38) agreed that “People who stream a lot are generally younger than those who don’t”. In the response scheme, we included four other statements on avid streamers, aiming to uncover a more complex understanding of how the industry views enthusiastic streamers. The other statements related avid streamers to personal wealth (“People who stream a lot generally have more money at their disposal than those who don’t”), education (“People who stream a lot are more educated that those who don’t”), search for quality (“People who stream a lot are generally more quality-conscious than those who don’t), and interest (“People who stream a lot are generally more interested in music/film/television/literature than those who don’t”). Except for the latter statement (26 of 38 agreed), we found little consensus. Hence, avid streamers are perceived to be young, but besides that, not representing “one group”.

Many informants stressed how streaming favours youth’s “anytime and anywhere” consumer mode. The convenience of streaming and the “all-you-can-eat” business model were seen to fit with youth’s needs and habits. This included reflections on youth’s – and children’s – habits of repeat streaming. According to Rian, head of the musicians’ union: “Streaming favours ‘kids’ and their consuming moods (…) Youth have more songs on repeat”. Hanssen, head of the authors’ union, similarly stated: “Loads of children’s and young adult books are streamed, and perhaps even streamed more, because kids often listen to the same book several times”.

The consequences of young audiences’ streaming habits were considered substantial, for example, by strengthening the strategic focus on “hits” and “blockbusters”. Youth preferences and platform mechanisms were also, to some extent, framed as informing similar changes. Rian pointed to how the pro-rata royalty system (see, Hesmondhalgh, 2020 for a discussion) benefits the short repeat-friendly hit-songs considered popular among youth. Rindal likewise noted, “Streaming has done something with music, the length of tunes, for instance”. Seidefors from Spotify was more reluctant to blame streaming platforms for what he termed “major cultural shifts” and pointed to the power of youth generations in pushing music trends.

Perception 3. Young people are (often) hard to reach

Many informants (23 of 38) agreed to the statement that “It’s difficult to get through to young people, even with good content”. However, a fair share (15 of 38) disagreed, illustrating a lower degree of consensus.

Industry-specific experiences seem to inform informants’ perceptions on this issue, and among those representing the book industry a majority (9 of 12) agreed with the statement. Many stressed that young people have far more (good) content to choose from and reading books falls behind. As Kjær noted: “It’s of course a major challenge to get young people to read and listen to books”. Similarly, Vestbø explained: “When this [audiobook streaming] started, you had this idea that we would reach young people, because they use digital media, and we would reach men, because men are interested in technology. I don’t quite find that the results suggest book streaming has been a hit in either of these groups”. Others were more optimistic and found evidence for audiobooks reaching a younger and more on-the-go audience than printed books: “I’ve studied the numbers for who reads and who listens (…) and it’s evident that audiobook-streaming makes content available also for younger audiences, those who walk around with headsets and whom it is easier to reach in their busy everyday lives” (Clausen). The streaming model appears to signify yet-to-be-fulfilled opportunities in the book industry, and we will return to how book industry executives remain cautiously optimistic regarding how streaming audiobooks represent modalities of reading that might appeal to youth.

We find informants agreeing with the statement also in the music industry (6 of 11) and the film and television industries (7 of 14), but many disagree, signalling diverse experiences in reaching young audiences. Many pointed to increased competition from global streaming platforms as a main challenge, but also how they possessed unique, local content and insight on domestic audiences, and how local familiarity and relevance were considered key advantages in a globalised market (Flesjø, Birkeland, Amundesen).

Still, many informants, regardless of industries, stressed the challenge of gaining visibility due to the streaming model: gaining visibility and exposure in an increasingly competitive market is hard, especially when one loses the ability to deploy “scheduling” strategies. Even with “world class content”, there was a fear that few would discover it because of the amount of available content. Competing with global actors was considered challenging, not least in terms of the need to match (global) marketing budgets: “We can’t get through with Norwegian music. People don’t find it; they don’t know about it. We don’t have the budget to promote as they do with American artists” (Bringsjord). It is within such overall discourses of asymmetrical power and hard-to-get youth, organisational sensemaking processes of choosing paths are made.

Perception 4. The industry can learn from young people

Everyone (38 of 38) agreed that “The industry has much to learn from youths’ media habits”. Learning from youth and their media and streaming habits is seen as of key importance both within and across the selected industries.

Some reflected a notion of watching into the crystal ball when studying youth and their media habits – seeing a glimpse of the future through youth’s behaviour. This view mirrors an understanding of young people’s media habits as mainly defined by their generation, implying that the media habits of the young will become more generally embedded media habits in the future. Relatedly, several informants stressed how youth’s streaming habits uncover industry logics otherwise hard to see, thus expanding their understanding of what media could be and the functions media could serve. For instance, Flesjø explained how YouTube made him see the many needs a global platform served for youth: “YouTube is many things at once: It’s a streaming service, a social medium, a genre and a popular cultural symbol. That’s what we’re competing against”. Others pointed to how Spotify or TikTok transformed their conceptions of media services and audiences. For instance, several informants pointed to Spotify’s focus on podcast as expanding the craft of storytelling, while others stressed how TikTok “in a 15 second dance can promote music for a whole generation” (Seidefors).

The importance of “learning from youth” signals the inadequacy of remaining stuck in old organisational identities. In coming to terms with identity as a continuous process of becoming (Mills et al., 2010), youth audiences take on a powerful position that industry executives cannot ignore. It is in this context we interpret the collective hope informants attached to streaming to re/connect to young audiences. Such sentiments were common across industries, but we will here return to the ambivalent position of streaming in the book industry. Informants expressed disappointment with how streaming thus far may have had modest impact on leisure time reading among youth, but the listening-mode appeal of audiobook-streaming is considered attractive for youth. Learning here concerns adapting to the overall media habits of youth. For instance, Clausen made a parallel between audiobooks and podcasts: “Podcast is an opportunity for the book industry: When youth wear music in their ears, it’s a short way in for us”. Relatedly, several informants stressed how streaming gave them access to larger part of the audience’s “media day”: Listening to audiobooks allowed audiences to consume books while also doing other activities (Clausen, Ibenholt, Hanssen).

Perception 5. Insight into young people’s media habits is accessible for many

Given that learning from youth is considered important; how accessible is information on youth and their media habits? There is more variability among the industry executives on this matter, and only a minority (15 of 38) agreed with the statement that “It’s hard to gain insight into young people’s media habits”. Audience insight resources depend on the type of institution informants represent and the industry they work in. Some collect and control user data and have large analytics teams. Others are dependent on data they can get from partners and third parties. For some, the challenge was not so much accessing information as it was to find skills and time to analyse data and implement data insight into practices and strategies. Neither does access to user data automatically translate into equal opportunities to reap the analytical and commercial benefits of datafication. As demonstrated by Hagen (2021) and Baym et al. (2021) in the context of the music business sector, industry actors are differently positioned regarding their skills and capabilities to access and analyse user data.

On a general level, however, informants perceived audience insight to be of high importance. In the interviews, many emphasised the importance of analysing user data, and almost all (37 of 38) agreed to the statement that “Analysis of user data will be even more important in the future”. According to Birkeland from the television industry: “One thing that’s extremely important to us is putting the user at the centre. (…) What does this user want? What kind of content do we need to create to be important for him or her?”.

Implications for strategies and practices

To summarise how executives perceive young people and their media and streaming habits, we find that they share a collective understanding of young people as having unique media habits and to be avid streamers. Youth are often perceived as hard to reach, but important to understand since their preferences are foretelling for the media habits and industry logics of the near future. Informants differ in their perceptions of whether it is difficult to gain insight into youth media habits but agree that insight is key. There are some notable differences between industries, but there is a clear overarching lore on young audiences: they are a new media generation and to attract their attention, industry actors need to play by their rules.

These perceptions become part of the extracted cues about a shifting reality that industry actors rely on in their sensemaking efforts to find plausible ways forward (Lowe & Maijanen, 2019; Mills et al., 2010; Weick, 1995). The media habits of young audiences require actors to re-consider their organisational identity and find ways where their legacy identity can be re-worked to comply with what new conditions require (Lowe & Maijanen, 2019; Mills et al., 2010). We now turn to our second research question and address how and why notions of young audiences play into strategies and practices for remaining relevant for future audiences. We will discuss three features that seem core to re-engaging youth audiences: relying on global platforms and new liaisons; tailoring content and storytelling techniques to youth preferences; and finally, the importance of audience data and insight.

Relying on global platforms and new liaisons to reach youth

The perception of young people as “different” was accompanied by reflections for why third-party platforms were considered core to reach the young. Netflix and YouTube were often mentioned as young people’s preferred platforms, due to their broad catalogue and, in the case of YouTube, varied functions and free-to-use business model. Consequently, having a presence on YouTube was considered strategically important: “Young people are on YouTube … . So, there are those who say, ‘shit, to reach the young, we need to be on YouTube’. We need to show our content in the channels where they are” (Bakken). Whereas global platforms represent competition, it appears that the same platforms are considered important to reach the young. This strategy is a blueprint of the proverb that businesses need to be where their users are, including on social media (see, e.g. Kietzmann et al., 2011) and other global platforms. For instance, several music informants noted TikTok as a new platform for spreading music and increasing the streams of songs, tailoring to young people’s specific media habits (McKay, Seidefors, Thorsby).

A related strategy is liaising with online celebrities, gamers, and influencers, leveraging from their status, reach and (assumed) know-how in creating content that attracts young audiences. Many also stressed the need to employ new strategies for launching and marketing, creating buzz and word-of-mouth promotion. Involving influencers and online celebrities in marketing and in content creation is common. For instance, when Birkeland reflected on the importance of young audiences as a target group, he elaborated on how “the reality-segment” is important for his company and mentioned four examples of key shows: Funkyfam, Bloggerne, Sophie Elise, Kardashians. Of these, Kardashians needs no introduction, but it is no coincidence that the three first examples feature some of the most popular Norwegian influencers.

The common references to global platforms (YouTube, Netflix, Spotify and TikTok) also show how these companies serve as “representational technologies” (Burroughs, 2019, p. 1), not only within their respective industries but across industries. For others, knowing how to reach young audiences through third-party platforms did not necessarily mean the right to do so, as it could tamper with one’s core mandate. For instance, Flesjø from the Norwegian public service broadcaster (NRK) explained the dilemma of facing a new landscape and competing on new terms, without losing one’s core function as a public service institution: “YouTube is a significant competitor, especially towards younger audience groups where the use is enormous. As the same time, we are concerned not to go all in trying to be YouTube”. Knowing how to retain one’s organisational “DNA” (Schein, 2010) – and transfer it to new media services – hence is a key skill in the sensemaking process of planning for the future.

Tailoring content and storytelling techniques to youth’s preferences

Changed media and market realities are mirrored in strategies for creating content that appeals to young audiences. On a general level, a majority of the informants (36 of 38) agreed with the statement that “Streaming is changing the way my industry produces content”. As discussed elsewhere (Sundet & Colbjørnsen, 2021), many pointed to new services, practices, and production logics as a result. For example, music industry informants noted how streaming favours young people’s listening preferences to the extent that tunes now tend to be shorter. Informants from the film and television industries explained how streaming expanded storytelling techniques, allowing for more complex storylines and ways of presenting them: “Storytelling was getting a monotonous, but streaming allows for new and exciting ways of telling stories” (Flesjø).

Previous studies suggest that storytelling innovations come with added benefits. The media industry’s strategic focus on youth productions connects to new technology and innovation, interlinking the ambition of serving youth with the professional interest in exploring new ways of telling stories (Sundet, 2021; see, also Woods, 2016). For instance, television productions aimed at younger audiences tend to involve new media platforms, publishing methods, and storytelling techniques, reflecting the industry perception that digital and social media serve tech-savvy young people (Krüger & Rustad, 2019). The quest for innovation and “newness” often coincides with the need for cost efficiency, cuts, and savings (Woods, 2016). This means that youth productions are often branded as innovative yet produced on small budgets, often also by small production teams (Sundet, 2021).

Constructing plausible ways forward does not, however, entail rejecting old ways of producing content. A recurring thread in how industry executives reflected upon the competition from global competitors was to point to their own strengths as local players. According to Birkeland, the CEO of a national television streaming service (TV 2 Sumo), the company’s main benefit was knowing how to engage Norwegians, including the young ones, with attractive content: “One of the most recent examples for the younger segment, is Hjerteslag, rather short episodes, about 20 minutes”. Similarly, Amundsen from another television streaming platform (Dplay), explained how the company had been effective in reaching young audiences and converting many freemium-users into premium-users by focusing on a mix of popular reality-TV and humour-shows.

The importance of data and insight

Audience data were portrayed as a given in all strategic work related to youth. Whereas audiences before meant readers, listeners or viewers measured via ratings and market shares – what Ang (1991/2005) calls “an aggregated mass” – audiences today leave behind traces for the industry to analyse and unpack. The sentiments conveyed by the informants on these matters reflect larger societal discourses about the power of data (Van Dijck, 2014), and the skills and expertise to capture and analyse data have become core in the media industries (Hagen, 2021). To some extent informants appear socialised into a datafication paradigm underpinned by a belief in what the processing of “raw data” can tell us about human behaviour and preferences (Van Dijck, 2014).

Several informants stressed the position of global platforms in controlling data and having the expertise to analyse user data: “It’s obvious that ‘data collectors’ such as Netflix, operating in multiple territories, have a completely different imperative for understanding users, even if users are different in the various territories” (Rønningen). This challenge serves as a basis for three interlinked sensemaking processes where legacy strengths are fortified with the need for new skills to re/create identities capable of facing global competition.

First, several informants stressed the importance of controlling and analysing data and turning it into decision-making processes. For some, analytical skills and tools were deeply interwoven in both content strategies and marketing strategies, as it meant “reading” the audience and how to serve it best. As such, sensemaking of data was explicitly framed as a key industry skill: “You need to master an adequate and relevant analytic tool to ‘work your music’ – you need to analyse your material, your customers, and your target audience group. (…) Both analytic tools and marketing techniques are needed to reach listeners with your music” (Bringsjord). Informants hence implicitly addressed the interlinked relationship of identifying general trends (industry lore) and knowing how to translate these into industry or organisational-specific practices (sensemaking).

Second, and as alluded to throughout the analysis, several informants pointed to the need to employ their locally embedded insight into audiences and their needs and habits: “We must compensate by knowing the Norwegian market and the Norwegian audience behind the numbers. We must be good at analysis, but we must also be good curators for what we do” (Rønningen).

Third, online data traces from media users are but one of several sources for data and user insight emphasised as important by the informants. They rely on traditional ratings and markets shares and big data from streaming services, qualitative and quantitative data from various social media platforms and “paratexts” (Gray, 2010), and insight and feedback gained through use of audience interviews, workshops, and screenings. Moreover, access to data does not automatically imply productive data analysis, which demands time, tools, and knowledge. There seems to be a shared sentiment among the informants that they cannot compete with global platforms when it comes to access and expertise in data analytics. Instead, as incumbent players in the Norwegian market, they need to activate their native and culturally embedded knowledge about what home-audiences want. Thus, when audience insight is considered a key component in strategies for re-connecting with youth, “insight” extends beyond quantifiable metrics and datafication.

Conclusion: making sense of young streamers

Our conceptual framework and analysis portray how executives are socialised into collective regimes of understanding youth and “young streamers” (industry lore), and how they make sense of who their organisations need to become by fortifying legacy strengths with strategies for adapting to future audiences. The aim has been to investigate how executives work within industry discourses to interpret new conditions and stay in action. To do so, we have developed a framework for analysing collective industry perceptions, and the function these macro-level knowledge discourses have on individual reflections and practices. We have suggested a micro-macro framework, where lore represents knowledge discourses as structure, whereas sensemaking brings in agency in the form of the reflections and behaviours of individual actors, and how these actions next shape knowledge discourses. This framework represents an alternative to rationalisation theories, which do “not really capture the diverse practices and forms of agency to be found in the complex and multifaceted work people do with them” (Baym et al., 2021, p. 3437), and it complements existing perspectives within critical media industry studies on industry lore and sensemaking.

Our study suggests that executives share similar notions of youth and “young streamers”, as different from younger and, particularly, older audience groups. Youth are portrayed as a new “media generation” and this perception is so deeply embedded across industries that it presents itself as a “regime of truth”. A generational take on youth implies that their media habits are changed for good, and that the media industry needs to change with them. The core challenge for industry executives remains, namely, how to make sense of this new reality and produce strategies to stay relevant. We have discussed three such cross-industry strategies related to re-engaging youth audiences: relying on global platforms and new liaisons; tailoring content and storytelling techniques to youth’s preferences; and building on audience data and insight. While specific strategies might differ in other national industries due to context and market structure, our argument is that the “youth challenge” contests each organisation’s “identity” and forces them to re-construct and re-frame their organisational identity (see, also, Mills et al., 2010).

On the one hand, our study suggests that the perception of youth as one generation and “one group” brings a potential bias in strategy making. It lures executives to perceive young audiences as more similar than they are and to exaggerate their differences from other audience groups. It reflects an industry-driven, often media determinist, definition of “generations” derived from the media technologies youth grow up with. This conception might be detrimental if perceptions are based on the habits of the most active, attractive and visible youth – the most digital, social, global, creative and innovative. Such understandings of young audiences might create blind spots for more traditional ways youth consume content, like going to the movies or watching a television show with the family on a night in. Similar blind spots are common in research. Scholars tend to prioritise active, productive and visible audiences (and fans) on behalf of the comfortable and silent majority (Gray, 2003). Even youth culture scholars have historically drawn on the extraordinary and paid most attention to spectacular or revolutionary youth subgroups (Buckingham et al., 2015).

One the other hand, our study does not suggest that the perception of young audiences as a media generation stalls creative actions. More than aligning and unifying strategies and practices across industries, its main function is to invite action and instigate sensemaking. It might even legitimate necessary strategy shifts, turning the focus to audience needs. Targeted “youth projects” further indicate that media producers often operate with more diverse understandings of a “youth audience” based on the segment they are aiming to reach. The perception of youth as a media generation thus serves its function as a “burning platform” within the media industry – and legitimates actions adapted to the specific organisation. The same perception may serve less function in scholarly debates, where nuanced and complex concepts are needed to describe youth as audiences. A sociological conception of media generations would for instance, investigate generations bottom-up by examining if and how a “we-sense” develops based on a set of expectations, ambitions, skills, and values informed by their specific historical context (Bolin, 2017; Corsten, 1999).

Our analysis is based on data from a one-nation study and reflects the specificities of this market. Legacy media players in comparable media markets face similar challenges, but we believe the need to make sense of and adjust to youth audiences is a concern for media executives also elsewhere. Several international studies and industry reports support this argument by reflecting notions of the “youth challenge”. Fewer studies, however, attend to how media industry actors respond. Cross-industry studies from other countries and markets are needed to examine how media actors encounter this challenge, but also to critically discuss and continue theorising the interlinked relationships between industry knowledge-discourses and sensemaking. Future studies might also benefit from focusing on how strategies are reflected in practices and actions of specific organisations, and how such reflections reconstruct these organisations’ identities. Finally, our study indicates a collective perception of young people as “different”. However, other studies should challenge this notion and look for more diverse perceptions of youth within the overall frame of youth as a “new media generation”.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Council of Norway under Grant Number 263076 and 315917.

Notes on contributors

Vilde Schanke Sundet

Vilde Schanke Sundet (PhD) is a researcher at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo. Her work focuses on changes in the media industry, global entertainment services, television production, media policy and audiences/fans. Sundet is a full-time researcher on the research project “Global Natives? Serving young audiences on global platforms” (2021-2025).

Marika Lüders

Marika Lüders (PhD) is a professor at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo. Her work focuses on user/audience experiences, social media, global platforms and the intersections of the material and experiential levels of digital technologies. Lüders is the project leader of the research project “Global Natives? Serving young audiences on global platforms” (2021-2025).

Notes

1. 38 of the 39 informants responded to these statements.