Audience Engagement in a Post-Truth Age

Abstract

In any discussion about a “post-truth age,” the audience is both part of the problem and part of the solution. The authority of journalism is called into question if everyone can participate in generating and spreading verified and unverified, relevant and irrelevant “news.” At the same time, journalism can integrate the audience into the editorial process and dialogue in an unprecedented variety of ways, thereby disclosing the way journalism works and raising awareness for the difference between journalism and any form of mis- and disinformation. Thus “Audience Engagement” is becoming a key factor for journalism in a post-truth era. This article analyses dimensions of audience engagement in a holistic sense. Key findings were gathered through interviews with practitioners within the innovative training format “Learning Lab Audience Engagement.” Factors for a successful audience engagement comprise a paradigm shift away from a “lecturing” towards a “dialogue” approach. This approach changes not only journalism, media and newsroom cultures: Educational institutions have to change their attitude accordingly. The experience of the participants suggests that a broad understanding of media and training organisations alike as “engaging organisations” brings with it several challenges and limitations but can help to raise trust.

Keywords:

•  audience engagement
• editorial analytics
• journalism training and education
• media accountability
• membership
• participation
• storytelling

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank Ines Garherr, Matthias Humpelstetter, Barbara Metzler, Uta Michaeler, and Jonas Paintner for conducting and transcribing the interviews. Special thanks to Bernadette Uth for her support in evaluating the results.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 So far, only few courses and training opportunities on audience engagement exist for those working in Central Europe (for first steps in this direction in the USA, see: DeJarnette 2016). The idea behind this 8-month training, established by FJUM (Forum Journalism and Media) in Vienna, is to experiment with methods and formats of engagement and participation in media outlets. Engagement concerned this lab in two respects: It is on the topic (learning contents), as well as on the way the topic is approached (learning format). In its first round, held between June 2016 and January 2017, 20 journalists and engagement professionals from across the most relevant Austrian news organisations and online platforms and three coaches met repeatedly to approach issues of audience engagement within their organisations. The participants contribute intensively to the development of the curriculum and offered their personal experiences, for example in the form of case studies.

2 The reflections of the participants of Lernlab 2016–2017 on what they had learned during the 8-month process of the “Learning Lab Audience Engagement” provides valuable insights for the application of audience engagement in practice. See: https://www.fjum-wien.at/learning-lab-audience-engagement/.

Additional information

Funding

The project “Learning Lab Audience Engagement” and also a part of the accompanying research project has been funded within the programme “aws xs” by the Austrian Federal Promotional Bank AWS.

Notes on contributors

Klaus Meier

Klaus Meier (author to whom correspondence should be addressed), School of Journalism, Catholic University Eichstaett-Ingolstadt, Germany. E-mail: [email protected], http://klaus-meier.net/information-in-english/.

Daniela Kraus

Daniela Kraus, Forum Journalism and Media Vienna, Austria. E-mail: [email protected], https://www.fjum-wien.at/fjumpersonen/daniela-kraus/.

Edith Michaeler

Edith Michaeler, Forum Journalism and Media Vienna, Austria. E-mail: [email protected], https://www.fjum-wien.at/fjumpersonen/edith-michaeler/.