How is Radio Evolving to Maintain its Relevance and Impact in today's Digital Age?
In this research project we attempt to provide a crucial set of criteria that will assist traditional radio broadcasters to maintain relevance in today’s Digital Age. We aim to identify a minimum set of requirements that should be implemented by traditional youth-orientated radio broadcasters in order to appeal to the participatory user while competing with new delivery platforms such as online streaming.
In the Digital Age, traditional radio broadcasters have to reassess their presence in the media industry and their relationship with an evolving audience. An essential provision for success in media development is an understanding of audience behaviour: the different types of media users, their motivations and how they consume media. The development of the internet and the resulting improved access to a diversity of media sources provokes the need for a fresh inquiry into the ways in which audiences and users are utilizing new media technologies to interact and communicate with broadcast material.
In the last decade, with the introduction of a new media landscape and the arrival of countless online services, television channels, mobile technologies, electronic games, there has been an overall dramatic increase of media convergence. An analysis of merely one media technology would not enable us to gather proper insight into the interactive and participatory possibilities that users take advantage of when exploring media technologies, especially with the expansion of the online and convergence playground. Media professionals such as Brandtzaeg in Computers in Human Behaviour, are arriving at the realization that with increasing access to a ‘variety of new media and more content to choose from, individual preferences and lifestyles are becoming’ much more significant in relation to the medium and from which broadcaster users choose to source their entertainment or news from. Accompanying the advancement of communication technologies, is the growing expectation in audiences for easy accessibility of content and a stronger sense of participation and influence individuals have with shaping broadcast content.
Traditionally there has been a divide between media scholars about whether supporting and participatory communities are established via communication technologies or the provision of relevant and local content. Within this research project we explore how both content and technologies are both essential and inseparable factors in the creation of a loyal community.
In the Digital Age, traditional radio broadcasters have to reassess their presence in the media industry and their relationship with an evolving audience. An essential provision for success in media development is an understanding of audience behaviour: the different types of media users, their motivations and how they consume media. The development of the internet and the resulting improved access to a diversity of media sources provokes the need for a fresh inquiry into the ways in which audiences and users are utilizing new media technologies to interact and communicate with broadcast material.
In the last decade, with the introduction of a new media landscape and the arrival of countless online services, television channels, mobile technologies, electronic games, there has been an overall dramatic increase of media convergence. An analysis of merely one media technology would not enable us to gather proper insight into the interactive and participatory possibilities that users take advantage of when exploring media technologies, especially with the expansion of the online and convergence playground. Media professionals such as Brandtzaeg in Computers in Human Behaviour, are arriving at the realization that with increasing access to a ‘variety of new media and more content to choose from, individual preferences and lifestyles are becoming’ much more significant in relation to the medium and from which broadcaster users choose to source their entertainment or news from. Accompanying the advancement of communication technologies, is the growing expectation in audiences for easy accessibility of content and a stronger sense of participation and influence individuals have with shaping broadcast content.
Traditionally there has been a divide between media scholars about whether supporting and participatory communities are established via communication technologies or the provision of relevant and local content. Within this research project we explore how both content and technologies are both essential and inseparable factors in the creation of a loyal community.