Social TV: Second Screen and Audience Participation

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SOCIAL TV: SECOND SCREEN AND AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION 
 
 
ABSTRACT 
 
The vast popularity of social networks and mobile devices has led to a transformation of television, 
called Social television. Specifically, due to technological innovations, both public and commercial 
broadcasters are trying to respond through developing cross-media processes, expanding the actual 
content of their TV shows on social media (García-Avilés, 2012). They increasingly provide a 
growing level of interactivity, which enhance online audience participation in a variety of ways. In 
fact, social media allows a wide range of possible interactions, such as sharing, commenting, liking 
etc. While previous studies have documented audience perception of the integration of social 
networking sites into television contents, employing vary techniques of analysis (e.g., quantitative 
descriptive statistics, social network analysis etc.) with the focus on the frequency of tweets, 
qualitative investigations about audience’s opinions have not been adequately addressed to this day. 
In this thesis, the dimensions of Italian audience participation on social media was explored. In 
particular, if and to what extent viewers of a certain TV show are engaged in online interaction with 
the content and with other viewers and how do they participate. I do so by examining the Italian 
version of the talent show The voice and its media platforms. The literature review discussed 
comprehends relevant theories about the topic of Social TV, which partly helped to guide the analysis. 
A qualitative analysis approach based on the conduction of focus groups was applied. Then a thematic 
analysis method was used to analyse the data and answer the research questions. In analysing the 
social media use of the audience, I identified five main themes, namely: program perception, 
perception of online content, information seeking patterns, communication patterns, motivations to 
interact. The findings of the research suggest that viewers of the TV show are not as engaged on 
social media as literature claims, the relationship between Italian audiences and broadcasters is still 
weak. However, media field is constantly changing and especially in the Italian television and media 
system there is a lot of room for improvement in the ability of broadcaster of engaging viewers. 
Online participation initiatives need to increase their efficiency and transparency with more clearly 
identified goals and following the taste of audiences. Hereby, this research will have a direct 
implication on the way audience perceive the online content and it can be considered as the first step 
in a larger one to develop and evaluate the interaction dynamics through second screen between 
audiences and TV shows. 
 
KEYWORDS: Social TV, interactivity, participation, sociability, audience, social networks
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1. Introduction and Research Question 
It is nothing new that television and social media are involved in our everyday lives; in fact, they 
are everywhere and have become an integral part of society. With the revolution of new media, it is 
growing increasingly apparent that “the Internet is the fabric of our lives” (Castells, 2001, p.1). The 
web and its features have affected everything – our lives, economics and communications, as well 
as television – morphing also into an addition to what TV offers. 
 It is in this context that social TV comes into play. The phenomenon of social TV is 
developing into a progressively visible and interesting part of our media landscape offering an 
example of the convergence between old and new media (Jenkins, 2006). The television viewing 
experience can be enhanced by using other devices called second screens (e.g., tablets, computers, 
and smartphones). Thus, by taking advantage of the smartphone and internet revolutions identified 
by Rainie and Wellman (2012), this experience has become more and more interactive, improved by 
the integration of social networking sites into television content and the following extension of it on 
multimedia platforms. Social media in fact fuel backchannel discussions and invite viewers to 
participate in the program (Van Es, 2016). Recent research for instance, (Nielsen, 2014, 2015; 
Accenture, 2015; SKO, 2013) highlights that social media are mushrooming across television 
screens as audiences use them to interact directly with related content while watching live series 
programs. 
Most research on the topic of social television focuses on the measurements of the online 
conversations generated by the stated TV show. Only little attention is given to the viewers’ 
perceptions of the online content used by the TV shows in order to engage them, and to their 
motivations and patterns of behaviour. To overcome these shortcomings and further expand the 
audience studies literature; this study aims to offer insights into the field of Social TV and audience 
reception studies. 
As the project is entailed in the audience studies tradition, the theoretical perspectives that 
inform this study are related to the concept of Social TV and participation. Social TV enables 
viewers to interact with television content, gradually developing new ways of participation and 
interaction. In particular, mobile devices have changed the ways in which audiences consume 
audio-visual content (Meikle & Young, 2012). 
Recently, a heightened number of people use computers, smartphones or tablets, called second 
screens, whilst watching TV . In some TV shows, the accumulative audience at home can vote by 
SMS for a particular candidate or call to give their opinion. (García-Avilés, 2012). This progression 
provides this study with an interesting starting point for the analysis of the interactions between 
television shows and the audience. In short, this study will focus on the audience perspective in
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order to analyse viewers’ attitudes and behaviours in relation to the content of the programme The 
Voice of Italy
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.  It will explore the extent and how they respond in terms of participation and 
interaction with the content of the social TV , through the participative tools integrated into the 
official Facebook page of the programme TVOI. These are the research questions that will be 
answered: 
 
RQ1: To what extent does the audience of The Voice of Italy participate and interact with its online 
content on Facebook? 
RQ2: How do participants interact with the contents of the Facebook page of The Voice of Italy? 
 
Italy has been chosen as a result of the interesting development in the media landscape 
throughout the years that has perhaps influenced the media usage of the citizens among Italian 
audiences (Barra & Scaglioni, 2013 and 2014) as will be explained below in 1.1. Therefore, the 
study aims to define whether the existing model of online interaction with the program TVOI, 
defined as the way in which it uses its social media platforms and its online content in order to 
engage the audience, is effective or not. To achieve this aim, a qualitative analysis will be used, and 
four focus groups will be held in Italy, in order to allow participants to communicate their 
perspectives in further detail. 
 
1.1 The Context of the Italian Television System 
Before going into the research, the Italian media landscape will be described in order to intertwine 
the findings of this analysis with the context. 
 The Italian television system is based on a dual system. On one side, there is the public 
service broadcasting
2
 which is formally under the control of the Government and includes three 
main TV channels (Rai 1, Rai 2 and Rai 3). While on the other, there are the commercial networks 
(Canale 5, Italia 1, Rete 4) whose owner is the politician and entrepreneur Silvio Berlusconi. 
Commercial television has been a big innovation in the country system, because it has brought a 
proliferation of channels and a market segmentation (Barra & Scaglioni, 2013). Indeed, “the 
networks rapidly oriented Italian viewers towards an idea of pluralism in television that liberated 
them from the “one-service- fits-all” RAI model” (Barra & Scaglioni, 2013, p. 81). Although these 
                                                
1
From now on I will refer to it with the acronym TVOI 
2
From now on I will refer to it with the acronym PBS
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six channels gain half of the Italian audience, according to Frt
3
, there are currently 640 channels in 
Italy. However, this pluralism is not a positive characteristic, because this abundance of choice 
contributed to block, for years, the technological development and the introduction of the pay-TV 
and the TV-on demand like Netflix, which arrived in Italy as recently as October 2015. 
As Syvertsen has shown (2004), during the height of the networked television era in the US, 
several techniques were developed in order to satisfy the main goal of keeping people watching. 
The central idea was that viewers deserved more entertainment than they were given by PBS. This 
range of techniques were later adopted by the European new commercial television and so 
Berlusconi’s commercial networks followed this fad. One of the significant aspects in Berlusconi’s 
TV concerned the genres. The arrival of the commercial television in Italy marked the end of the so-
called “years of lead” (anni di piombo); a difficult period of social conflict, terrorism, and austerity 
politics after the oil crisis. Commercial television would therefore satisfy the Italians’ demand for 
pure entertainment, offering distraction and a way of escaping from reality (Barra & Scaglioni, 
2013). The changes associated with convergence and digitalization, were challenged within public 
broadcasting institutions which began to lose out to the new competitors. Therefore, even if public 
broadcasters were not interested in participation formats, because they considered them commercial 
and of low quality, they gradually began to adapt their programme mix to the idea that the most 
important goal was to maintain high viewing figures and serve the audience with what they wanted, 
namely entertainment (Syvertsen, 2004). 
In this consolidated scenario, after the gradual introduction of entertainment shows by all the 
channels, an important further step was made by the digitalization process that introduced 
smartphones and tablets into the everyday life of Italian people (Nie, 2001). The wide diffusion of 
these personal screen devices has been increasingly included in the TV viewing experience, deeply 
changing the experience of watching audio-visual TV content. This has forced TV broadcasters to 
change their position from merely entertaining and informing the audience to tying communities, 
giving space to their interests online, inviting user-created content onto their platforms, and 
facilitating their discussions online (Livingstone, 2004). Nowadays, we are witnessing a 
propagation of smartphone and tablet applications that make the experience of watching TV more 
interactive and social. According to the Censis annual research (2016), in 2015, television continues 
to have an audience share which coincides substantially with the totality of the population (96.7%), 
smartphones are regularly used by over half of the Italian population (52.8%), and tablets are in the 
hands of more than a quarter of Italians (26.6%). Thus, in the convergent media landscape (Jenkins, 
                                                
3
The association of the radio and television companies
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2006), both public and commercial channels are spreading onto many screens, distributing their 
contents, which are shared socially and renovated, through several platforms. 
Many television shows are trying to integrate the possibilities offered by the Internet into 
their programs. Now, almost every television show has its own social media platforms, giving the 
opportunity for the audience to chat online and discuss different topics related to the content of the 
program. For instance, it has been observed that the audience has an aptitude for using phones, 
laptops and tablets during the viewing of a program. Media multitasking enables users to engage in 
multimedia activities using multiple screens on a single media platform or with multiple media 
devices while watching television (Shin, An, & Kim, 2015). This current digital society is subjected 
to changes in media consumption patterns and expectations (Hampton, Goulet, Raine, & Purcell, 
2011). The ideal model of “watching TV with my family” described by Lull (1990) has long been 
recognized as outmoded and misguided giving way to an “always connected while watching TV" 
model (Marineli & Andò, 2014). This is evident in my interviewees’ statements: “yes, maybe I’m 
also playing games on my phone while watching the program” (Arianna, 24 years old); “due to the 
fact that we all watch the same programs we comment on them through the smartphone something 
like “did you see…?” (Martina, 24 years old). Therefore, according to Smith and Boyles (2012) 
multitasking on multiple screens has come to define the TV-watching experience because connected 
viewers have begun to
 
incorporate their mobile devices into their television-watching experiences. 
Hence, Italian television gradually intertwined TV content with social media. A research done in 
Italy by Nielsen in 2015 reports that it has been registered that there is both an increased habit 
among the Italian citizens to comment about TV programmes on social networks and a more 
enthusiastic attitude of the broadcasters with initiatives that foster audience participation. 
We should bear in mind that all these changes occurred in a context of general retreat of 
media consumption due to the crisis. The decrease in financial resources has forced Italians to make 
choices within their own consumption. However, digital tools have had an expansive phase in 
contrast and we have seen a real boom of smartphones and mobile connections. The digital divide 
problem has been long debated in Italy, but today the gap appears largely overcome. While nearly a 
quarter of Italians remain anchored to a diet based only on audio-visual media (TV and radio), in 
2015 almost two out of three Italians used the web regularly, almost every day, with a peak of 
around 85% among the under 30’s (Censis, 2016). 
To fully understand the case of TVOI, the following paragraph (1.2) will briefly introduce 
the description of its content and its online content on Facebook, the main social media platform 
used by the program.
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1.2 The Voice of Italy 
The voice is an internationally famous Dutch television programme, first broadcast in 2010 in the 
Netherlands. As it registered a huge success, the format has been exported to several countries 
including Italy, where it was first broadcast on the PBS’s second channel, Rai 2, in 2013 (Barra & 
Scaglioni, 2013). It is a talent show in contrast to the same old ‘useless’ reality shows, like Big 
Brother, merging the world of the television with the music business. In this context, the adoption 
of a social media strategy during TVOI has helped to attract and involve a young and well-educated 
audience. 
 TVOI, unlike other talent shows, puts aspiring singers on stage in front of a panel of judges 
composed of four personalities of the Italian music scene, known in the programme as the 
"coaches". They sit with their backs to the singer on stage, on large red armchairs with a red button 
in front, which conceal the person performing. This is in order to not be affected by the physical 
appearance of the contestants, but rather only by their voice (hence the title of the program). When 
a coach likes the voice they press the red button, and the chair turns around revealing the contestant. 
At this stage, if the contestant has successfully attracted the approval of more than one judge they, 
not the judges, choose which ‘coach’s’ team they would like to join after listening to the judges 
respective pitches. If only one judge chooses them, the contestant must select the same as ‘coach’. 
Obviously, if none of the judges press the button they do not pass onto the next stage. The show is 
divided into five stages: blind auditions; the battles; knockout; live show; live direct. The winner of 
the talent show, chosen by the ‘tele voting’ from home via fixed or mobile phones, wins a record 
contract worth a value of €200,000 with Universal Music Italy. 
 During its seasons many supplementary extensions for TVOI have been developed, giving the 
audience second-screen extras, such as: the official site, social networking platforms, and a free 
official app, especially designed for the programme launched by the most important online stores. It 
encapsulates many functions and provides the audience with an extended experience, made up of 
the latest news on the show and original backstage photos and videos. In the academic discourse on 
social TV , social media are heralded as the expected companions to television. In this paper, indeed 
this assertion will be analysed by interrogating their use in the live shows of the popular reality TV 
TVOI over the course of its seasons. 
 The program has increasingly involved social media platforms in the viewing experience, with a 
result of a fully integrated and engaged audience. Thus, it is the most emblematic and representative 
program to use for this analysis, as it has contributed to the strong affirmation of social TV in Italy, 
generating a high traffic of conversation and spreading the term Social TV (Andò & Comunello, 
2012). According to van Es (2016), The Voice’s producers started to use social media so to
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encourage live viewing and increase audience loyalty through engagement. She identifies four 
different types of social media use: promotional; affective; functional; and phatic. These categories 
are evident also in TVOI where for instance the contestants’ and the coaches frequently tweet and 
post throughout the broadcast. In addition, the official Facebook page stimulates viewers to engage 
with the show by prompting responses to discussions and questions as well as by offering additional 
untelevised content. 
 Similarly, for the affective practice of prompting activity on social media platforms, the program 
strategically places hashtags throughout the show and displays coaches’ tweets in the bottom of the 
screen during the blind auditions. These practices are called “para-social interaction” and lead to the 
audience having a “direct line” to the contestants and coaches through social media and making 
them feel as the performers belong to a circle of peers (van Es, 2016).  For the functional use of 
social media, on the Facebook page of TVOI, posts sponsoring contests and auditions are available 
and users can upload video auditions of themselves. 
 Finally, TVOI also uses social media platforms with a phatic purpose. The primary function of 
social media is to keep communication channels open (van Es, 2016). In TVOI's Facebook page 
there are several posts in which viewers are asked to respond to questions with their opinions 
regarding the narratives or the content, simply to keep them involved. In this project these four 
categories are going to be analysed in terms of their efficacy in returns of responses and interactions 
from and with the audience. 
 
1.3 Social and Scientific Relevance 
The rapid technological development which occurred after World War II in the television industry, 
contributed to a new understanding of television as a means of mass media communication. This 
spurred interest among scholars and increased research efforts in the field of television studies 
(Miller, 2010). Social television has been an increasing trend over the past few years; audience 
participation in European broadcasting registered a sharp increase in the nineties, when viewers 
were placed at the centre of the programming (García-Avilés, 2012). For instance, the role of the 
audience began to be considered in an innovative way and so viewers got the chance of being 
engaged with programs through new media technologies (Deery, 2003). 
 It is in this scenario that the relatively recent advent of Social TV fuels the research interest 
raising new questions in order to understand the dynamics as well as changes and challenges of this 
new phenomenon. Hereby, social TV and second screen technologies have become popular 
concepts within academia and practitioners, but, how do participants interact with the contents of 
the Facebook page of TVOI and what are the different levels of engagement? While the spread of