“… [the blog] doesn’t work in isolation, you’ve got your social media networks around it and the idea is that’s how you bring your readers into the blog … this is the key when you’re trying to work out what social media to be on; you need to know where your readers potentially are hanging out” (Nikki Parkinson, Styling You, i/v 11.5.14). Nikki Parkinson from lifestyle blog Styling You has neatly described how important an audience is to alternative media producers and the value of social network sites (SNS) in engaging and interacting with that audience. This presentation will report on one part of an ongoing ethnographic study that is investigating how media producers in the digital space are employing different ways to disseminate information. Different opportunities have opened up for media producers because of new technologies and the study is examining how these producers work in the digital space. Media producers in this space, including bloggers, online magazine producers and web publishers, have been interviewed and asked what platforms they use, how they monetise their work, and how they have adapted their skills to work in the online environment. While there have been a broad range of responses to the questions, particularly how they monetise their work, one consistent theme is how active these respondents are on SNS and how critical these sites are in their success. While respondents noted using SNS, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, is important in how they connect with an audience, it was clear from the responses that these producers would not be successful without this interaction on SNS with their audience. This presentation will discuss the respondents’ social media use and its value including a discussion on how the use is crucial in building and maintaining an audience.

1. MEDIA ENTREPRENEURSHIP:
the value of SNS for alternative
media producers
Dr Janet Fulton
PhD (Media and Communication) (UoN)
Lecturer in Communication
Faculty of Science and IT
School of Design, Communication and IT
26 November 2014

2. 26 November 2014
A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au
2
INTRODUCTION
• Research project: Media entrepreneurship: alternative paths for
media producers
• Funded by: University of Newcastle New Staff Grant
• Interviewing media professionals who are engaged in “the
dissemination of news and views about our world” (Simons, 2013,
p. 13) using newer forms of media.
– Bloggers (including lifestyle and news blogs)
– Online magazine producers
– Web publishers
– Broadcasters

3. A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au
3
INTRODUCTION
Research questions
• RQ1: How have these new media professionals adapted their skills
in production environments?
• RQ2: What technologies and software, including SEOs and social
media analytics, are deployed by these new media professionals?
• RQ3: What are the evolving business models they are using?
• RQ4: What are the degrees of success of these new media
professionals according to different locations in the media scape?
26 November 2014

4. 4
THIS PRESENTATION …
• One consistent theme – highly active on social network sites (SNS)
– Twitter
– Facebook
– Instagram
– Pinterest
– Etc.
• This high interaction is how the respondents connect with their
audience
• These respondents are very aware of their audience
• Choose the SNS that matches the audience demographic
26 November 2014
A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au

5. 5
METHOD
• Ethnographic project
• Up to November, interviewed 20 participants via Skype, face-to-face,
email
• Interviews between 20 and 90 minutes and covered the four broad
themes
• More interviews to be done (up to 35)
• Still to conduct a thematic analysis of the participants’ sites
• Interviews are in Nvivo and analysis has started
26 November 2014
A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au

6. 6
Interacting with the audience
• Lowrey & Latta: “Bloggers may desire more readers, but like journalists,
they do not meet or converse with most of their readers directly” (2008, p.
188)
• Not true now
– Bloggers and other new media producers have a high awareness of
their audience and a high interactivity with their audience
– Use commenting, email, RSS, various SNS
• Anderson, et al.: “… in today’s fragmented and fraying world, knowledge of
how audiences consume information, and whether what you write, record,
or shoot reaches the people whom you want to see it, becomes critical”
(2012, pp. 37-38).
26 November 2014
A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au

7. 7
Example: Alison Mudie (e-GPS)
“…you really have to understand your audience, have to understand the
language they speak. You have to understand where they’re going and what
they’re accessing on their Smart phones or iPads or Desktop. What time of
day they might be doing it? How, you know how often people might check
their LinkedIn on the way to work but not at work. Whereas people tend to
check Facebook after lunch or, you know so there’s real patterns and
behaviours so you need to kind of understand those” (Alison Mudie, i/v
12.5.14).
26 November 2014
A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au

8. 8
Listening to the audience
• Jenkins, et al.: “the companies that will thrive over the long term in a
‘spreadable media’ landscape are those that listen to, care about
and ultimately aim to speak to the needs and wants of their
audiences as crucially as they do their own business goals” (2013,
loc. 107).
26 November 2014
A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au

9. 9
Example: Nikki Parkinson (Styling You)
“… [the blog] doesn’t work in isolation, you’ve got your social media
networks around it and the idea is that’s how you bring your readers into the
blog … this is the key when you’re trying to work out what social media to
be on; you need to know where your readers potentially are hanging out”
(Nikki Parkinson, Styling You, i/v 11.5.14).
Nikki Parkinson
– Lifestyle blogger with a focus on fashion and beauty
– Facebook is biggest SNS
– Most of her traffic comes via Facebook
– Uses Twitter but mainly for industry contacts
– Instagram also an important SNS
26 November 2014
A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au

10. 10
Example: Nikki Parkinson
“it’s real, everyday people, and in my demographic if they’re on any
social media at all the number one one [sic] they’re on is Facebook”
(Nikki Parkinson, i/v 11.5.14).
“Instagram for me has become, you can’t say it’s a referrer to the blog,
but it’s a more, I’ve got a following there that is more engaged than
would be on Twitter, and I think it’s the whole visual nature of what I
write about, and it kind of gives people a little bit of an insight to my
life. I enjoy it, and I think this is the key when you’re trying to work out
what social media to be on; you need to know where your readers
potentially are hanging out” (Nikki Parkinson, i/v 11.5.14).
26 November 2014
A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au

11. 11
Entrepreneurship: social context
• Karataş-Özkan & Chell: “entrepreneurship is embedded in a social
context, channelled and facilitated or constrained and inhibited by an
individual’s position in a social network” (2010, p. 31).
• Connection between engaging with SNS and degrees of success
• Social media used for:
– Engaging with their audience
– Keeping in contact with others in the industry
– Promoting their sites/work
“You pimp everything. You just have to now” (Anthony Caruana, i/v 9.9.14).
26 November 2014
A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au

12. 12
Example: Zac Zavos (The Roar)
• Website that has commentary and opinion pieces on sport.
• From the website: “Australian Sports Opinion, Analysis, Live Scores
& News, combining our team of expert writers with fan-written
articles on the latest issues in sport” (http://www.theroar.com.au)
• “The Roar is kind of interesting, we’re on obviously Twitter and
Facebook but our demo is slightly older males … it’s not mind
shattering at all but I just don’t think older men share in the same
way as women and younger demographics do so most of that
community – that social media actually happens on site with The
Roar” (Zavos, i/v, 22.5.14).
26 November 2014
A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au

13. 13
Example: Josh Mason (BarTV)
• Started with videoing local rugby league matches and broadcasting them
into pubs
• From the website: “Broadcasting local sport into local venues. Our first
year has seen great success filming and broadcasting a variety of local
sport including rugby league, rugby union, soccer, ice hockey, basketball
and T20 cricket” (http://bartv.com.au).
• Main demographic 18-24 males BUT branched out because of Facebook
(friends/families of players)
• Facebook: highlight packages uploaded and friends/family tagged players,
shared clips, etc.
• Twitter: “we can be probably slightly more journalistic with Twitter” (i/v
24.9.14)
26 November 2014
A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au

14. 14
Example: Kayte Murphy (Woogsworld)
• Blogger: Mrs Woog “making the most out of the mundane”
(http://www.woogsworld.com)
• Uses Twitter, Instagram and Facebook
“I’ve got a really great Facebook community. And like, it feels like they know
me. It’s very strange because they’ll email me or they’ll send me something
that they’ll know that I’ll love, and or “I thought, I thought of you when I saw
this.” And, and that’s a really great Facebook page” (i/v 21.7.14).
26 November 2014
A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au

15. 15
Example: Kayte Murphy (Woogsworld)
• Facebook and blog entries are different
• “I think that they’re very different audiences … everything I do is done
deliberately. So something on Facebook, it’s, if it’s a blog post you know
people skim through that in ten seconds and you know you have to sort of
write quite a catchy headline” (i/v 21.7.14).
• “… the blog is like a big party, and then the Facebook page I liken to a, like
a smaller dinner party. And then the Twitter I liken to like a seedy all out
brawl, feralness. I love it. I love Twitter” (i/v 21.7.14).
26 November 2014
A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au

16. 16
CONCLUSION
• Preliminary stages of research at the moment
– Wanting more interviews
– Analysis to continue
• Preliminary results
– being highly active on social media, and understanding how to
use it in relation to the audience, can help in this really difficult
area
– Not an easy path but there are certainly some out there who
are harnessing these knowledges quite successfully.
26 November 2014
A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au

17. 17
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anderson, C.W., Bell, E. and Shirky, C. 2012. 'Post-industrial journalism: adapting to the present', Tow Center for
Digital Journalism, Columbia Journalism School.
Fulton, J. 2012, Journalists and their audience: a changing relationship?, paper presented at Australian and New
Zealand Communication Association conference: Communicating Change and Changing Communication in the 21st
Century, Adelaide, SA, http://www.anzca.net/component/docman/doc_download/617-anzca-2012-fulton-relationship.
html - accessed 1.1.14.
Jenkins, H., Ford, S. and Green, J. 2013, Spreadable media: creating value and meaning in a networked culture, New
York University Press, New York.
Karataş-Özkan, M. and Chell, E. 2010, Nascent entrepreneurship and learning, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham.
Lowrey, W. and Latta, J. 2008, 'The routines of blogging', in Making online news: the ethnography of new media
production, (Eds) C. Paterson and D. Domingo, Peter Lang, New York, pp. 185-197.
Simons, M. 2013, What's next in journalism?: new-media entrepreneurs tell their stories, Scribe Publications,
Brunswick, Victoria.
.
26 November 2014
A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au

18. DISCUSSION
A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014
26 November 2014
18
26 November 2014
A presentation to JERAA Conference 2014 | www.newcastle.edu.au