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Participatory visibility in web radio content production: the case of the radio bubble #rbnews hashtag at the Greek Public Broadcaster shut-down

Angeliki Gazi et Angeliki Boubouka

Résumés

Cette recherche vise à identifier la notion de visibilité de la participation des auditeurs des webradios en Grèce à travers l'utilisation des médias sociaux. Un objectif concomitant est de discuter la façon dont les auditeurs radio interviennent dans la production du contenu des radios en ligne et, ce faisant, comment ils acquièrent une visibilité participative. La manière dont les auditeurs de la webradio Radiobubble gèrent leur visibilité participative grâce à la production de contenu sur Twitter et à l'utilisation du hashtag d'actualité participatif #rbnews, est présentée et analysée. La période analysée va du 11 au 17 juin 2013, au cours de laquelle la radiotélévision hellénique (ERT) fut fermée. Il est démontré que les auditeurs des webradios en Grèce acquièrent une visibilité participative grâce à la possibilité de mettre en place un journalisme participatif, offert par la plateforme en ligne www.radiobubble.gr. Le développement de la diffusion audio via le web ouvre une discussion sur les implications qui émergent de la convergence technologique et sur l'impact de ce nouvel environnement pour les auditeurs de la radio.

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Texte intégral

Introduction

1Radiobbuble.gr is a Greek web radio, whose content is produced by its listeners. Since it was founded in 2007, it has functioned with different organizational models depending on the availability of its most active producers and listeners. Since its beginning, Radiobubble introduced the embedding of a live air flow with podcasts uploaded by listeners.

2This new form of listener participation in the communication process adds a new communicative dimension to the traditional radio, which will be discussed in our current argument.

3The combination of on- and off-line communication environments leads to new hybrid practices which construct an interactive, dynamic communication system, through which the convergence of sound and multimedia is signaled once the audience becomes a participant in the web content production.

4The request to approach the issue of these new hybrid practices through a postmodern, dialectic and interdisciplinary approach (Gazi, 2003) concerns the theory and research in radio studies through highlighting issues related mostly to participatory radio journalism, along with community web-radios, new multimedia content forms, usage technologies, listener participation and intervention in content management, as well as the relation between the listener and social media.

Web radio: from an acoustic technology to a multimedia technology

5Web radio first appeared in April 1995, with the launch of the first available software, Real Audio 1, by Progressive Networks. Its technology is based on continuous data flow and sound reproduction in real time. Yet, web radio could also be considered to be the possession of advanced transmission speeds and the compression algorithms allow the development of streaming audio technology (Klontzas, 2001). Through the development and expansion of web-radio technologies, parallel changes have occurred in content, aesthetics and ways of listening to the Medium. More specifically, direct changes concern the creation of a bundle of channels with a variety of content, the gain of unprecedented interactivity by radio stations which allows the audience to participate in program production, the ability of expression for minorities which are excluded from conventional radio because of the limitations of transmission frequencies. Another important change brought by web-radio concerns the range of a station from local to national and to global. As a result, listening a radio station very easily exceeds the geographic boundaries set by the conventional Medium. Yet, the most important change brought by web-radio concerns the new correlations between the audience and the radio. Web-radio marks a new period during which the listener seems to be positioned in the center of the communication process and form a massive, impersonal audience, in most cases he/she becomes a user of the web-Medium.

6A result of the aforementioned discussion is the enhancement of research on a global and local level, concerning traditional radio and web-radio. The most recent publications by Tiziano Bonini, Belén Monclús (2015), Madalena Oliveira, Grazyna Stachyra, Guy Starkey (2014), Αndrew Dubber (2013), Jason Loviglio and Michele Hilmes (2013), John, Nathan Anderson (2014), Angeliki Gazi, Guy Starkey, Stanislaw Jedrzejewski (2011), Per Jauert, Marko Ala – Fossi, Stephen Lax, Lars Nyre and Helen Shaw (2010) are indicative references of this discussion, focusing on the notion of convergence, content, new international audiences, the role of the listener in production, community radios, while they attempt to redefine the role of the Medium in everyday life for the individual and society in general. Barboutis & Baltzis (2012) map the research on web-radio that focuses on these points: characteristics of access on demand, the ability of content production and transmission from and to a global audience, the ability to create participatory content without geographic boundaries. In parallel, according to Gartley & Smith (2006), web-radio offers extended possibilities to analyze audience preferences by providing targeted content to each listener in person, enhancing in this way interaction among members of the audience. Cordeiro (2012) notes that we are going through a period during which individuals integrate the web into their lives in a way that serves personal needs, values, attitudes and everyday habits. As a result, traditional Media, TV, radio and newspapers function within the context of the practices of social interaction. Tablets and smart phones seem to be replacing every form of non-interactive communication, while new hybrid forms of communication mediate the off- and on-line reality. As Tacchi (2003) explains, the web abolishes the barriers of space and time, as well as the gap between content production and consumption of the Media, in this case, radio.

7Traditional mass media are going through a new era during their convergence with the web. Radio adopts the codes of the web, and from an acoustic technology, it becomes a multimedia technology.

The notion of participatory visibility: from invisible to visible radio

8British radio theorists, such as Andrew Crisell (1991), Peter Lewis and Jerry Booth (1989), and Pandy Scannell (1996) approach radio by focusing on sound culture as the basic code of communication of the Medium.

9The articulation of sound codes, image and text characterizes the period of convergence between traditional and emerging Media, traditional radio and web-radio (Gazi, 2010 and Gazi 2013). As Oliveira (2013:178) notes, ‘the conversion of a culture of words into a culture of images is one of the most debated themes across the social sciences and humanities. Many contemporary authors coming from diverse subject areas have been discussing the effects of such a change of paradigm. From philosophy and semiotics to sociology and psychology, there is no research field that can ignore how current life is surrounded by images’. Radio introduced a communication context through which the sound of bodiless voices is diffused to distant audiences, creating scenarios of magic and fantasy. In this context, new technologies seem to contribute decisively to the reconciliation of established characteristics of particular Media. ‘When its web version appears [...] traditional radio may be characterized as the Medium surrendering to the power of invisible image’ (Gazi, 2010:535). The new visibility of the ‘blind’ Medium ‘eliminates the sense of futility or the agony of temporary caused by its lack. Radio seems to be craving to make the boundaries of the imaginary permeable through the visible image’ (Gazi, 2010:535).The moment the audio Medium enters the era of the web by incorporating image, on the one hand extended use and stimulation of the listener’s fantasy is abolished, on the other hand the tools for content creation become more and more popular and convenient, making content dissemination through platforms more easy, therefore resulting in the boundaries between the transmitter and the audience more indistinguishable (Jenkins, 2006, Croteau, 2006, Couldry, 2006, Gauntlett, 2000, Cordeiro, 2010). Using the term ‘visual radio,’ Jędrzejewski (2014:23) refers to the radio in the digital world which can now use new technologies and techniques to add a visual dimension to its content.

  • 1 Term used by Peter Lewis and Jerry Booth (1989).

10The ‘blind’ and the ‘invisible1 medium hands over its domination sound codes to image, thereby gaining visibility which allows it to expand the participatory process involving the transmitter and the receiver. This new form of participation in the communication process adds a new communicative dimension to the traditional radio which we could now call participatory visibility.

11By using the term participatory visibility on the radio, we refer to the way in which communication mediated by the sound of the medium is redefined as a multimodal participatory process and how the invisible listeners and producers become visible and available, directly observable, participants in a new form of exposure, which is largely taking place in public.

12Carpentier (2011) attempts the presentation of a model of mapping the relation between the listener and Media. Through the AIP (Access, Interaction, Participation) model, a distinction is attempted between the notions of participation, access and interaction of the audience in its relation to the Media. According to Carpentier (2011), the notion of participation is defined in a context where the listener ‘co-decides’on the reception, as well as technology production, content, participants and the organizations. Based on the Carpentier model (2011), the notions of access and interaction do not include the listener as ‘co-deciding’ during production nor during reception. In the case of access we refer to a notion according to which during production and reception the Medium and the listener are both present without any additional transaction other than the consumption, while in the case of interaction production and reception focus on socio-communicative relationships yet without an intersection between the two communicative processes. In the context of approaching and understanding the notion of participation Carpentier (2011) focuses on the social activity of the individual, according to which he/she can move from the presence (access) and/or socio-communicative relationships (interaction) to the co-deciding (participation).

13The relation between the listeners and the radio, changes as the first time in the history of the Medium direct connections are being formed by listeners through the use of social media. The listeners are in able to exchange comments directly on the wall of a radio program, or among themselves, through direct messages and to express their preferences. And while radio audience remains traditionally invisible, the audience of a radio program on social media is actually a visible group, which is connected to links that produce content and disseminate it through networks. In this way, radio turns into a Medium of user generated content, bypassing the radio program itself and highlighting the participatory visibility. As Bonini (2012) says, the presence of the audience in the radio program began when telephone started being used, while the relationship between the listener and the Medium is acoustic, since the listener communicates with the producer through sound and mostly through voice. Nowadays the presence of the listener takes place through the use of social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter- while the listener has a name, a face, a personal space for discussion, a particular profile, emotion, and a more general presence. The new communication model, coming from the convergence of radio and social media, is a hybrid communication model, part of which is still being managed by one transmitter, although part of it is already networked.

14According to Gazi, Starkey, Jedrzejewski (2011), in order to understand the notion of participation in web-radio, it is necessary to focus on the relations between the listeners and the Medium, while it is important to investigate the connections with the Social Media Networks. During their connection through social media, radio producers and listeners are transferred to the same horizontal and complex interface system.

15Radio turns into a participatory Medium, within which the producer and the listener can take on the role of one another, in parallel with the new form of participatory visibility that emerges and facilitates action.

16The romanticism of traditional radio, which once turned its intangible protagonists, its broadcasters, into mythical heroes, and probably timidly expressed, through voice and without image, the cultural transmission from the Victorian era of secrecy to the current era of profound knowledge for one another, as Peters (1996) mentions, which interprets the universe from a sound perspective (Herreros, 1995:313) or represents the world to the ear (Arnheim, 1936) has been undergoing an impressive change since the analog Medium entered the new dimension of participatory visibility, of transparency against secrecy, of visibility against the non-visible, of participation against passiveness.

The case of the web radio and of the #rbnews hashtag

17The aim of this research is to identify participatory visibility among web radio producers and listeners within the framework of the relation that emerges between them, through their participation in social media platforms.

  • 2 During the period of the current research (summer of 2013), the Radiobubble program, consisted most (...)

18The case study of www.radiobubble.gr2 has been selected because of the participatory model of news coverage that it has developed in recent years. In September 2011, through its webpage, www.radiobubble.gr web radio launched to its listeners a new structure that included a ‘News’ section, aiming to develop a model that placed emphasis on news reporting. A core team of several actively involved volunteers –most of whom were experienced journalists- formed a virtual newsroom, which was supported by a wider circle of the listeners, who contributed additional content. The news coverage model included the use of participatory tools, the most fundamental of which was the #rbnews hashtag on Twitter. The news team used to filter the news that was posted on the social media platform accompanied by the #rbnews hashtag, and the posts were reposted through a widget on the Radiobubble News page. Unfiltered tweets with the #rbnews hashtag were also made available, for anyone who might want to evaluate them using different criteria. The News section of Radiobubble.gr also included news stories (breaking news, analysis, and special coverage of major events that interested the Radiobubble radio community), weekly radio news broadcasts as well as the summary of the news of the week, which were available through the webpage. The most important news, as well as the weekly summaries were additionally translated in English, French and Spanish, depending on the availability of the members of the newsroom.

19The Radiobubble News team focused on listener participation via Twitter while it kept a low profile on Facebook. In our sample, @radiobubblenews was found to be one of the three most active Twitter accounts and also the only one created by a web radio aiming to engage potential listeners in content production.

20Yet, several producers and listeners stand out by using their personal twitter accounts and #rbnews hashtag, while posting and disseminating news, whereas Radiobubble adjusted its radio program according to current news, including news topics shared among its listeners.

21The producers invited all listeners who wanted to post news on Twitter by using the #rbnews hashtag. It was the only hashtag by a radio that engaged its audience in a participatory process in this way.

  • 3 http://trending.gr/2012/
  • 4 http://trending.gr/2013/ http://monitor.sidebar.gr/blog?id=11661

22It was the second most used hashtag among Greek Twitter users (393.049 times) 20123 and has been one of the most popular in the time up to 20144 (used 111.589 times in 2013 and 56.327 times in 2014) (Table 1). In contrast with other popular hashtags which were used by other radio or TV shows or Media, the use of #rbnews was not necessarily connected to the live broadcast of the Medium that inspired it (Radiobubble), but to the general news flow, especially related to news that was underrated by dominant Media.In addition, #rbnews content did not occur by the web-radio program, on the contrary, it was produced as an alternative news-feed -co-created by radio listeners, as well as by radio producers/journalists. This news-feed partly defined Radiobubble's radio program, since the later focused on trending #rbnews topics.

  • 5 The initial flow that included all unfiltered tweets was available through Twitter search as well a (...)

23The basic guidelines provided by Radiobubble News administrators to listeners was to avoid the use of comments and judgements in the tweets that include the #rbnews hashtag5. Since the listeners did not always comply with the guidelines, the news team filtered the posts that included the #rbnews hashtag and reposted only those that they found to be credible and confirmed. Those reposts appeared through a CoveritLive widget, embedded in theRadiobubble News webpage [see picture].

The live #rbnews widget on the Radiobubble News page. Screenshot: May 24, 2012

The live #rbnews widget on the Radiobubble News page. Screenshot: May 24, 2012

24News posting has been another structural element of the Radiobubble News webpage. During the period October 2011 – June 2013, Radiobubble News counted a total of 999 posts, on average 50 per month. On June 2013, there were 50 posts. During the week under research – June 11-17 2013 – there were 17 posts (2-3 per day), nine of which were about the reactions to the ERT shutdown, three about press freedom, and five about other, mostly international, news.

25To understand the uses of the #rbnews hashtag and the way web radio listeners gain participatory visibility, we focused on a particular time period of intense social and political mobility, which allows them to produce content and subsequently exercise active roles in the process of gathering, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information, in a context of promoting and enhancing participation.

26We chοose to study the example of web radio listeners’ participation under the specific hashtag during the week around a major event of the current economic crisis in Greece: the closure of the Hellenic Public Broadcaster, ERT, on June 11 2013. We retrieved all the tweets posted during the week that followed the event (June 11-17 2013), containing the #rbnews hashtag and carried out a quantitative and qualitative analysis. Tweets were retrieved through the Twitter search tool6, available on the Twitter platform. The total sample was filtered manually in order to exclude multiplications (‘reteweets’ and ‘favorited’ tweets). The final sample, used for analysis contained 1.066 tweets.

27Thematic analysis of the sample allowed us to identify categories of interest of the Radiobubble listeners who used the #rbnews hashtag, as well as common practices among them, through time and around different topics. Quantitative analysis allowed us to identify trends in content production/dissemination and to assess listener participatory visibility.

The web radio listener’s content production at the Greek Public Broadcaster shut-down

28Based on the aforementioned points, radio content becomes decentralized and it is diffused while the interconnecting system becomes complex and the audience interconnects through a variety of channels in the context of a new form of participatory visibility.

29A new culture, with different codes, and a brand new pattern for radio era has emerged. Radio connects with multimedia content (photos, videos, audio files), as well as with additional networks, while it remains the basic traditional Medium actively contributing to promoting listeners’ participatory visibility. The results of the current research confirm these arguments.

30Concerning the number of tweets posted per day, we found that it varies depending on the reactions that ensued, starting from the night of June 11th, when ERT’s screen went black. On June 12th and 14th the use of the hashtag increased, following the growing number of reactions in Greece and abroad, the massive gatherings that occurred outside the ERT building (and lasted for many weeks, until early autumn). Some of the variations in the use of the #rbnews hashtag is also related to developments in connection with another major event at this time: the revolt in Turkey after Gezi Park (a story that had been developing since May 2013). Variations in the use of the hashtag are also related to the presence of specific listeners. There are few Radiobubble listeners who tweet tens of posts on their active days and their absence during the rest of the week affects the sample.

Chart 1. Listeners/users “profiles” directly involved in news dissemination

Chart 1. Listeners/users “profiles” directly involved in news dissemination

Users of the #rbnews hashtag, who are either radio producers or web radio listeners, engage at different levels in the production and filtering of new content. Their presence on the Twitter #rbnews timeline lends them visibility through their social media identity. (username, avatar, name/surname).

31During the week under research, we measured 191 different users (=Twitter accounts) using the #rbnews hashtag. However, the number of #rbnews hashtag users who actively participate in the news coverage is very limited. In more detail, we found:

  • 20 users who have contributed 10 or more tweets during the week (a total of 719, or 67,4% of the sample)

  • 68 users who have posted 2-9 tweets during the week (a total of 240, or 22,5% of the sample) and

  • 104 users who have posted just one tweet each during the week (9,7% of the sample)

32Some of the most active #rbnews hashtag users were at the time among the core team of content contributors of Radiobubble News to the web radio: [@IrateGreek (95 tweets), @northaura (51 tweets), @Krotkie (46 tweets), @doleross (38 tweets), @Polyfimos (29 tweets), @inflammatory (25 tweets), @mpatman (17 tweets), @O_Kanalarhis (11 tweets), as well as the official Radiobubble accounts @radiobubblenews (63 tweets), @radiobucbble (13 tweets)] who systematically filter, crosscheck and translate information provided by other users (Chart 2).

Chart 2. Number of #rbnews tweets per day (June 11-17 2013)

Chart 2. Number of #rbnews tweets per day (June 11-17 2013)

33Content analysis of the sample showed a wide variety of radio listeners who contribute roughly one third of the tweets. In this way, they engage in the production and dissemination of information, while the Radiobubble News model provides them with the opportunity to make their voice heard through a popular hashtag.

34Radio, through participatory visibility, a result of convergence between the traditional and the new media, amplifies citizenship, since it highlights and reinforces the social dimension of the listener by providing the latter the opportunity for informative, social and cultural interventions.

35There are two major news categories almost monopolizing the interest of the #rbnews users: ERT and Turkey. The rest of the tweets can be categorized into very general categories, since they aroused very few times in relation to other events. We may identify the following subcategories (Chart 3):

  • News regarding the closure of ERT (812 tweets)

  • New regarding developments in Turkey (198 tweets)

  • News regarding some other domestic issue of Greece (36 tweets)

  • News regarding other international stories (24 tweets)

  • News regarding the current economic crisis, not-related to any of the above categories.

36It seems that #rbnews hashtag users adopt it in their tweets, in order to disseminate information about the ERT closure. By gaining visibility from the events they choose, they seem to set an agenda which is close to current issues that most interest them and tends to undermine other stories. It is the radio of our time, being both multimedia and multiplatform because radio is not an island (Herreros, 2011:19) but implies a permanently evolving communication ecosystem’ (Reis, 2014:42).

Chart 3. Categories of #rbnews tweets per subject/date (June 11-17 2013)

Chart 3. Categories of #rbnews tweets per subject/date (June 11-17 2013)

37In a more detailed analysis, tweets about ERT can be divided into three sub-categories:

  • News about developments around the closure of ERT

  • News about citizens’ reactions, mostly related to the massive gathering outside of the ERT building

  • International reactions to the ERT closure

38Part of the sample could not be placed in any of the above categories, because they were either isolated comments (37 tweets), tweets promoting Radiobbuble or inviting users to contribute money for it (24 tweets). But they were also connected to ERT, because they used the #ert hashtag or other relative references.

39Tweets were written primarily in Greek (550 tweets) or English (411 tweets) but there were also translations or original tweets in eight more languages: Spanish (76 tweets), French (26 tweets), Turkish (8 tweets), Italian (8 tweets), Dutch (4 tweets), German (3 tweets), Portuguese (1 tweet), and Finnish (1 tweet) (Chart 4).

40One of the most interesting variations in the use of foreign languages is the peak that we notice during the second day, when the radiobubble #rbnews hashtag boosts the participatory visibility of the listener, not just locally but on a global scale. Therefore, languages signify a new era of receiver’s participation -of the listener’s, in this case- in the creation and development of action through the transmission of information and global discussion.

Chart 4. Languages used (directly or through translations) in #rbnews tweets

Chart 4. Languages used (directly or through translations) in #rbnews tweets

41There are three dominant categories in our sample, indicating the most popular practices among #rbnews hashtag users who filter the news (Chart 5a). More than half of the posts (662) are generally informative tweets, in which there is no mention of source for the information given. On the contrary, users themselves imply that they provide information based on their experiences, evaluation or filtering. A percentage of these tweets constitute eye-witness reports, but it is usually not stated if this is the case, so we did not refine them as such. The production of ideas takes place in a cooperative, communal and participatory environment, which disrupts the boundaries between producers and listeners.

42The other two major categories include retweeted or curated posts of other users.

  • There are 148 ‘retweets’ (not organic RTs, by using the RT button on Twitter, but with an ‘RT’ indication of copy-pasting other postings).

  • There are also 113 tweets which are based on curation of information provided by other users, and the sources are mentioned. In many cases these curations are translations of the originals.

Chart 5a.: Sources categories mentioned in #rbnews tweets

Chart 5a.: Sources categories mentioned in #rbnews tweets

43Those three categories of posts are dominant through the entire week, no matter how news stories peak or lose their particular interest (Table 3). There are less often retweets and curated tweets based on sources which are not identified as individual users, but as representing particular entities. Analysis shows that these accounts are officially or unofficially affiliated to governmental partners, dominant Media, alternative Media or blogs, sources affiliated to ERT or accounts run by its employees, as well as accounts affiliated to Radiobubble.

44The role of the journalist as a gate-keeper of social reality seems to change within the context of participatory visibility that the Medium gains. The role of the journalist in new communication environments of convergence is re-defined in a way that the latter is able to follow the new technological and social conditions dictated by web accessibility.

45One of the secondary findings is that there is no attribution of information to any governmental source, as if users are extremely reluctant to use them directly. Official sources in general, are also extremely rare (Chart 5b).

Chart 5b.: Sources categories mentioned in #rbnews tweets

Chart 5b.: Sources categories mentioned in #rbnews tweets

46The use of links to sources with additional information or multimedia (images, videos, documents) is very frequent (460 tweets). There were 252 tweets containing at least one image or a link to an image, as a means of news documentation. The second most frequent category of links (57 tweets) was that of live streams, mainly of ‘pirate’ ERT broadcasting. That was especially the case during the first 48 hours after ERT was closed, when people were trying to discover alternative resources for online information (Chart 6). Less links were directed to Youtube videos and other social media platforms.

Chart 6. Use of links and multimedia

Chart 6. Use of links and multimedia

47Participatory visibility therefore appears to introduce an emerging, hybrid, communication model according to which the listener and the producer actively participate in the construction of social messages through the use of social media. It is therefore understood that the nature of radio changes radically, as power shifts in favor of listeners and since the boundaries between production and use have become blurred and porous.

The listener as a content producer in the participatory visibility context

48By using the term participatory visibility related to radio we refer to the way in which communication, mediated by the sound code of the Medium, is redefined as a multimodal participatory process and the invisible listeners and producers turn into visible and available, directly observable and participants in a new form of exposure, which is at large taking place in public.

49The radio listener who is also a social media user, gains visibility which allows him/her to participate in the content production of the Medium. At the same time, he/she is able to participate in decision-making, co-creation and configuration. As regards radio content production on the web, the listener acquires visibility and potentially turns into a content producer, while participating in news production.

50The Medium is in a constant and continuous transition from traditional sound broadcasting to a visual, cooperative, hybrid involvement of participants. Within the numerous public and private spheres, social and interpersonal contexts, and interactive information and entertainment content integrated in the Internet, online participatory networks enhance the user-generated-content experience by associating individual creativity with online tools, consolidating the horizontal flow of communication in which it is established between a community of individuals sharing many-to-many, peer-to-peer experiences, while promoting self-expression without the mediation of traditional and often regulated media institutions (Gazi & al., 2014). Therefore, the Medium no longer defines its content, but merely its production platform, which transforms radio into a space of content production by owners, listeners, producers, networks, services, providers, as a result of convergence of the ‘blind’ sound Medium with the visual web and social media.

51Current research demonstrates the existence of a communication model in which the listener plays a central role. While the producer partly remains regulator of the content and the news, at the same time he/she co-exists with listeners through active and dynamic interactions. The simultaneous use of a specific hashtag by web radio listeners, producers and social media users seems to turns radio into a participatory Medium, within which the producer and the listener can take on the role of one another.

52Due to the fact that radio has been the Medium that adapted to Web 2.0 faster than all other Media while communication codes facilitated convergence process, the dissemination of radio news highlights the participatory visibility of the Medium and, as such, its listeners are able to take on the role of participant in matters that interest them, both as a citizens and as members of society.

53The listener is defined in a context in which he/she ‘co-decides’ on issues concerning the reception and the production of content, the use of technology, the participants and the organizations involved. Listeners can be seen as active participants and social media have become a second screen for radio where social exchanges online ‘can be as important as those heard more widely on the medium’ (Berry, 20014). New media are responsible for the role of new users and listeners are changing, in a sense into active producers.

Appendix

Table 1. The use of the 4 most popular hashtags by greek-speaking Twitter users 2012-2014

Table 1. The use of the 4 most popular hashtags by greek-speaking Twitter users 2012-2014

Table 2. #rbnews and other hashtags (used at least 10 times each, during the week 11-17/6/2015)

Table 2. #rbnews and other hashtags (used at least 10 times each, during the week 11-17/6/2015)

Table 3. #rbnews tweets 11-17/6/2013 / by identified category (type of content)

Table 3. #rbnews tweets 11-17/6/2013 / by identified category (type of content)
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Note de fin

1 Term used by Peter Lewis and Jerry Booth (1989).

2 During the period of the current research (summer of 2013), the Radiobubble program, consisted mostly of live radio broadcasts by producers who, later on, uploaded them as podcasts.

3 http://trending.gr/2012/

4 http://trending.gr/2013/ http://monitor.sidebar.gr/blog?id=11661

5 The initial flow that included all unfiltered tweets was available through Twitter search as well as through a link

on the sidebar of Radiobubble News webpage.

6 Tweets were retrieved on October 4 2014, through https://twitter.com/search-advanced

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Table des illustrations

Titre The live #rbnews widget on the Radiobubble News page. Screenshot: May 24, 2012
URL http://journals.openedition.org/radiomorphoses/docannexe/image/1215/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 218k
Titre Chart 1. Listeners/users “profiles” directly involved in news dissemination
Légende Users of the #rbnews hashtag, who are either radio producers or web radio listeners, engage at different levels in the production and filtering of new content. Their presence on the Twitter #rbnews timeline lends them visibility through their social media identity. (username, avatar, name/surname).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/radiomorphoses/docannexe/image/1215/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 229k
Titre Chart 2. Number of #rbnews tweets per day (June 11-17 2013)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/radiomorphoses/docannexe/image/1215/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 94k
Titre Chart 3. Categories of #rbnews tweets per subject/date (June 11-17 2013)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/radiomorphoses/docannexe/image/1215/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 120k
Titre Chart 4. Languages used (directly or through translations) in #rbnews tweets
URL http://journals.openedition.org/radiomorphoses/docannexe/image/1215/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 163k
Titre Chart 5a.: Sources categories mentioned in #rbnews tweets
URL http://journals.openedition.org/radiomorphoses/docannexe/image/1215/img-6.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 103k
Titre Chart 5b.: Sources categories mentioned in #rbnews tweets
URL http://journals.openedition.org/radiomorphoses/docannexe/image/1215/img-7.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 229k
Titre Chart 6. Use of links and multimedia
URL http://journals.openedition.org/radiomorphoses/docannexe/image/1215/img-8.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 109k
Titre Table 1. The use of the 4 most popular hashtags by greek-speaking Twitter users 2012-2014
URL http://journals.openedition.org/radiomorphoses/docannexe/image/1215/img-9.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 93k
Titre Table 2. #rbnews and other hashtags (used at least 10 times each, during the week 11-17/6/2015)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/radiomorphoses/docannexe/image/1215/img-10.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 39k
Titre Table 3. #rbnews tweets 11-17/6/2013 / by identified category (type of content)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/radiomorphoses/docannexe/image/1215/img-11.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 53k
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Pour citer cet article

Référence électronique

Angeliki Gazi et Angeliki Boubouka, « Participatory visibility in web radio content production: the case of the radio bubble #rbnews hashtag at the Greek Public Broadcaster shut-down »RadioMorphoses [En ligne], 5-6 | 2021, mis en ligne le 01 novembre 2021, consulté le 18 avril 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/radiomorphoses/1215 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/radiomorphoses.1215

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Auteurs

Angeliki Gazi

Assistant Professor Department of Communication, Media and Culture Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences-Athens
a.gazi[at]panteion.gr

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Angeliki Boubouka

Journalist, Athens News Agency
a.boubouka[at]gmail.com

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Le texte et les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés), sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.

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