presentation given at ECREA 2012 Conference

1. Twitter as a public service medium?
A comparative content analysis of the use of Twitter by Radio RAI and RNE
2
Toni Sellas. Universitat Internacional de Catalunya.
Tiziano Bonini. IULM University of Milan
ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

2. Aim of the research
Over the recent years, Social Media have been increasingly used by radio broadcasters as an opportunity to engage with their audience
and to build communities of listeners. Among these new media, the microblogging platform Twitter has become one of the most
popular services. Since its launch in 2006, Twitter adoption has evolved and now it is used in a variety of contexts, combining elements
of blogging, social networking, text messaging and mobile communication. Since its very beginning radio always dreamt and sought
tools for pushing the audiences toward its contents (Lazarsfeld 1940). Twitter seems to be, among the other social media, one of the best
new tools for drawing back the audience from internet to radio. For mass media, Twitter may be useful for purposes like to deliver
breaking news, content, to share links or to let audience participate to discussion. This paper analyses the practices of public radio in
Social Media focusing on the use of Twitter by two European public broadcasters: RAI (Italy) and RNE (Spain). In a context of
transformation of radio and the rising of network society, PSM role in society is being questioned and asked to extend its service to
include a new media strategy to include citizens and interact with them (Gunn, 2008). We want to study how Public Service Media are
adopting new technologies to reach the audience and to extend their offer. The study also aims to know how public service operators
adapt themselves to the new multi platform scenario which should drive them to change the relationship with their listeners.
The analysis of RAI and RNE tweets should help understanding:
1) How the Twitter strategy (use and language) of both public broadcasters is applied
in practise
2) If PSM are exploring new ways of communicating with listeners and sharing
knowlwdge with them
ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

3. Method of the research
The method for this research combines a quantitative analysis together with a qualitative approach. The data
collection will is held by monitoring the official Twitter profiles of the two main stations of RAI and RNE for two
weeks.
The survey will include a comparative analysis of the tweets published by:
@rairadio2 (the light entertainment public channel in the RAI group),
@radio3tweets (the RAI cultural channel),
@radio1_rne (the main talk radio station of RNE) and
@radio3_rne (the cultural and musical channel).
The study also includes a description and comparison of the information of each profile, regarding issues as the
number of followers and following, number of tweets, ratio followers/following, date of birth or average tweets per
day. Combining with the quantitative study, this paper analyses and assesses the general strategy in Twitter use by
the Italian and the Spanish national public broadcasters, as well as the integration of this new platform in the
production routines of each station and the professional profiles involved in it.
ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

4. Radio stations involved
ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

5. The Data Set
842 tweets
ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

6. Analysis methodology
Quantitative data collection
Twitter profile
general data:
1. Profile name
2. general information (bio)
3. date of registration in TW
4. Tweets (number of tweets at the start of the survey;
number of tweets at the end of the survey) n.b.: the
number of tweets contents also the retweets
5. average tweets per day
6. Ratio Retweet/Tweet
7. Followers (number of followers at the start of the
survey; number of followers at the end of the survey)
8. increasing of followers (in percentual)
9. Following (number of following at the start of the
survey; number of following at the end of the survey)
10. increasing of following (in percentual)
11. Ratio Following/followers ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

7. Analysis methodology
Content Analysis of the enunciations (tweets)
Existing literature review on Radio and Twitter use and/or content analysis of Tweets related to radio broadcasters/listeners is very
few and recent (Gree, Ferguson, 2011). Drawing from their experience we extended the content analysis model adding more
quantitative analysis and linguistic function analysis (Jakobson, 1963)
The tweets have been collected into 8 Storify and have been labelled according to
the Jakobson’s distinction of the linguistic functions (1963)
1. The REFERENTIAL Function
Tweets Broadcasting information about radio
tweets Broadcasting opinion
tweets Broadcasting contents produced by the channel (without promoting them, just presenting them, es tweets that don't use imperatives)
2. The EXPRESSIVE (alternatively called "emotive" or "affective") function
3. The CONATIVE Function
tweets pushing users to participate/act/do something
tweets promoting channel's contents and products
4. The POETIC Function
5. The PHATIC Function (es. an automatic RT of a follower's TW)
“Phatic exchange is a term first used by Malinowski to describe a communicative gesture that does not inform or exchange any meaningful information or facts about
theworld. Its purpose is a social one, to express sociability and maintain connections or bonds.” (Miller 2010:393)
“In phatic media culture, content is not king, but ʻkeeping in touchʼ is” (Miller 2010:396)
tweets strengthening the links with the users (ie.: RT of the listeners' tweets)
6. The METALINGUAL (alternatively called "metalinguistic" or "reflexive") Function
ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

8. Analysis methodology
How Tweets have been coded
ex.: http://storify.com/ilbertolucci/radio-2
ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

9. Analysis methodology
Quantitative data collection
A) Rebroadcast of messages (RT: retweet (a. No; b.Yes, but automatic, no comment; c. Yes, with comments)
B)
Mentions of others users (to map how much “democratic”, partecipative, horizontal, bidirectional the TW channel is
1. No; 2.Yes, linked to the programme or channel; 3. Yes, not linked to the programme or channel)
C) Links (to map how much autoreferential the TW channel is)
1. No; 2. Yes, to the programme web site or channel website; 3. Yes, to the Facebook page of the programme or ch
Yes, to the You Tube channel of the programme/channel; 5. Yes, to external websites, not linked with the prog
channel
D) Additional contents (1. No; 2.
Audio; 3.
Vídeo; 4.
Images)
E) # (hashtags) 1. No; 2. Yes; 3. Yes, more than one)
ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

10. ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

11. Functions of the enunciations
ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

12. Ratio Tweet/RT
ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

13. Ratio ReTweets/Retweets of the listeners
ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

14. Tweets containing links
ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

15. Ratio Internal Links/External links
ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

16. Additional Contents
ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

17. Some conclusions (work in progress)
The use of Twitter revealed to be of strategic importance especially for cultural programmes and stations like Radio3,
because it can provide to potential listeners a frame of reference to their listening experience. As Lazarsfeld already
discovered (1940) the listeners informed in advance about the contents of a “serious listening” programme were more likely
to listen to it. The proper frame of reference, a list of informations about the contents of the upcoming programme, can
positively influence the listening of what Lazarsfeld called “serious” programmes (educative, cultural).
As Ferguson and Greer (2011) demonstrated observing more than 100 U.S. radio station’s activities on Twitter, the average
quarter hour share and the number of followers showed only a weak correlation. No one so far have been able to discover the
“transformation rate” of Twitter followers into listeners. Probably Twitter is not yet a powerful tool of audience growing but
it can still be an important tool for serving the audiences of public service media, providing them with background
informations to prepare followers to the listening experience.
According to Gauntlett (2012) “Making is connecting”: the real aim of participatory cultures and productive publics is to
nurture social connections and knowledge exchange: for a public radio service maintaining and nurturing a networked public
(Boyd, 2011) - a partecipative public whose internal connections are tight - means to accomplish with one of its primary
functions: make people connect and let knowledge flow
SNS reinforce the strong relationships, strengthen the weak ones and generate new latent connections that need to be face-to-
face activated later (Ellison, Steinfeld & Lampe, 2006). Broadcasters analysed are not stimulating relationships among listeners
This “connecting” aim of the public service is not well developed by the use of Twitter made by the
broadcasters we mapped
ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

18. Some conclusions (work in progress)
Broadcasting its own contents
RNE 1 (broadcasting
without sharing)
Radio 3
RAI
RNE 3
Radio 2 RAI
Communicating Sharing
Broadcasting listeners’ contents
ECREA, Istanbul, 24-27 October 2012
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012

19. Literature review
Reinventing Public service:
Reinventing public service broadcasting in Europe: prospects, promises and problems Johannes Bardoel and Leen d'Haenens
Media Culture Society 2008; 30; 337
Bonet M., Fernandez-Quijada D., Ribes X. (2011), “The Changing Nature of Public Service Radio: A Case Study of iCat fm”,
Convergence 17:2, pp. 177-192.
Enli Gunn S. (2008), “Redefining Public Service Broadcasting. Multi-Platform Participation”, Convergence, 14:1, pp. 105-120.
Syvertsen T. (1999), “The many uses of the ‘public service’ concept”, in Nordicom Review, 1:99, pp. 5-12.
Twitter Analysis:
Potter R., (2002) Give the people what they want, A content analysis of FM Radio Stations Home page, Journal of Broadcasting and
Electronic Media, 369-385
Cory L. Armstrong and Fangfang Gao (2010), Now Tweet this: How news organizations use Twitter, Electronic News
Clark F. Greer & Douglas A. Ferguson (2011), Using Twitter for Promotion and Branding: A Content Analysis of Local Television Twitter Sites,
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 55:2, 198-214
venerdì 26 ottobre 2012