Web 2.0 and Audience Research - An analysis focussing on the concept of involvement

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2007 in the subject Communications - Multimedia, Internet, New Technologies, grade: 2,0, University of Bremen, language: English, abstract: Web 2.0 is a buzzword in the digital industry at the moment. Some of the popular phenomena which exemplify Web 2.0 are blogs, podcasts, wikis or social bookmarking tools. The core of the concept is the individual as an active participant. Audience activity constitutes one of the central themes of media analysis concerning the audience. One descriptor used to operationalize audience activity is involvement (Levy, 1983). Involvement is also used in another discipline of research: consumer research deploys the concept to explain the decision making process of the consumer. The objective of this thesis is to attempt the transfer of the concept of involvement from consumer research to audience research on the active Web 2.0 audience. In other words: Can the concept of involvement from consumer research serve to explain audience activity as implied in the concept of Web 2.0? First, the concept of involvement will be described in connection to audience as well as consumer research. This is followed by an introduction to the concept of involvement in consumer research.Following a brief conceptual and historical overview, the concept of involvement and its two-dimensional foundation will be delienated and all processes involved will be described. Third, the concept of Web 2.0 will be explained in detail in part 3. In order to understand the media interest surrounding Web 2.0, the anticipated innovations from the beginning of the internet will be listed, as well as the new questions for audience research, that emerged out of the expansion of the internet. In the fourth part of this thesis a conceptual transfer is attempted. To analyse the possibilities of the concept of involvement from consumer research for research on Web 2.0 audience activity, a typology of Web 2.0 audience activities will be suggested. Existing research on the Web 2.0 audience will be reviewed for the processes that amount to the construct of involvement in consumer research. A concluding assessment of the possibilities of the concept of involvement from consumer research for Web 2.0 audience activity research will mark the end.