Web 2.0 and Audience Research

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2007 in the subject Communications - Multimedia, Internet, New Technologies, grade: 2,0, University of Bremen, 73 entries in the bibliography, 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 expl...