Maria José Brites

Bridging the gap between micro and macro forms of engagement: three emerging trends in research on audience participation

This chapter aims to make sense of current intersections between audiences’ micro- and macro acts of political engagement. First, we note the dynamics that are at work in the renewed field of micro-politics, made of a daily-life engagement with civic meanings and practice, and with the relentless transformation of mediated civic cultures. Second, we consider the impact that the micro has on macro-politics like organised and institutionalised collective action. The aim of this contribution is to analyse the kind of dis/connections which are supposed to interlace the ordinary politics of media practices with the macro processes of democratic activism.

RadioActive101-Learning through radio, learning for life: an international approach to the inclusion and non-formal learning of socially excluded young people

ABSTRACT This article describes an original international approach to inclusion and non-formal learning of socially excluded young people, through participatory internet radio - RadioActive101. First, we critically discuss the social and digital exclusion of young people. We then describe our approach - that includes participatory action research methods that are influenced by the work of Dewey and Freire, and operate as a process of complex intervention. This supports the inclusive co-production of radio content in ways that support non-formal learning in two EU contexts – the UK and Portugal. We then summarise and compare a qualitative investigation of RadioActive101. This showed positive results, with important similarities and differences between the two contexts. Participants reported that RadioActive101 was motivating and contributed to the development of contemporary skills, and also stimulated improvements in psychosocial dimensions such as confidence (self-efficacy) and self-esteem. This investigation informed the development of an original recognition system for non-formal learning that maps EU Key Competences for Lifelong Learning to radio practices and activities that are recognised through electronic badges. Our reflections emphasise that in order to support the non-formal learning of socially excluded young people we must foreground our attention to fostering psychosocial dimensions alongside developing contemporary competences.

Stakeholder discourses about critical literacies and audience participation

The next section of this book looks into the horizons that lie ahead for audiences, a short while from today, towards 2030. In chapters 11 through to 14, colleagues will look at key societal drivers of future change, such as the increasing ubiquity of connected gadgets attendant to the Internet of Things, and critical concerns around datafication and the arrival of Big Data. In this chapter, we conclude presenting work on the here and the now, hereby presenting outcomes from the stakeholder consultation part of our foresight work. We distil and discuss themes that emerged from stakeholder interviews around micro and macro forms of action, the inherent technological implications, ensuing academic social responsibilities, and the relevance of investing in critical thinking as part of critical literacies, more broadly, as a fundamental component for positive action. These findings, around the importance of critical literacies, irrespective of technological conditions, resonate into the very futures that The Future of Audiences considers in the chapters that follow.

Audiências e cross-media

As praticas digitais que decorrem da ubiquidade dos media e da sua utilizacao possibilitaram a combinacao de multiplas plataformas no consumo de noticias. Neste artigo, procuramos identificar repertorios mediaticos (padroes de uso dos media noticiosos) em Portugal, de modo a compreender como sao construidas as preferencias mediaticas das audiencias e de que forma o consumo noticioso integra os seus habitos quotidianos. Neste sentido, desenvolvemos uma analise a padroes de consumo de media noticiosos a partir de uma abordagem mista de metodos qualitativos e quantitativos baseada na Meto dologia Q (Davis & Michelle, 2011), a partir de uma amostra constituida por 36 participantes. A analise dos padroes de consumo de noticias permitiu identificar e analisar sete repertorios mediaticos em funcao do uso, relevancia e utilidade atribuida pelos sujeitos aos media noticiosos. Os resultados revelam perfis hibridos de consumo mediatico e uma tendencia para consumos de noticias numa logica movel e multiplataforma, embora os media tradicionais continuem a desempenhar um papel determinante nos repertorios mediaticos em Portugal.

Ferramentas jornalísticas na educação. Uma rádio online para jovens

The relationship between journalism and education remains in a yet weakly explored camp, although journalism can embody a pedagogical tool, oriented to the practice of journalistic concepts and techniques. In this article, we explore a case-study of an online radio developed with youth communities, using participant observation, interviews and focus groups conducted in the scope of the project RadioActive Europe (2013-14). We argue that these young participants take similar roles in daily life and particularly in school to those used in contexts of radio participation. Learning through action, however, implies long lasting intervention processes so that the transposal of roles taken up in the project may be more perennial, dynamic and fluid in the personal life processes.

Youth talking about news and civic daily life

ABSTRACT This paper considers how young people talking about news and politics in their family and peer contexts influences their civic life. The research involved 35 Portuguese youngsters from diverse social, economic and cultural backgrounds that were interviewed in 2010, in Portugal, at the onset of the Eurozone crisis. Based on talking and news-mediated contexts and habits, we identified three different profiles: Limitations to empowerment; Civic capital and self-empowerment; and socioeconomic conditions and empowerment. These profiles show how family and peer talking play a central role in strengthening and making a habitus of being an active citizen, even in contexts with limited cultural, economic and social conditions.

Jóvenes y contextos cotidianos de consumo y apropiación de noticias

This article analyzes the social circulation of news in the private sphere, using a sample of thirty-two Portuguese young people who were interviewed because they had some form of civic participation of different types and intensities. Through the consumption of news and political information, five profiles were identified: informed citizens, uninformed citizens, emergent consumers of information, the relevance of the selfcentered and online citizens. These profiles revealed the significance of the social and civic capitals, the importance of daily life and family environments in the habits of news consumption and an important connection of family with political news.