Week 5 Lecture: Listening Engagement: • Engaged learning • Public engagement • Engagement as a method of social innovation • Engagement as a social measurement tool

A typology of engagement Gene Rowe and Frewer (2005) • Sponsor = has the resources • Sender = product of communication • Receiver = consumer of communication

Three types of engagement:

Flow of information

Information Sponsor è Public representatives

e.g. hotline / public meeting / press release / Broadcast

Consultation Sponsor ç Public Representatives

e.g. focus group / survey / submission / opinion poll

Participation (=engagement) Sponsor çè Public representatives

e.g. online discussion / / Town meeting

Exposure = mentions / page views Engagement = repeat visitors / comments per post / duration

Measuring Engagement:

Building Smart Community networks: Kerbs and Holley • Nodes • Ties (links) • Strong Ties o Positive: easy mobilization o Negative: Hard to expand • Weak Ties o Positive: easy expansion o Negative: hard to mobilize • Hub: combination of both • Leadership: Combination of hubs

Influencers (Hubs) • Node, strong and weak tie, hub • Don’t target, involve them • Internally: Any students / teachers • Externally:

Week 5 Tutorial Questions: What are the three levels of the “Trading Up the Chain” model? You have to be able to understand how each level does set up and influence the next one (lecture, Chapter 2). 1. Level 1: The Entry Point Level 2: The Legacy Media Level 3: National The new news cycle: compete to get stories first, compete to “confirm” it, and then pundits compete for airtime to amplify it.

Strengths and weaknesses of small blogs and hyperlocal websites? Very small readership that is heavily engaged and has high investment levels Contained readership, trust is high Cash-strapped, traffic-hungry, under-staffed Looking for big story, spike of page views and new visitors Easy to sell to them “a story only loosely connected to their core message but really sets you up to transition to the next level” RH What are the main differences between the online and offline editions of the legacy media? Online Editions: • Can be updated regularly • Hosts different topics and subcategories • More room to move – i.e. they can do a risky article that has not been confirmed yet as they can always change the words • Continuously updating Offline Editions: • Cannot update easily • Printed once a day/week/month/year • Needs to be correct – fact checking / no risky stories Online: same company logo but lower standards Online: “ sections that update more often but with less editorial oversight” (, .com) Offline: Illusion of legitimacy, slightly more selective with content.

Why are websites such as and watched by reporters of the national media? They can be the source of potential news stories / tip offs / whistle blowers They can also be a tool to see what is trending and what is creating buzz Jumping onto a bandwagon that is not there yet – creating a story off one piece of info Ranking of what potential news is spreadable – potential hot topic and high traffic.

How do enterprises pay they workers (three methods at least, see lecture)? Social media presence and following – increases credibility Posts-based, visitors/unique visitors-based, and page view-based.

Why do bloggers love old-fashioned press releases?

Credibility of the source without much effort (everything is already there in a well written press release) – a huge plus. What is valence and why is it critical for making content viral?

1. Valence: degree of positive or negative emotion. The higher the valence, the higher the likelihood of ‘content’ going viral. RH: “The most powerful predictor of what spreads online is anger.” Preferred: make a person feel good or bad Avoid: Sadness it is unviral due to low valence. Preferred: Negative (think TRUMP). Avoid: disempowering for example hopelessness, despair. Preferred: Pity and empathy with a call to action. Preferred: Anger, fear, excitement, or laughter – these drive us to spread What is the problem with clickable headlines and relentless engagement?

Clickable headlines can annoy readers if the information provided is not relevant or interesting. Over engagement can be pushy and turn readers off. Silence (even engrossed) is the enemy; chatter drives traffic and page views. RH tips: Movie reviews, in-depth tutorials, technical-analysis (How to) are typically popular. They are moderately popular amongst emailed lists too. What they don’t do is draw in organic traffic. Avoid: Being thorough or solving the problem – this dampens the potential for heated debate. RH: Being final, authoritative, or overly helpful, or any of those positive attributes, should be avoided because these do not hook engaged users. What is the difference between paid and earned (free media)? (Lecture) Paid Media = advertising Earned media = word of mouth / PR Follow up the example with Trump from the lecture. What is Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE)? (Lecture)

It “measures” the benefit to a client from earned media coverage of a PR campaign. The reach of the media source, meaning how many people were likely to see it, is even more important then the number of mentions. Calculation also includes traditional media of all types, print, broadcast or otherwise, as well as online-only sources like Facebook, Twitter or Reddit.