Participants, Consumers and the Politics of Design: British Information Providers on the Web reconfigure the Audience

Light, A. (2003) Participants, Consumers and the Politics of Design: British Information Providers on the Web reconfigure the Audience at Towards a New Media Paradigm. EU COST A20 Conference, University of Navarra, Pamplona, June 2003

This paper explores how audiences for information have changed with the onset of networked media. The new interface between media producers and consumers bridges formerly distinct worlds with the potential of ‘always-on’ digital devices. It introduces the effect of a ‘remote but co-existent producer’ who can feed customised pages over a network to a user who had requested them, either by responding directly or by using ‘software as proxy’. Typically, with changes in form come alterations in the relations possible and desirable between the parties interacting. This paper describes how media companies, in designing interactive websites, are sending out strong messages about their intended audience and its expected behaviour. By focusing on the attitudes of a small group of British information providers as they transfer part of their core activity to the Web, it has been possible to track a change in their conceptualisation of audience from receptive to interactive. The paper concludes in an analysis of the strengths of two opposing trends - towards adopting an ‘inclusive’ or an ‘authoritative’ interaction design policy for visitors - and examines the background to these developments. It ends by looking at the implications for wider concepts of audience.