ABSTRACT
The purpose of our chapter is to analyse and discuss the relevance and nature of specifi c media identities and the consequent audience orientations in a cross-media environment supposedly leading to the convergence of media forms and identities. Following our approach to intermediality, we presuppose that differences between various media are still relevant, but, parallel to that, there is a continuous re-articulation of differences and similarities taking place due to the changing contexts of mediation. What is supposed to constitute a medium or the media more generally has become in many ways fl uid because of continuous changes in technology and the related changes of circulation and reception practices. These changes will then gradually affect the way we understand the media as cultural forms and aesthetics. In the present cross-media environment we should approach the media and their intermedial audience practices as a process of continuous change. Consequently, we cannot approach the media by emphasising their historical nature or essence but, rather, can look at the ongoing processes of mediation (and remediation) which construct such differences and similarities. It is easy to agree with Nick Couldry’s (2004; see also 2009; 2010) conclusion that in order to understand the changing character of audiences one should concentrate on a detailed, concrete analysis of audience practices. We believe, following Bjur, et al. (2014), that cross-media use is increasingly characteristic of the construction of contemporary media audiences. We demonstrate such a change of audiencehood through a concrete analysis of a case of transformation which is described in the following as an intermedial redefi nition of television, characterised by the switchover from analogue to digital. 1
The concept of intermediality is taken from a major research project (the Intermedia project) in which both authors of this chapter, along with a number of researchers from two other Finnish universities, participated. Intermediality was defined as social and cultural relationships in which different media are articulated in relation to and exercise power over one another
(Herkman, 2012, pp. 13-14). In the analysis of current media change, intermediality was applied as a methodology which focuses on the interfaces and interrelationships between different media. In addition to technological developments, intermediality was used to pay attention to the continuity of media forms and the articulation and re-articulation of media through shifts and adjustments in their social and cultural contexts (Herkman, 2012, pp. 19-20). If applied to media use in a cross-media context, the innovative dimension of the intermedia approach is pointing out how specific media practices and consequent identities are negotiated and redefined and how all that contributes to new hybrid forms of mediation.
