ABSTRACT
The television industry's exploitation of the internet and mobile phone as spaces for audio-visual engagement has, as the previous two chapters explored, created a significant shift in the media landscape in which audiences now live. Only a few years ago televisual narrative was restricted to a certain kind of content from a limited number of sources via a television set; now audiences face a wide array of choices in how, where and when they engage with it. The question then becomes, how are these technologies being integrated into daily life? What choices are audiences making and why? Such questions demonstrate the particular value in conducting empirical audience research during moments of change. Although it is possible to theorise from the texts how different elements of transmedia drama offer different forms of engagement, the ways in which audiences may actually take up these technologies is more complex than can be seen from textual or industrial analysis alone. As Roger Silverstone indicates in the ‘incorporation’ strand of his model of consumption, technologies ‘may become functional in ways somewhat removed from the intentions of designers or marketers. Functions may change or disappear’ (1994: 129), something David Morley has gone onto label a ‘double life’ (2000: 86). Hughie Mackay and Gareth Gillespie put forward a more reserved position, arguing that ‘the appropriation of a technology cannot be entirely separated from its design and development: technologies are designed for a particular purpose’ (1992: 699). A television, or VCR, or DVD or computer can only do certain things; there are some things they are physically and technologically incapable of doing. However, it remains difficult, if not impossible, to predict whether an individual will use a technology for its ‘intended’ purposes and, if not, what purposes they may use it for.
