ABSTRACT
The screen industries exist to generate audience engagement and the monetisation of that engagement is their key commercial motivator. A recurring feature of the interviews and focus groups that serve as the foundation for the engagement model is that practitioners and audiences defined engagement differently. Practitioners saw engagement as unique to each medium, whereas audiences were more medium-agnostic, discussing the similarities in how they engage with different media. Practitioners also understood the temporal dynamics of engagement differently, limiting engagement to the point of the text, while audiences described how engagement could continue long after any content had ended. The particular nature of creating a piece of screen content and how that differs from watching, listening to or playing that content offers a useful context for understanding why practitioners may see engagement differently to audiences. The differences in how practitioners and audiences defined engagement can be understood by taking into account each group’s role in the co-creation of engagement.
