Presence, Participation, and Political Text-on-Television: Testing a Converged Technology

Since its implementation for entertainment purposes (primarily in Europe), text-on-television has been a promising platform for broad audience interaction via a mass medium. This study tests a novel text-on-television format and analyzes feelings of presence and participation in an experimental setting. Despite the fact that a vast majority of participants had not experienced text-on-television formats, this study revealed that a sense of presence, assessed via self-report items, helped users positively experience political content in a shared media environment. Notably, participants who were assigned to a passive condition expressed frustration at not being able to actively participate in the discussion, indicating the importance of a participatory component associated with this converged medium. By viewing segments with President Obama’s speeches political ideology of the participants resulted in a reversed pattern where conservatives experienced greater feeling of presence in a passive condition, in contrast to democrats who experienced greater presence in an active condition. Keywords—Text-on-television, presence, interactivity, participation, civic engagement. 1. Interactive television Text-on-television represents the convergence of broadcasting and short messaging service (SMS) made popular via cellular phones and online chat. Although texton-television formats have been widely introduced in the European context, they have only been indirectly introduced in the United States through online videosharing sites like YouTube. True text-on-television experiences, where users are able to text their comments and have them displayed on television in real time (whether over-the-air or cable TV), are still primarily a European phenomenon [1]. Interactive television has long been considered a promising application that has yet to achieve its full potential [2]. The appeal stems in part from the capacity to transform passive viewers into activate participants via interactive technology [3] [4]. However, because this idea has historically been connected to commercial aims, such as pay-per-view movie consumption, it has been slow to catch on in the U.S. With the rise of pay-per-view programming and shows like American Idol, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and MTV’s Total Request Live, where audiences can vote for their favorite singer, request a song, or recommend the right answer to game show participants, traditional television is slowly becoming more interactive. But these involvement opportunities are almost exclusively limited to entertainment programming. Moreover, because they occur behind the scenes or are aggregated as a type of pseudo-public opinion (e.g., the number of “voters” for a singer on American Idol), they offer a very limited role for audience involvement. This study attempts to overcome the limitations of current media practices by introducing text-on-television as a convergent media experience that merges television content with the ability to send text comments that are visible to other viewers during the “broadcast.” To broaden the possibilities of interactive television as a potential tool for civic engagement, we focus on politics. Since much online discussion (and Twitter messaging) centers on political developments, we use Barack Obama’s historic 2008 presidential candidacy, in particular his widely acclaimed campaign infomercial aired on the eve of the election, along with other screenings covering issues such as healthcare, education and economy were used for this investigation. This study, a test of political text-on-television, evaluates the sense of presence and civic participation the medium engenders in users as well as their impressions of this converged technology as a media experience. 1.1. Media and citizenship Although television is popularly viewed as a passé medium, efforts to enhance civic involvement via television are important for several reasons. In recent decades civic engagement and political interest among young voters has generally declined, with notable exceptions associated with particular types of television programming. For instance, regular viewers of political entertainment shows, particularly The Daily Show, report higher levels of political knowledge, interest, and participation than non-viewers. Much is made of Jon Stewart’s satirical demeanor and mock news delivery style but his show exemplifies how television remains a