Social TV: Second Screen and Audience Participation

Within media studies, television has received significant attention. However, divergent scholars’ opinions can be assumed from the literature. Some researchers address the negative effect of TV viewing on the individual’s degree of involvement in other activities. Nie and Erbring (2000) worry about the fact that television might displace time usually spent in social interaction with friends and family. Similarly, Putnam (2001) has blamed television for an increased disconnection of people from one another and a consequent fall in civic engagement. Despite these perspectives, many scholars consider sociability as a main feature of television and its social uses.
Studies conducted by Lull (1990) and Morrison (2001) show that, although television viewing has often been criticized as an isolating and anti-social experience, it has been social since its beginning, gathering an audience around the television sets. Indeed, television viewing is considered as a social activity often conducted in groups (Sparkes, 1983), mainly in family settings (Cesar & Geerts, 2011). Academics like Silverstone (1994), argue that TV creates shared and common experiences with the purpose of bonding together viewers in a wider society. Furthermore, although people conduct widely diverse lives and activities, TV provides a common point or reference acting like a “social glue” that links strangers together (César, Bulterman, & Jansen, 2008; Lee & Lee, 1995; Chorianopoulos, 2007). Social glue generally denotes shared experiences that enhance social connections. These experiences may or may not involve media technologies like television (Willis, Roussos, Chorianopoulos & Struppek, 2009). In everyday experiences for the majority of TV viewers, audio-visual content serves as a starting point for beginning and supporting relationships. This can for instance involve “watercooler” discussions about yesterday’s football match, or a popular TV quiz show (Harrington et al., 2013; Kubey, & Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).
These interpersonal social interactions may be intensified if viewers have strong personal connections with the TV program (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001). Television is hereby considered as a facilitator for social interactions in society. Audience studies indeed, depicted TV as “a technology of the social that works through encouraging intensity, intimacy and belonging, in which the screen is generative of affect, providing the interface for connection” (Skeggs & Wood, 2012, p. 71).
Due to applications and services developed for digital platforms the interactive viewing experience has been heightened as will be explained in the next paragraph. Thus, in this context, it is necessary to pay attention to how the concept of sociability evolved due to the changes introduced in society by the digitalisation process.