Papers by Ingeborg Sofie Heggem Holmene
Hvordan film- og tv-bransjen forestiller seg og tilnærmer seg publikum i nye sosiale medier får k... more Hvordan film- og tv-bransjen forestiller seg og tilnærmer seg publikum i nye sosiale medier får konsekvenser for hvordan de distribuerer og produserer sitt innhold. Medie- og kulturindustrienes mer eller mindre presise forestillinger og «konstruksjon» av publikum har tidligere vært analysert som et sentralt vilkår for produksjon og distribusjon i film- og tv-bransjen (Ang, 1991; Havens & Lotz, 2011: 5). Fremveksten av sosiale medier representerer noe nytt med tanke på hvordan publikum forestilles og tolkes innen medieproduksjon og distribusjon (Ang i Litt, 2012). Denne avhandlingen er en samling av caseanalyser av hvordan forestillingene om publikum reforhandles i lys av sosiale medier i perioden 2015-2018. Avhandlingen vektlegger å undersøke og beskrive hvordan uavhengige distributører i den norske film- og tv-bransjen jobber med å utvikle ny publikumspraksis for å synliggjøre norske nisjeproduksjoner i sosiale medier. Ved å vektlegge tilnærmingen til særlig de mindre, uavhengige d...
Northern Lights: Film & Media Studies Yearbook
Norsk Medietidsskrift, 2019
Independent distributors’ understandings of new media structures contribute towards shaping the c... more Independent distributors’ understandings of new media structures contribute towards shaping the content that
appears in personally tailored newsfeeds, thus influencing which films we know exist and ultimately may choose to
watch. This article investigates how independent film distributors of Norwegian films interpret and use social media
in order to reach audiences: How are independent film distribution and its traditionally more «do-it-yourself» (DIY)
practices affected by the need for an increasingly professional understanding of social media, algorithms and access
to data? This study focuses on four different cases of social media promotion: Goodbye, Montebello (2017), What Will
People Say (2017), My Heart Belongs to Daddy (Røverdatter) (2018) and The Rules for Everything (2017). I suggest that
datafication and social media logics are key concepts for identifying and comparing emerging new media practices
in Norwegian film distribution (van Dijck & Poell 2013). I find that independent PR companies are more familiar
with working with analytical tools and user data compared to the independent film distributors. This study thus
qualify and question earlier findings that suggest that social media might be an easy and effective way for «niche productions
» to reach their audiences (Gaustad et. al, 2018).
Keywords
social media, independent distributors, media distribution, Norwegian film industry, media diversity, datafication
Northern Lights: Film & Media Studies Yearbook (Journal), 2018
In this article, I explore how conglomerates and the independent film companies in Norway concept... more In this article, I explore how conglomerates and the independent film companies in Norway conceptualize their social media strategies before the release of their films in movie theatres. I analyse applications made to the Norwegian Film Institute’s (NFI) support programme for promotional grants in 2015. The ability of individual companies to interpret and go beyond a framing of social media as semi-public platforms – where companies can gain visibility free of charge – is one indication of how strategic knowledge differs. Major distributors tend to perceive social media as a place to buy attention from a targeted audience. Thus, they are taking advantage of traffic data offered by surveillance technologies embedded in social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. This, I argue, is a distinct feature of strategic resources linked to power, networks and knowledge about audiences, which intensify power differentials between large, established corporations and small-scale independent players.
Books by Ingeborg Sofie Heggem Holmene
Dissertation, Inland Norway University of applied sciences, 2020
The thesis is written in Norwegian but includes 2 articles written in English (Norwegian title: F... more The thesis is written in Norwegian but includes 2 articles written in English (Norwegian title: Forestilte publikum - Casestudier av den norske film-og tv-bransjens strategier for sosiale medier (2015-2018).
Abstract dissertation:
The ways in which the film and television industry imagines and makes sense of the audience and social media, impacts how they produce and distribute content. The media and cultural industries’ more or less precise imaginary or “construction” of the audience has been analyzed as a central condition for production and distribution in the film and television industries (e.g. Ang 1991; Havens & Lotz, 2011: 5). The emergence of social media represents something new in terms on how the audience is imagined and interpreted in the day-to-day media practices in media production and distribution (Ang in Litt, 2012). This dissertation presents a collection of case studies that explore how the “imagined audience” is renegotiated in the wake of social media by professionals in the Norwegian film and television industry (2015-2018).
The thesis argues for the need to investigate and describe how independent distributors in the Norwegian film and television industry work with developing new media practice for reaching audiences for niche productions on social media. By emphasizing the social media strategies of the smaller, independent distributors in the Norwegian film and television industry, the dissertation describes a field hitherto unexplored in Scandinavian media industry studies. It argues that, if we are to better understand conditions for cultural diversity on levels of structure, content and representation, it is valuable to investigate this specific distribution and production sector of the Norwegian cultural industries.
However, distributors and producers’ imaginaries of the audience – and their methods and strategies for reaching and understanding them through social media – does not take place in a social vacuum. Thus, the thesis describes how institutional contexts, such as the Norwegian Film Institute and the public service broadcaster (NRK), plays a part in framing what social media are considered to be and how the audience and new target groups are interpreted in digital media.
The case studies explored in this thesis contribute to a specific branch of media and cultural industry studies concerned with new media practices and media distribution. The object of study is not primarily what social media platforms and infrastructures are “in themselves”, but what they represent for actors that work within distribution in the cultural industries and how this in turn impacts how they organize their strategies for reaching audiences. A key finding is that how the audience is imagined, in and through social media, activates different forms of media practices. And the ways in which social media are perceived – as platforms governed by algorithms, as new tools for targeting audiences or as semi-public media – influences those practices.
Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and YouTube create infrastructures where the media user – the empirical, virtual audience – also constitutes an aggregated “mediated audience”. Selling access to the regular media user’s attention constitutes the social platform business model. The aggregated “mediated audience” is sold to professional users, for instance media distributors. In other words, professional media users may access this mediated audience through tools offered to target specific «segments». The overarching analytical perspective in this thesis focuses on ways in which the distributors interpret, understand or in varying degrees have insight into these tools for gaining access to the mediated audience’s attention.
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Papers by Ingeborg Sofie Heggem Holmene
appears in personally tailored newsfeeds, thus influencing which films we know exist and ultimately may choose to
watch. This article investigates how independent film distributors of Norwegian films interpret and use social media
in order to reach audiences: How are independent film distribution and its traditionally more «do-it-yourself» (DIY)
practices affected by the need for an increasingly professional understanding of social media, algorithms and access
to data? This study focuses on four different cases of social media promotion: Goodbye, Montebello (2017), What Will
People Say (2017), My Heart Belongs to Daddy (Røverdatter) (2018) and The Rules for Everything (2017). I suggest that
datafication and social media logics are key concepts for identifying and comparing emerging new media practices
in Norwegian film distribution (van Dijck & Poell 2013). I find that independent PR companies are more familiar
with working with analytical tools and user data compared to the independent film distributors. This study thus
qualify and question earlier findings that suggest that social media might be an easy and effective way for «niche productions
» to reach their audiences (Gaustad et. al, 2018).
Keywords
social media, independent distributors, media distribution, Norwegian film industry, media diversity, datafication
Books by Ingeborg Sofie Heggem Holmene
Abstract dissertation:
The ways in which the film and television industry imagines and makes sense of the audience and social media, impacts how they produce and distribute content. The media and cultural industries’ more or less precise imaginary or “construction” of the audience has been analyzed as a central condition for production and distribution in the film and television industries (e.g. Ang 1991; Havens & Lotz, 2011: 5). The emergence of social media represents something new in terms on how the audience is imagined and interpreted in the day-to-day media practices in media production and distribution (Ang in Litt, 2012). This dissertation presents a collection of case studies that explore how the “imagined audience” is renegotiated in the wake of social media by professionals in the Norwegian film and television industry (2015-2018).
The thesis argues for the need to investigate and describe how independent distributors in the Norwegian film and television industry work with developing new media practice for reaching audiences for niche productions on social media. By emphasizing the social media strategies of the smaller, independent distributors in the Norwegian film and television industry, the dissertation describes a field hitherto unexplored in Scandinavian media industry studies. It argues that, if we are to better understand conditions for cultural diversity on levels of structure, content and representation, it is valuable to investigate this specific distribution and production sector of the Norwegian cultural industries.
However, distributors and producers’ imaginaries of the audience – and their methods and strategies for reaching and understanding them through social media – does not take place in a social vacuum. Thus, the thesis describes how institutional contexts, such as the Norwegian Film Institute and the public service broadcaster (NRK), plays a part in framing what social media are considered to be and how the audience and new target groups are interpreted in digital media.
The case studies explored in this thesis contribute to a specific branch of media and cultural industry studies concerned with new media practices and media distribution. The object of study is not primarily what social media platforms and infrastructures are “in themselves”, but what they represent for actors that work within distribution in the cultural industries and how this in turn impacts how they organize their strategies for reaching audiences. A key finding is that how the audience is imagined, in and through social media, activates different forms of media practices. And the ways in which social media are perceived – as platforms governed by algorithms, as new tools for targeting audiences or as semi-public media – influences those practices.
Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and YouTube create infrastructures where the media user – the empirical, virtual audience – also constitutes an aggregated “mediated audience”. Selling access to the regular media user’s attention constitutes the social platform business model. The aggregated “mediated audience” is sold to professional users, for instance media distributors. In other words, professional media users may access this mediated audience through tools offered to target specific «segments». The overarching analytical perspective in this thesis focuses on ways in which the distributors interpret, understand or in varying degrees have insight into these tools for gaining access to the mediated audience’s attention.
appears in personally tailored newsfeeds, thus influencing which films we know exist and ultimately may choose to
watch. This article investigates how independent film distributors of Norwegian films interpret and use social media
in order to reach audiences: How are independent film distribution and its traditionally more «do-it-yourself» (DIY)
practices affected by the need for an increasingly professional understanding of social media, algorithms and access
to data? This study focuses on four different cases of social media promotion: Goodbye, Montebello (2017), What Will
People Say (2017), My Heart Belongs to Daddy (Røverdatter) (2018) and The Rules for Everything (2017). I suggest that
datafication and social media logics are key concepts for identifying and comparing emerging new media practices
in Norwegian film distribution (van Dijck & Poell 2013). I find that independent PR companies are more familiar
with working with analytical tools and user data compared to the independent film distributors. This study thus
qualify and question earlier findings that suggest that social media might be an easy and effective way for «niche productions
» to reach their audiences (Gaustad et. al, 2018).
Keywords
social media, independent distributors, media distribution, Norwegian film industry, media diversity, datafication
Abstract dissertation:
The ways in which the film and television industry imagines and makes sense of the audience and social media, impacts how they produce and distribute content. The media and cultural industries’ more or less precise imaginary or “construction” of the audience has been analyzed as a central condition for production and distribution in the film and television industries (e.g. Ang 1991; Havens & Lotz, 2011: 5). The emergence of social media represents something new in terms on how the audience is imagined and interpreted in the day-to-day media practices in media production and distribution (Ang in Litt, 2012). This dissertation presents a collection of case studies that explore how the “imagined audience” is renegotiated in the wake of social media by professionals in the Norwegian film and television industry (2015-2018).
The thesis argues for the need to investigate and describe how independent distributors in the Norwegian film and television industry work with developing new media practice for reaching audiences for niche productions on social media. By emphasizing the social media strategies of the smaller, independent distributors in the Norwegian film and television industry, the dissertation describes a field hitherto unexplored in Scandinavian media industry studies. It argues that, if we are to better understand conditions for cultural diversity on levels of structure, content and representation, it is valuable to investigate this specific distribution and production sector of the Norwegian cultural industries.
However, distributors and producers’ imaginaries of the audience – and their methods and strategies for reaching and understanding them through social media – does not take place in a social vacuum. Thus, the thesis describes how institutional contexts, such as the Norwegian Film Institute and the public service broadcaster (NRK), plays a part in framing what social media are considered to be and how the audience and new target groups are interpreted in digital media.
The case studies explored in this thesis contribute to a specific branch of media and cultural industry studies concerned with new media practices and media distribution. The object of study is not primarily what social media platforms and infrastructures are “in themselves”, but what they represent for actors that work within distribution in the cultural industries and how this in turn impacts how they organize their strategies for reaching audiences. A key finding is that how the audience is imagined, in and through social media, activates different forms of media practices. And the ways in which social media are perceived – as platforms governed by algorithms, as new tools for targeting audiences or as semi-public media – influences those practices.
Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and YouTube create infrastructures where the media user – the empirical, virtual audience – also constitutes an aggregated “mediated audience”. Selling access to the regular media user’s attention constitutes the social platform business model. The aggregated “mediated audience” is sold to professional users, for instance media distributors. In other words, professional media users may access this mediated audience through tools offered to target specific «segments». The overarching analytical perspective in this thesis focuses on ways in which the distributors interpret, understand or in varying degrees have insight into these tools for gaining access to the mediated audience’s attention.