TV is defunct. It loses meaning daily. It needs to evolve, to engage the audience using new tech and social media.
That’s the argument you’ll hear at more or less every debate, forum or seminar you go to. I don’t particularly believe it – I agree that the audience, or at least, a certain generation of the audience, is consuming and interacting media in new and interesting ways, but I feel that engagement has to be directed, focused and used wisely.
I see it more often, hash tags appearing at the beginning of shows and encouraging discourse during the transmission of the programme.
There is a time and a place. I think it’s perfectly acceptable to tweet during reality TV or competition shows such as the X Factor or even Question Time – never thought those two would sit so easily in a sentence – because the audience is being asked to engage in a different way – these are interactive formats.
As an aside: I have many friends who are Stand Up comedians and follow many others on twitter. They actually hijack the X Factor to engage with their own audiences – a particularly witty or cutting joke about a contestant can earn you a few new followers and boost your own visibility.
It is when I see channels try to use social media during non interactive shows that I worry/get a little annoyed.
As a writer I don’t think encouraging talk during a drama or scripted comedy is healthy. Audience interaction is different here. As content makers we should want you to react to what you see, but there is an element of passivity. Scream, laugh or cry but don’t talk back.
It’s like talking in a cinema or theatre – you just don’t do it.
BBC3’s treatment of the rather excellent The Fades is what sparked my ire – how is the audience meant to be engaged with the show or scared when they’re also tweeting about it? By all means encourage discussion around a show and boost word of mouth (we need a new twitter based saying for that) but I don’t need to hear X, Y or Z’s not particularly interesting comment over the closing titles.
I just don’t believe we should be encouraged to live blog dramas – especially in this time of time shift viewers who might not want to know the big twist.
This is something of a personal gripe; you may disagree or argue that this kind of engagement should be encouraged. Maybe there isn’t that much of a problem and I’m just seeing something that is unlikely to become the norm and have nothing to worry about. Maybe I’m just getting old and crotchety.
Irony alert: If you want to discuss this matter further then you can find me on twitter @seanmason.
