Abstract
The use of social media alongside television programmes has altered media production. On the one hand, media operations have become more commercialized due to globalization. What has changed is precisely that media convergence has taken place as it is more profitable. At the same time, the traditional media consumer has changed. The media consumer has become more engaging (from passive/active recipient to an active participant in the media production process), and this is referred to as participatory culture. Some scholars conceived of this as a shift from consumer to prosumer.
Through a content analysis of interviews and tweets, this study examines the use of Twitter as a platform for audience engagement in the case of the television programme, Skeem Saam. Drawing on past experiences when engagement between producers and audiences was occasioned by way of call-ins using fixed-line telephone and postal services. The goal of this study was to examine how producers and audiences of Skeem Saam use social media today to interact, collaborate, share meaning, and construct engagement on social media. Local soap opera Skeem Saam was used as a case study while the approach of Wohn and Na (2011) to analysing the engagement in conjunction with television programmes was used to peruse the data and obtain meaning. A review of the literature suggests that media engagement is not a new phenomenon. CompuServe; Usenet, Myspace, and email systems are reflective of the theoretical background in the history of social media (McIntyre 2013). This study revealed an organic audience engagement, with its overtures and clichés appearing to have an indirect but key role in shaping the relationship between audiences and the television shows. The results also revealed that the high cost of data, uneven distribution of technology, and the local particularity of network connectivity, make it difficult to fully realize the potential that new media might have on mass media.