This is a blog that I wrote whilst working with the awesome Traffic Digital team which can be viewed as it’s original version here. However, I was reminded of this post this week and I have been thinking about it all week. I think it is relevant today, more so than ever, let me know your thoughts!

A few of the Traffic Digital team headed to the 2-Screen event on the 14th October, an event that discusses how social media has become integral to our lives. This was a very good event, and one talk in particular that stood out was given by Channel 4′s Matt Locke.

Matt gave some awesome insight into the shapes of the audiences who watch TV, which I will summarise as the following:

1. Live, synchronous shapes – those who watch events like Lambing Live & Seven Days and engage online, live, using twitter.

2. ‘Cult’ shapes – Lost and The Soprano’s fans are prime examples. They may be on twitter discussing the programme but they have a cult following and engage in the life, character, storyline and plot of the TV show.

3. Asynchronous shapes – these are viewers who like to snack on programming, users who may play the likes of Farmville etc. Matt suggested that we should look at how we should change traditional 30 & 60 minute formats in order to cater for such an audience.

4. Factual shapes – these are individuals who engage with the likes of Embarrassing Bodies or Battletfront and they engage in order to learn or with a mission in mind.

It is the final group, the factual shapes, that I would like to focus on and indeed take a step further. I would like to split ‘Factual’ into two categories: Factual Shapes (educational shows such as Embarrassing Bodies) and Activist Shapes.
I would like to focus on these Activist Shapes. Matt Locke alluded to these shapes giving examples of Channel 4′s Battlefront, a campaign show to further a cause. We have also seen this shape of audience in Channel 4′s Landshare. However, in the current economic and political climate, I believe that we are going to see a lot more of these shapes.
Alongside reflecting on Matt’s talk at 2Screen I have also been thinking about a Seth Godin talk on Tribes (see video below) and how society is coming together in specific tribes. Of course this has always been the case from the mod’s and the rocker’s, to tribe’s around specific football teams. However, with the news in recent days I believe that we are going to see people form more and more ‘tribes’ with an activist purpose.

The UK Government have recently announced all the cuts required in order to take this country away from the brink of bankruptcy. Part of these cutbacks include council cuts and impending job losses of hundreds and thousands. I believe that these cuts will result in local councils focusing on core activities – such as looking after the poor, vulnerable and needy – and peripheral activities such as leisure centres, youth centres, and promoting looking after the environment will become secondary.

As a direct result of these losses, ‘Activist Audiences’ will come together in order to fulfil these roles and these tribes will use social media to come together in order to ensure that these services are met and indeed, run by them.
It is inevitable that we will see crowd-sourced ownership of local community activities that can no longer be run by local councils. As believers in both social media and television it is down to us to be forward thinking and creative about developing uses for twitter, new mobile apps and indeed new television programmes that will facilitate our Activist audiences and indeed enable them to change our communities forever.