Engaging young audiences in Bergen
As part of our ongoing partnership with Media Cymru, our Professor of User Centred Design, Andy Walters and Senior Designer Researcher, Jo Ward, recently visited Media Cluster Norway in Bergen. Like Media Cymru, Media Cluster Norway is a collective of Media-related organisations and activities, situated within close geographical proximity of each other to stimulate growth there. It’s regarded as a world leader in augmented reality, graphics, AI, virtual studios and visual storytelling. Jo and Andy facilitated a design-led workshop over 3 days, centred around better understanding young people’s engagement with the media. Here is a review of their time away.
“Every day each of us is confronted with new media delivered over various channels and platforms, all competing for our attention. Part of our work within Media Cymru is to help creatives innovate in this busy space. The purpose of our visit to Media Cluster Bergen was to help broadcast journalists explore new ways of reaching younger audiences.
We were joined by UK journalists from BBC and S4C along with counterparts from Norwegian broadcast media. Together we facilitated a workshop that broke the challenge down into understandings of competing media formats; the assumptions that broadcasters make about young people's needs and values; building narrative and developing personas for empathy; and discussing concepts and low-fidelity prototyping.
An integral part of the workshop was hearing from young people. We were joined by ten students aged 16-19 studying media at nearby METIS school. They presented their thoughts and research on news engagement, and challenged many of the assumptions held by the journalism professionals. For our professional colleagues the workshop presented a rare opportunity to spend focussed time with their intended audience, demonstrating the importance of developing deeper understanding of your end-users’ needs.
We also heard case studies from industry professionals in Norway (including members of TV2 and Fedrelandsvennen), who are experimenting with new ways of reaching a younger audience group. They spoke of the importance of representation, presenters being from similar age groups using familiar language, and of the importance of creating content for social media in vertical formats.
As designers we always have to remind ourselves that we should not be designing for ourselves but for, and importantly with, others. In this workshop it became evident that younger audiences aren’t a single user group but a diverse set of user groups who will have different needs. We hope that this work in Bergen will be a springboard for these journalists to continue their collaboration with young people to develop new and exciting ways of delivering News.
Find out more about our work as part of the Media Cymru consortium here.