Deconstruction of the Ratings Machine is a research project designed to make an important contribution to the international knowledge surrounding how audiences are constructed and with what effect. The aim of the project has been to delineate how the Swedish radio and TV audiences get measured, weighted, and valued by diverging actors bound up with the radio and TV market. At the center of scrutiny has been the professional everyday practices performed by media houses, advertising agencies, advertisers, and audience measurement agencies, whereby audiences get measured and valued, and thereby created. The project has been completed without any major deviation from what was originally planned.

The three most important outcomes of the project are 1) a theoretical contribution of an analytical framework outlining why and how audience measurement as regimes of visibility condition media work, 2) empirical evidence exemplifying more exactly how this effect takes place in everyday work processes, and 3) a concrete tool illustrating how the relative openness of audience data makes it possible to establish alternative ways of seeing media audiences.

1. The theoretical contribution is the framework of regimes of visibility. It stands at the core of the argument established to outline the link between media measurement and media work [3,4,6]. Media measurement is positioned between the real-world media audiences [the reality] and the media market actors. It constitutes an inter-mediary. To observe media consumption, media market actors are obliged to see through the lens of measurement. Consequently, any media measurements constitute simultaneously a regime of visibility. The analytical framework outlines how different measurement methods distribute spatial and temporal visibility defining what can be seen of actors, actions, action spaces and action objects involved in media consumption [the measured].

2. The empirical contribution of the project is detailed evidence on how everyday media work are directly affected by what the media market actors see of media consumption through measurement. The case study of radio follows a shift in media measurement system. Media market actors are empirically mapped out before, during, and after the shift. The studies reveal actors’ perception of the audience and their listening is directly conditioned by what measurement produces. The consequence being, production and selling of radio is partially re-made in line with the images media measurement produce [3,4,6].

3. The methodological contribution of the project is an open source software [12] that has been built to make possible the manufacture of alternative sets of audience images. The software can be applied to a variety of audience and consumer data sets. Once the structure of data is defined, analysis can be run to produce a myriad of alternative images of audience behavior that are, most importantly, out of reach of traditional professional audience analysis software. The first aim of the software production is to underscores empirically that data is a text open to multiple readings. The produced software opens data to alternate readings. This means delimitation to audience analysis does not reside in the data, only (an sich), but resides also, and possibly even more so, in the software packages mediating professional audience analysis and in the habitual practice surrounding their usage [8]. Secondly, the software constitutes an object with a potential of catalyzing interaction between academic researchers and media market actors [11] performing audience analysis for different purposes and with different ends in mind.

The new research questions the project has generated oscillate mainly around what the flourishing new data landscape does for the visibility of contemporary and future media audiences. What type of visibilities do new online measurement methods and technologies afford the measured reality? Especially the array of measurement processes loosely termed “big data” trigger questions around direct measurement impact on how people see the world (algorithmic filtering) and how people perceive, experience and evaluate themselves and others through metrics (metrificated lifeworlds). The here advances analytical framework of measurement generated regimes of visibility is well suited to address these kinds of questions. It may serve important tool in the deciphering of the broader social, cultural, economic and political implications of accelerated data production and data enrollment.

The project has been well grounded internationally. Early drafts of thought publications were continuously presented and published within the realm of the COST-Action Transforming Audiences, Transforming Societies consisting of more than 300 audience researchers of more than 30 nationalities [10,11]. I spent one half year in 2015 as Visiting Scholar at Rutgers University, NJ, U.S. invited by professor Philip Napoli who is a leading academic in the fields of audience measurement and media economics. This stage meant on top of collaboration with professor Napoli [1] I was granted the opportunity of executing several interviews with U.S. professionals of the advertising and media business. I have during the project frequented many academic conferences: ICA 2013, 2014, ECREA’s ECC 2014 and 2016 where I presented a paper [6]. I have also surveyed the development of media measurement at Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) Audience Measurement 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and ASI International Radio & TV, Audio & Video Conferences 2013, 2015, 2016.

I have promoted public understanding of science outside the bounds of academia at a number of occasions. Among them, five publications and six public speeches.  I have published two book chapters in the yearly catalogue of The Swedish Press and Broadcasting Authority 2015 [7] and 2017 [2]. The latter directly discusses the results of the research project entwined with to an outline of contemporary trends in radio and audio consumption. Two book chapters have been published under the umbrella of Nordicom’s more outreaching outlet 2016 [5] and 2014 [9]. Finally, within the COST-Action I co-authored a book chapter for a book project addressing the question of collaboration between academia and societal stakeholders [11]. Public speeches have been held for international audiences at EBU (European Broadcasting Union) Knowledge Exchange (2014), Nordic Film Market, Gothenburg International Film Festival (2014), and for Swedish audiences of professionals at TV-Puls (2014), TV-dagen (2013 and 2014), Mediedagen (2013).

The two most important publications of the project are the book chapter Audience Ratings, Media Industries co-authored with professor Philip Napoli and the paper presented and published at ECC 2016. The entry of the Encyclopedia [1] contextualizes and clarifies the role of measurement to media markets by describing its history, function, effects, and contemporary challenges. The chapter contributes to the international knowledge building of the field. The paper presented at ECC [6] is important in the respect that it establishes the theoretical and analytical framework and applies it empirically, for the first time. The paper present all the fundamental components that has been further developed and composed in the two articles [3,4] subject to peer-review for publishing in two international academic journals.

All publications linked to the project are made available online at transformingaudiences.com [13]. Future publications stemming from the project will be published here as well. The software produced as part of the result is freely available (open source) for download and in the form of open source code, at Github [12].