Engagement with Online Media

Abstract

Engagement has emerged as an important concept for newsorganizations. Yet lack of agreement within the industry and the academy on the definition of engagement has left news companies vulnerable to the definitions dictated by advertisers, who focus on brand placement not news content. This paper relies on quantitative and qualitative methodologies to define online engagement as a collection ofexperiences, illustrates that there are actually two important types of engagement (personal and social-interactive engagement) for media companies, and demonstrates their predictive validity by showing bothare associated with readership.