Transmedia Awareness of the Media Audience (Ukrainian-Turkish Contexts)

Abstract

The article depicts transmedia projects in Turkey and Ukraine. The main focus concentrates on the competencies of transmedia audiences. The research objective is to examine the awareness level of television audiences about transmedia on various social media platforms. The research methods and techniques include Ukrainian expert interviews and the data obtained through an online survey. The sample includes 561 Turkish and 356 Ukrainian media consumers. Results reveal that Ukrainian media consumers, who state that they obtain the truth through social media, reject television as a source of trustworthy information. Turkish media consumers demonstrate that they tend to take reality from television as it is, although they accept TV content as fiction. As the time allocated to social media increases, it is clear that especially Turkish media consumers' trust in television decreases, and they find social media more reputable in the truth widespread. A similar situation is clearly observed with Ukrainian media consumers. It is seen that the rate of accepting television as a source of information increases as the viewing rates grow up in both countries. As this ratio rises, it is seen that trust in social media decreases. Conclusions assert that the evaluation of the television and social media as fiction is not affected by the viewing time. Although the majority of media consumers from both Ukraine and Turkey state that television or social media influence people's daily life, however, they do not think that they have the same impact on their own lives. With the increase in the education level of media consumers in both countries, it is seen that the rate of accepting television as a medium that conveys facts has decreased. The change in education level does not cause a striking differentiation in the evaluation of social media trust as in television. Participants of both countries agree that television presents a powerful propaganda tool. Keywords: convergence, media audience, social media, transmedia, TV audience, Turkey, Ukraine.