Järjestölehden yleisötutkimus yhteisön kehittämisen välineenä

Abstract

Viestintä luo yhteisön tekemällä asioista yhteisiä! Ilman viestintää ei ole yhteisiä asioita eikä yhteisöjäkään.

Väitöskirjassa viestintää lähestytään kolmannen sektorin yhteisöjen näkökulmasta ja kerrotaan, miten järjestölehden yleisötutkimusta voi käyttää yhteisön kehittämisen välineenä. Järjestölehdellä tarkoitetaan aikakautista julkaisua, joka ilmestyy vähintään neljä kertaa vuodessa joko paperilehtenä, paperi- ja verkkolehden yhdistelmänä tai pelkästään verkkolehtenä.

Kirjassa esitellään tutkimuksessa kehitetty Yleisötutkimuksen osallistava syklimalli , joka tarjoaa yhden hyvän välineen yhteisön viestinnän kehittämiseen. Kehittämisellä tavoitellaan ideaalia yhteisöä, jonka tuntomerkkejä ovat toiminnan vapaaehtoisuus, legitiimisyys, demokraattisuus, tasa-arvoisuus ja autonomisuus. Tutkimusmallissa yleisösuhdetta lähestytään yleisön, lehden ja yhteisön jäsenten silmin näkökulmista, jotka ovat keskeisiä kun rakennetaan ideaalia yhteisöä.

The title of my study Audience Survey of an Organizational Journal as an Instrument to Develop the Community emanates from Dewey s (1916) statement that communication creates community. In communicating the reviewed topics become shared. Therefore, developing communication will also develop the community. In this study communication development signifies everything related to community ideal: unconstrained activity, legitimacy, democracy, equality and autonomy.

The aim of my study was to find out, how to obtain by the help of an audience survey in an organizational journal instruments in order to develop an ideal community. Audience survey is also a frame of reference in my study. Traditionally audience surveys have been engaged in the distribution of a magazine, readershiprelated questions, contents consumption and the relationship between a reader and a magazine. The latter was the aim of interest in my study. It offered me an opportunity to compare the opinions and values of the reader and the magazine. Those are essential considerations in developing the ideal community.

My research target created an ethnographic perspective to the research scheme and it was carried out in collaboration with two very different organizations operating in social sector, Federation of A-Guilds and Christian Work on Alcoholics and Drug Addicts.

I constructed a preliminary audience survey model based on research literature and the audience survey analyses made by commercial research institutes and students. I tested the audience survey model with readers of the magazines published by the collaborative organizations. Research results were utilized both in developing the survey model and in upgrading the relationship between readers and collaborators magazines.

My study in the audience survey resulted in an activating cyclic model. Activation implies that the study of the readership relation is based on a concise dialogue between the magazine publishing organization and its readers in designing and implementing the survey, and in the application of the results. Cyclicity in turn refers to a functional study procedure, where assessment, planning and action follow one another on a regular basis. In the survey model cyclicity appears so that the study of readership relation is built on the rotation of search for methods of evaluating and developing the pre-sent state of readership relation.

The activating cyclic model of the audience survey provides a good, single instrument to improve communication in communities. In the survey model readership relation is approached with the eyes of the audience, the magazine and the community from the viewpoints that are essential when creating a communication culture resting on free will, autonomy, democracy and equality. It extends the study of audience relationship also to the web-based environment offering a natural way to study and discuss values, which promotes building up an ideal community.