Is Anyone Listening? Audience Engagement through Public Media Related to the Scottish Independence Referendum

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The most serious objection I previously raised to this article was the potentially serious ethical breach in which the participants of the study were identified. The authors have stated that these participants were happy to be identified in their research, and so while I am satisfied that no such breach has taken place, I do still question the necessity of identifying these individuals for this study. It is not clear what identifying the individuals, rather than providing information about their expertise and experience but in a way that protects their anonymity, adds to this research, and in such circumstances I feel it is better to be overly cautious and protect the participants' anonymity even if they are happy to waive it. However, I do not feel that this is a serious breach that means the study should be rejected. 

Unfortunately, I do not feel that sufficient progress has been made on the other points I raised in a previous review, and this article still falls well short of the standard required to make an informed and valued contribution to the field. In my previous review, I noted that the study lacked a clear research question and justification for the research, which at least in part reflected the limitations of the existing literature. The authors have still not provided a literature review in which those limitations are identified, or provided a clear research question. While several of the additions to the paper look to represent attempts to provide such a question, they are inadequate: I counted no fewer than five different statements identifying questions the study tries to answer or justifications for the research, but they were all different and implied very different studies and analytic strategies. For example:

"This paper focuses on public media’s the capacity of public media to foster civic involvement and political engagement. It parts from the premise that that citizens become an active and critical agent that uses technology as an element for political decision-making (Blumler & Kavanagh, 2000), and that meaningful citizen participation in public debate is only possible in circumstances in which coproduction takes place, which is to say in settings that establish a power-sharing relationship between media organisations and the audiences they serve (Carpentier, 36 2014)"

"The main objective of this study has been to demonstrate that even though the media have yet to develop power-sharing relationships with their audiences, they nevertheless have mechanisms at their disposal for generating meaningful audience engagement in specific circumstances"

"This paper provides an overview of the circumstances under which the British and Scottish media covered the 2014 Scottish independence referendum followed by a case study of a BBC Scotland radio phone-in programme that explores how public media can engage audiences on difficult issues by raising these topics in a non-elitist, accessible atmosphere that fosters interaction"

There is still no clear, single purpose for this research that constitutes a substantial improvement on our understanding of this field - indeed, it is still not clear precisely which field this study is attempting to make a contribution to. 

The article also remains littered with sweeping statements and theories that are not supported by evidence or previous research e.g.,:

"This study has been conducted on the premise that while the notion that power can be fully shared may be a utopian proposition, major public media outlets are attempting to reach broader audiences and engage them on socially and politically relevant issues" - what justification is there for this premise?

"“elections have traditionally been viewed as opportunities for citizens to renew their commitment to society and bring about needed change, political abstention signifies a profound failure of faith in the democratic process” (p.3) - there is no supporting evidence or research provided for either of the two assertions in this sentence, neither of which is necessarily supported by the existing literature (e.g., elections are not universally seen as opportunities for citizens to renew civic commitments, and non-voting is not necessarily the result of a lack of faith in the democratic process - there are many, many other reasons people do not vote!)

In short, this article has not addressed the limitations identified in my previous review, and it remains a very long way from providing a valued contribution to the literature. 

Reviewer 2 Report

You've revised well as what I requested.

Thank you for your efforts and hope further study well.

Reviewer 3 Report

This is a very well-researched paper which shows the role the audience as civic participants can play in public media. Within the European context, the paper does a very good job in recasting the relationship between citizen participation and the media sphere, in particular public radio.    In my opinion, this paper should be published without revisions.