The development of digital technology, resulting in constantly more advanced and cheaper production tools, combined with new and often free distribution- and sharing channels has given new (including public) arenas for own expressions and productions. Examples could be image-, music and video sharing services, homepages/blogs, instant messenger programs and SMS/MMS. Professional television producers and program creators meet this new competition by use of cross media elements, increasing communication with the audience and more focus on the aesthetics experiences.

In this PhD project, productions for and by young people are analysed in relation to this development. The project’s target group is young people; because they are the social group using most media, often combine them. They like to explore and they utilise the interactive possibilities in the media both in relation to services and to social relationships. These are probably the main reasons why producers often address themselves to these people when they experiment with new programme concepts, means of communications and aesthetics.

The project has three main perspectives:

• The producers’ role. How do the producer (professional and non-professional) work out (cross-) media productions? How are the various media used, and what are the motives for the choices taken? Which role has the target group/audience? Who participate in the production team, and what type of skills do they have?
• The production. How do the aesthetical expression in (cross-) media productions develop? How is it influenced by intertextuality and remediation? Which means, modes and communicative forms are integrated?
• The target group. How do children and young people respond to the production and the interactivity offered? Is the production used as intended?

The empirical material in the project is a result of own productions- and user studies in Norway and in the U.S. From August 2006 until June 2007 is Brit a visiting scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Film and Media Studies Dept.

Brit follows the PhD-programme in Media Science at the University of Oslo. Her supervisors are professor Gunnar Liestøl at the Institute for Media and Communication, University of Oslo, and professor Roel Puijk at the Faculty of Television Production and Film Studies, Lillehammer University College.

Information about the online user survey summer 2005 (in Norwegian).