In January 2014, TruthCo released our study on the paradigm shifts in cultural views of television called “The New World of Television.”

Since then, many of the emergent ideas we anticipated have become mainstream (take the rise of showrunners and the democratization of quality, for starters). And the rest is starting to take root – the increasing emphasis on psychographics over demographics and the rejection of interruptive commercials are just some of the other themes we decoded.

Today, perhaps one area that warrants further examination is the changing behaviors and attitudes of the audience. Which is even more important considering that the very nature of the audience itself has changed. Thanks to the confluence of generational differences and technological advances, television viewers can now be divided into two categories.

“Digital immigrants” – folks like me, who grew up in an analog world with a mere handful of content choices – have had to adapt to living digitally, like learning to get along in an adopted country. “Digital natives” have never experienced life without the Internet, smartphones and a plethora of available options. So we set out to understand the cultural cues and codes that define this type of mindset, in order to help content creators and marketers speak fluently with them.

I recently had the chance to speak with TruthCo.’s cultural analyst Alix Korn about her findings in our latest presentation, GOING NATIVE: 10 Things to Know About Digital Natives. Here are some excerpts from our conversation:

Linda: There’s a lot of talk about “Gen Z” being the younger half (or an entirely different segment) of millennials. How did you determine who is a “digital native” and what exactly defines them?

Alix: You can think of it this way: as you said, digital natives have only known a digital world, so when did digital technology become ubiquitous and culturally dominant? Well the late 1980s/early 1990s marked the proliferation of affordable personal computers, the public launch of the World Wide Web, AOL, and moment the term “surfing the Internet” entered the cultural lexicon.

These were technological developments that reached the masses and created huge shifts in behavior and consciousness. So if digital natives exclusively remember a digital culture, and psychologist posit that first formative memories generally happen between the ages of two and four, it’s reasonable to define them as those only born after these technological and cultural shifts in the early 1990s.

So if we stick to the generational theory as outlined by Strauss and Howe, which we do at TruthCo., then being a digital native doesn’t actually align with a particular generation, but instead exists at the cross-section of millennials and Gen Z.

Because they exist in a generational cross-section, it is more helpful to consider them a psychographic than a demographic. And this is fitting because being a digital native is not only about technological prowess, but also about possessing a shared sensibility and set of expectations about the world.

Of course, technology has advanced exponentially since the 90s, so it’s true that there are disparities of tech use within the digital natives’ psychographic: millennials grew up with the iPod and Ethernet, Gen Z has the iPhone and wifi. But whether it was through a desktop or smartphone, natives have never experienced a world that wasn’t digitally connected.

Linda: You found that digital natives think of platforms very differently than how most content creators view them. Can you explain, and how television execs can evolve to meet that new take?

Alix: We know digital natives have access to an arsenal of devices that they use to watch content. But there’s often a misconception that certain content is aligned with certain viewing experiences, i.e. short-form content on small, portable screens and prestige TV on bigger, fixed home screens. However, digital natives move naturally between devices and platforms to get to the content they love. The barrier is most often about accessibility, which trumps size.

Television execs have to start thinking of these different devices and platforms as existing in a kind of ecosystem together. The options are equally valuable, each presenting unique advantages to the consumer. There is actually an opportunity to present content in a way that aligns with each type of viewing experience, which amplifies the platform’s specific value and keeps the content as the star.

Linda: Another stark difference you highlight reframes the way the audience thinks of itself in relation to content. What is the cultural difference between a viewer, a fan and a shareholder, and how should networks speak to each differently?

Alix: There’s a kind of passivity connected to the bygone concept of the captive viewer, especially in comparison to fans, who are active consumers, taking pride not only in expressing their enthusiasm, but also interacting with or even helping shape the thing they love. For digital natives, fandom is incredibly important; it’s perceived as an admirable undertaking, and a rewarding one. Current culture’s fans expect reciprocation – with brands, with public figures. It’s not a coincidence that celebrities who have some of the most cultural credibility with fans are the ones who are perceived as generous and accessible.

Networks and content creators need to understand that – in a digital culture – there’s only so much control you have over your brand and your product. We live in the age of memes and Twitter wars. The power dynamics have shifted between brands and consumers, and fans tend to reject the traditional hierarchy that puts them at the bottom. But if you embrace that lack of control and even playing field, it can be a profoundly powerful tool to court and cultivate followers. When fans are allowed to take control of content, they become invested in promoting it.

That’s how fans become shareholders. Look at the fan-centric approaches of the Straight Outta Compton marketing campaign or the countless “Hotline Bling” music video memes. These creators aren’t hyper-controlling of the content, but are instead encouraging fans to remix, put their own spin on it, which amps the content’s cultural buzz. Fan-centric content stays in the cultural conversation longer. On the flip side, we saw what happened when that same fan favorite – “Hotline Bling” – was used for the Super Bowl T-Mobile ad: Drake and T-Mobile both lost cred for co-opting the content that had already been culturally claimed by fans.

Linda: One of my favorite themes in the study centers on the role of time in digital natives’ lives. How do they see it, and how does it influence the way the kind of content they enjoy?

Alix: For digital natives, time is both more important and less conventionally structured than it ever has been. Rapid response has become the status quo for anyone who self-describes as ‘in the know.’ At the same time, time as a concept is more abstracted. Digital culture frees viewers from linear time, giving them the option to engage with content in real time or out of order. We can live-tweet, DVR and catch up, binge watch, or re-discover something that hasn’t been on the air in years. Digital natives are not prisoners of time in the way that viewers used to be. So there’s an interesting lifecycle to content and buzz now. If something is too far down the newsfeed it’s unlikeable, but give it enough time, and the right cultural context, and it will cycle back into relevance.

Linda: Lastly, you decode some industry buzzwords like “curation,” “immersion” and “authenticity.” Why are these important concepts for people to understand more deeply, and what’s the danger in not doing so?

Alix: The danger in not diving deeper into these buzzwords is that they will continue to lose meaning in culture until their mere mention elicits eye-rolls. That would be a shame because there is some good, actionable take-aways hidden beneath the hype. These buzzwords also evolve with culture, which is something we don’t always talk about. I think ‘authenticity’ is an interesting case study: it’s a concept whose meaning has actually shifted with culture; it entered the conversation tied up in millennial sensibilities (and clichés) around the importance of realness, or at least being perceived as such, but has evolved in regards to digital natives who are savvy consumers and creators, hyper-aware of performance and misrepresentation. So in the context of millennial culture, if authenticity was about projecting the real thing, in digital culture it’s about using technology to manage and minimize the many opportunities we have for presenting falsehoods to the world.

TruthCo. is a cultural branding and insights company, headed by CEO Linda Ong, that analyzes the current cultural landscape to deliver actionable recommendations that keep entertainment brands and their offerings relevant.

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