Curating Emergent Publics Through Domain Crossing

Abstract

Audiences for messages divide attention among a variety of media outlets, sources, and venues. Such segmentation creates a challenge for message creators to (re)engage audiences’ attentional capacities. This research investigates how domain elites may curate emergent attentive publics for public affairs content by engaging in processes of domain crossing to potentially redirect audience attention. Conceptually, we contribute to historic and contemporary understandings of how societal leaders attempt to build engaged and attentive publics for their messages. Methodologically, we employ large data and network analytic methods to study the creation of emergent publics online around a pseudo-event. We illustrate how leader-directed domain crossing could overcome audience challenges in a fragmented media ecology.