Radio formats and social media use in Europe – 28 case studies of public service practice

The aim of this article is to report, summarize and spread the results of a largescale European research project funded by EBU Radio in 2011 to map best practices in social media and European public radio, focusing on the way successful public service radio formats have incorporated social media in their production flow. The programmes have been selected for one of the following reasons: programmes that are audience leaders in their country, use innovative radio language or are youthoriented productions. The survey has been carried out by a team of ten European researchers from seven countries on a sample of 28 public radio programmes analysed for two months between January and February 2011. The research team attempted to answer the empirical question: ‘How social media are used by public service?’. Are there some common threads and shared practices among successful programmes in different countries? The team adopted an empirical approach based on social media content analysis and interviews with radio producers. This article will present the main results of this empirical research project. It will conclude with practical guidelines for public radio production and social media innovation.