Immersive Media & Books 2020 Consumer Survey

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In the spring of 2020, the Panorama Project convened a cross-publishing industry Consumer Research Committee to spearhead its “Immersive Media & Books 2020” survey.  The survey, conducted in partnership with Portland State University, was designed to measure consumers’ engagement with immersive media relative to books as well as their buying behaviors across multiple formats and platforms.

The primary goal of this research was to establish books’ place in the broader media ecosystem and broaden understanding of how consumers engage with books, where and how they discover books, and the implications for publishers, authors, libraries and booksellers.  Ultimately, we sought to learn how consumers’ awareness of books and authors and their resulting purchasing and borrowing decisions may be influenced by their exposure to other immersive media—specifically film, TV, and gaming.

A secondary goal was to ascertain the role of public libraries in the discovery, consumption, and purchasing practices of those who utilize public libraries to access content in each medium vs. those who do not.

Launched in the middle of the pandemic in late 2020 with the hope that this will become a longitudinal study for ongoing research and analysis, the Panorama Project published a major research report, Immersive Media & Books 2020, authored by Portland State University’s Dr. Rachel Noorda and Dr. Kathi Inman Berens in February 2021.

The Panorama Project invites all industry stakeholders including consumers to join our inaugural webinar on March 10, 2021, during which the authors will unveil their findings and recommendations. Registration is now open here.

CONSUMER RESEARCH COMMITTEE

The Consumer Research Committee includes highly-regarded members representing multiple industry stakeholders to ensure credible, actionable research that demonstrates which media consumers are (and aren't) engaging with, the platforms they rely upon, and how their perceptions of ownership are evolving in the digital age.

  • Dr. Rachel Noorda, Director of Publishing, Portland State University

  • Dr. Kathi Inman Berens, Associate Professor of English and Book Publishing, Portland State University

  • Angela Bole, Chief Executive Officer, Independent Book Publishers Association

  • Michele Cobb, Interim Executive Director, PubWest

  • Alan Inouye, Senior Director, Public Policy & Government Relations, American Library Association

  • Brian F. O'Leary, Executive Director, The Book Industry Study Group (BISG)

The Committee was chaired by Dr. Noorda.

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

As trained researchers, objective third-party analysts and university-backed scholars, Dr. Noorda and Dr. Inman Berens guided development of the research, provided neutral analysis of the data, and authored the report that resulted in an unbiased, cross-industry perspective.  This dedication to upholding the highest standards of industry research ensured that Immersive Media & Books 2020 will be a credible and invaluable source of data for all stakeholders in the publishing industry—including publishers, authors, librarians, and avid readers.

Funding for Immersive Media & Books 2020 was generously provided by OverDrive, the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), the American Library Association (ALA), and the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA).

METHODOLOGY

This research project utilizes an online survey method to gather data about media engagement and buying behaviors across formats. The survey was designed to be nationally representative and statistically significant. To accomplish this, several measures were taken, including the following:

  • Utilizing a consumer sample through Qualtrics

  • Ensuring representation across four quotas/strata: age, gender, race/ethnicity, and region

  • Increasing reliability with a larger sample size of 4300+, which gives greater than 95% confidence level and less than 1.6% margin of error

Questions for the survey were designed and tested through a committee of leaders that represent multiple stakeholders and offer a range of perspectives from across the book publishing industry. The survey questions and overall project have gone through the human ethics review process by the Portland State University Institutional Review Board to ensure that respondents to the survey were both recruited and able to participate in an ethical manner.

PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY

The graduate program in Book Publishing at Portland State University— Oregon's most affordable public research university—is at the forefront of publishing education nationally. In fact, Publishers Weekly described the program as a place where “publishing education gets innovative.” Founded in 2001 with the intent to combine traditional academic study and hands-on experiential learning, it is the only graduate program in book publishing in the western United States and the only program in the US that has a trade publishing house staffed by students, Ooligan Press.

Dr. Rachel Noorda is Director of Publishing and Assistant Professor of English at Portland State University. Dr. Noorda holds a PhD degree in Publishing Studies from the University of Stirling and has published peer-reviewed research on various book publishing projects including book subscription boxes, independent publisher mission statements, the Portland Book Festival, and online book blurbs. She is currently writing a book (contracted with Cambridge University Press) about entrepreneurship in twenty-first century US book publishing. She has been very involved with the industry, including analyzing data and writing industry reports for PubWest, the Independent Book Publishers Association, the Book Industry Study Group, Literary Arts, and Publishing Scotland.

Dr. Kathi Inman Berens, Associate Professor of English at Portland State University, has published peer-reviewed research about digital humanities, book publishing, and digital literature. A Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, Dr. Berens conducted grant-supported research for IBM when she was faculty and a Fellow of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California. Dr. Berens studies immersive environments and transmedia experiences, consulting with Portland companies on VR medical therapies, immersive storytelling, and mobile web interface design. In her book publishing consulting and scholarship, two years of survey work provide foundational data for insights about consumer behavior at the Portland Book Festival. She is advisory council for arts non-profits Literary Arts, NW Film Center, and Oregon Storyboard.