The Digital Engagement Model: How to Capture and Keep Audience Attention (Palgrave Practical Guides in Communication)

This book uses cutting-edge research in media psychology to offer a practical guide for creating content that captures and maintains attention. The Digital Engagement Model (DEM) reimagines how content can better serve mobile-first users by depicting second-by-second relationships between users and content. The DEM shows why users’ diverse needs and behaviors are more complex than traditional practices account for. A model combining new variables and structures can extend the value of good writing, multimedia, and interactivity to users overwhelmed by too much information. Importantly, the model communicates content for both scanners with limited time and interest, and readers who are motivated to consume more detailed information. Drawing from cognitive psychology, communication, education, human-computer interaction, and neuroscience, the book explores the cognitive processes underlying attention. It offers practical strategies to align content with users’ incidental exposure and fragmented consumption. The final chapters assemble the model’s variables into an innovative Smart Story Suite.

Ronald Yaros is a leading researcher in digital media and engagement and serves as Director of the Digital Engagement Lab at the University of Maryland, USA.