Journal of Digital Media & Interaction Vol. 1, No. 1, (2018), pp. 68-84 CC 2018 DIGIMEDIA Youth Interaction with Television and Online Video Content in the Digital Age Idoia Astigarraga Agirre 1 , Amaia Pavon-Arrizabalaga 2 and Aitor Zuberogoitia Espilla 3 Mondragon University 1 iastigarraga@mondragon.edu, 2 apavon@mondragon.edu, 3 azuberogoitia@mondragon.edu Abstract This article examines the relationship of university students with television and online video content. Convergence processes in many areas during the digital age have significantly changed both audiovisual content consumption patterns and the content on offer itself. In addition, Web 2.0 has made it possible for interaction to go beyond mere consumption. The purpose of this research study was to ascertain what kind of interaction takes place between young people and audiovisual content. The categories analyzed are watch, share and create, with a focus on students’ everyday life. A mixed-method approach was used across a sample of 475 students from Mondragon University. Our main finding is that, although young people have the resources necessary to interact with media, this condition is not sufficient to favor behaviors that are more active. Young people show different practices and attitudes depending on the individual, the content, and the context but, in general, the interactive patterns that they have with television and online video content have more links with the mass communication paradigm than with the new communicative paradigm that arose in the Web 2.0 era. Keywords: television, internet, video content, interaction 1. The audiovisual audience in the 21st century The nature and activity of the audience has changed in the media ecosystem of the 21st-century. Web 2.0 brought about a new communicative paradigm, because to the one-to-many mass communication system it added the many-to-many communication (Badillo and Marenghi, 2003; Castells, 2009). This overturned the single-direction communication system, because each individual now has the opportunity to be the sender of a message that can reach many people. Thus, the audience’s activity has increased (Livingstone, 2013), thanks to the autonomy of sharing and creating content (Napoli, 2010; Strangelove, 2011; Carpentier, Schrøder and Hallet, 2014; Gauntlett, 2015). When discussing audience activity in the new paradigm, authors increasingly refer to the audience in terms of participation (Jenkins, 2006; Li, 2007; Ardevol et al., 2010; García-Avilés, 2012; Noguera Vivo et al., 2014; Quintas and González, 2014; van Es, 2016, to mention a few). However, other authors (Carpentier and Dahlgren, 2011; Van Dijck, 2013) are critical of the way in which the concept of participation has been used in media studies. In order to define this concept, Carpentier (2011) distinguishes among participation, access, and interaction. In his opinion, access and interaction are essential conditions for media participation, but the former two must not be confused with the latter because the concept of participation, unlike the other two, means having the power to decide, both about content and on an institutional level (Carpentier, 2011; see also Carpentier and De Cleen, 2008). Along the same lines, other authors warn that some practices on the internet are described as media participation, when in fact it would be more accurate to describe them as expanded consumption (Fuente-Cobo, Martínez-Otero and Del Prado-Flores, 2014).