Media is the connecting link in everyone's life. Researching lifestyles and social and psychological state of media audiences is a part of any media company. Media landscape that we have in current times is the product of interaction between the media research companies, media audiences and producers on one hand and the marketers and the advertisers on the other hand. Life of the TV audiences has played a significant role in determining the structure of various media offerings. Exploration of the daily lives of the television target market has helped the media companies in addressing the need of the audiences in more appropriate manner. (Pat W., 2002, 2-3)
For over 35 years now, the various research narratives have been talking about the changing and accelerating pace of daily lives of media audiences and their increasing sophistication and skepticism. Further, fragmentation within the society has create niche and separate lifestyles.
In order to understand the role of TV audiences in shaping media, various research studies have been conducted. Reception studies conducted during the 1980s are the first and the foremost of these studies that have applied ethnographic research and cultural studies to highlight the fact that study of the behavioral aspects of the audiences does help in placing the media audience as the consumer in the market and in bringing up ideas that satisfy their needs. Also, the reception research concluded that the television viewing is determined by the gender of the audience. Thus, reception studies and empirical research on TV audience rested on the ideas of heterogeneous, active and resistant audience. (3C Media)
Active television studies included close analysis at the researchers end. Researchers used qualitative means and ethnographic studies to find out relation between the media and the audience and they daily lives. New studies conducted then revealed the fact that media had suffered a lot as a result of ignoring the audience and their requirements.
Use of anthropology in James Lull's study helped in concluding the fact that television helps in bringing environmental, relational and social changes in the lives of media audiences. Research conducted into the lifestyles of audiences helps in bringing structural changes in the television products. Various media products act as a mean of communication with the audiences and the audience affiliate themselves with either one or most of the products. It is then that audiences share ideas with the media and support the concept applied.
Shift in the reception research was observed during the 80s when Morely and Hobson detailed an in depth research stating that the family and the household are important while analyzing a TV output. Individual context should be studied while researching the everyday lives of people in order to derive meaningful conclusions. (Klaus B., 2006)
Reception studies and ethnographic studies aim to study the stress level on audiences in relation with the content choices that they make on television. Both the studies start from the point that audience is not only the consumer of media but also a co-producer. Although ethnographic and reception studies have not been able to converge on a point, it is clear that audiences are both users of media as well as interpreters. They use media as an object as well as text. Material uses of media and symbolic uses of media, both shape up the parcel and part of the everyday lives of the media audiences.
Radway's study on Media ethnography: A developing tradition (1984) is considered to be a founding stone in the ethnographic research which combines audience reception, text as well as context of use in a single research.
In 1994, Roger Silverstone emphasized the fact that ‘experience of television' should be taken into account while studying the relationship between the media and its audience. He noted that a study which would focus on the experience of television would try to understand the manner in which people consume television in their broader environment and their level of engagement with television. With the development of technology, the television audience has now migrated towards becoming internet audience. Hence, it has become necessary to apply research tools into this newly developing arena to study the audiences. (Press, Andrea. and Livingstone, Sonia, 2010)
Study into Important aspects of Everyday Lives
Time and Change
People need to be aware of the time all the while. Most of the people run their schedule on the basis of time. Television, in a way, helps them to account for time and keep a check on time. It contributes towards this need. Different programs also offered opportunity to people to get together and address their social needs. Audiences are not only aware of the time at which they want to watch a particular series, but they are also conscious of the amount of time they spend in consuming television. This aspect brought about a lot of lifecycle changes in the audiences. Thus, television program's content and timing both play an important role in media studies. BFI first made a study in the time and lifecycle change in the media audiences lives during the release of Broadcasting Act of 1990. (Klaus B., 2006)
Gender
Polarised distinctive opinions have come out in different research conducted on relationship between the gender of television audiences and television consumption. A lot of empirical research surrounds around gender distinctions involving men's and women's taste in relation to media. Soap operas have been the centre of research for many studies. As per research from Morley (1986) and Gray (1987), gender was a common factor across all the households that determined the media consumption. They concluded that in most of the households, men ended up dominating the TV. Women had to suffer male dominance and most of the times they ended up leaving the main television viewing room to watch their television series on a less preferred television set. However, in today's time, gender distinctions are running down and the work of Morley and Gray should rather be treated as the product of their time. Thus, questions such as who controls a remote control in a household should be studies in greater depth. Although men enjoy the power to control the television remote, they often consult other members in their household to find out as to what they want to watch on television. (Press, Andrea. and Livingstone, Sonia, 2010)
Activity:
Various quantitative studies have been conducted to find out on whether television is being consumed actively or passively amongst its audiences. As per the results of an American study done by Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi (1990) on television and everyday life, almost 64% of people watching television were also found busy doing something else. Thus, this study concluded the fact that television is a part of the domestic space and is a passive activity. Its use is often associated along with various other household activities.
Mediated Interaction
Shaun Moores (2000) work in the space of Television and everyday life is considered highly important. His study used combination of theoretical and empirical research like Scannell to highlight the relationship between the broadcasting of a program and its viewing. Qualitative and ethnographic research was applied too in the daily lives of early adopters. Time and space related questions were explored too revealing the fact that there was a relation audience and performers in broadcasting who communicated via the electronic media in their day to day lives generating ‘mediated interaction'.
Thus, television is a social prop for building relationships, best practices and for communicating with those absent at a particular moment. (Moores, Shaun, 2000)
Identity
Media research has highlighted the fact that the way in which people view each other is quite influenced by various media elements. The work done by Joke Hermes highlights that man who read women's magazine usually dismissed their thoughts and gave practical solutions to most of the questions placed there. Hermes (1995) stated that men's answers to this situation were similar to like rolling a dice which gave a glimpse of their thinking about identity. Older people surveyed believed that media provided them a glimpse of the other parts of the world which they had otherwise not seen. This is ‘the notion of space'.
Today, researchers lay a strong emphasis on the “contradictory” and fragmented nature of identity. Studies conducted by Abercrombie and Longhurst discuss the fact that the audience is shaped by various social means and content of media. Their social construction and re-construction is then in a way rooted in a ‘mediascape' leading to formation of different identities sin day to day lives. Nevertheless, there is a danger associated with this as well. Closely observing the daily lives of the media audiences can lead to over emphasis on powerful and political audience segments creating a bias in the research. (Pat W., 2002, 16)
Seduction:
Media is seen to be seductive. People having time on hand were found to be conscious of the way in which they consumed television because they believed that if they did not keep a check on television consumption, they will be taken away by it. Retired people especially were found to occupy themselves with rage of activities in order to avoid television seduction and to stay active. Seduction of daytime TV was avoided by old since they believed that it was a moral weakness to watch television in the day time. Reduced social contacts and limited finances forced them towards allowing themselves to consume more television. (Pat W., 2002, 5)
Some of the examples of Best Media Research:
Gillespie's work (1995) on how video and television are used for recreating cultural values and traditions within the “South Asian” diaspora in London is one of the most widely recognized studies. Another study conducted by Mankekar in 1999 on studying the aspects and issues associated with women's identity in India and its relation to television consumption is a classic piece of work. These pieces of work have overcomed the bifurcation established between media as a text and as an object. Their ethnographic approach has investigated viewer communities with a fact these communities are linked in a physical world and are not merely connected by media consumption.
The British Film Institute Audience Tracking Study involving mass observation of media audiences is a piece of work wherein the respondents in the study maintained a diary about their television viewing and related habits. Different household compositions were selected to be a part of the study. Some of the key findings of the study were:
Overall, the aim of research is not to reveal the laws lying behind the market, but rather to understand the relation between various contradictory and overlapping identities of the consumers and the role that they play in determining the media content. Though consumer research is different from media research, the domain of both these research have been converging over the past few decades. This is mainly because the boundaries of culture and commerce have become indistinguishable and media, marketing and audience share a common vision. The quickly accelerating pace of life and a self determined and conscious relationship with television, diminishing and fluid identities, increased feeling of guilt and seduction are some socially pervasive trends found across all the media audience segments. (Silverstone, Roger, 1994)
References
Ø Klaus B., 2006, [Available at] http://www.modinet.dk/english/media_and_everyday_life.htm [Accessed on March 6, 2010]
Ø Press, Andrea. and Livingstone, Sonia, 2010, Taking Audience Research Into the Age of New Media: Old Problems and New Challenges [Available at] http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/1/2/7/5/pages112755/p112755-2.php [Accessed on March 6, 2010]
Ø Media Ethnography: Exploring Audience Research, 2009, [Available at] http://mediaethnographies.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/lecture3.pdf [Accessed on March 6, 2010]
Ø 3C Media, Perfect Match? Qualitative audience research and the community media sector, 2002, [Available at] http://www.cbonline.org.au/3cmedia/3c_issue1/3ciss1_art2.pdf [Accessed on March 6, 2010]
Ø Pat W., 2002, No Place Like Home? Media Audience Research and Its Socail Imaginaries [Available at] http://www.marial.emory.edu/pdfs/wp015_02.pdf [Accessed on March 6, 2010]
Ø Toby Miller (ed) (2003) Television Studies, London: British Film Institute: 64-66
Ø Moores, Shaun (2000) Media and Everyday Life in Modern Society Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Ø Silverstone, Roger (1994) Television and Everyday Life, London: Routledge.
Ø Kubey, Robert and Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1990) Television and the Quality of Life: How Viewing Shapes Everyday Experience, Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.
