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THE DIFFERENCE MEDIA MAKE. NICK COULDRY Talk to the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Cambridge University, March 1 2006. THE PUBLIC CONNECTION PROJECT. ‘ Media Consumption and the Future of Public Connection’
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THE DIFFERENCE MEDIA MAKE NICK COULDRY Talk to the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Cambridge University, March 1 2006
THE PUBLIC CONNECTION PROJECT ‘Media Consumption and the Future of Public Connection’ Funded under ESRC/ AHRB Cultures of Consumption Programme Oct03-Mar06 Nick Couldry, Sonia Livingstone, Tim Markham, LSE Aim: to explore 2 common assumptions 1. existence of shared orientation to ‘public’ world (‘public connection’) 2. public connection sustained by media consumption Methods: Diaries (+pre- and post-interviews, focus groups) + survey (1000 respondents) Diarists sample: 37 recruited early 2004 • Gender: close to 50/50 Male/ female • Age: 18-69 • Class: good range from A to E, but AB overrepresented, D difficult to recruit • Ethnicity: 9 non-white out of 37 (5 Afro-Caribbean, 3 south Asian, 1 mixed ethnicity) • 6 Regions: poor inner city London; mid-income suburban London; poor urban South England; 2 mid-high income North England suburbs; mixed-income rural Midlands
SURVEY ANALYSIS: NEWS ENGAGEMENT AND POLITICAL INTEREST News engagement defined as: Average of five responses (coded 1=disagree strongly to 5=agree strongly): • It’s a regular part of my day to catch up with the news • I follow the news to understand what’s going on in the world • I follow the news to know what other people are talking about • It’s my duty to keep up with what’s going on in the world • I have a pretty good understanding of the main issues facing our country (standardised alpha of scale = 0.71) . . . and important among factors predicting interest in politics: • Demographic (age, class, gender): R-squared=0.07, p<0.005 • Social capital / local involvement: R-squared=0.05, p<0.005 • Media (news engagement, lack of celebrity interest, media not irrelevant): R-squared=0.05, p<0.005 (Total variance explained: 17%)
THE PUBLIC CONNECTION PROJECT Mediated public connection (media consumption patterns + public orientation) • No single ideal type • Diarists where media connection or public connection stronger I start off [the day] with Radio 2 . . . and I’m reading [the papers] by that stage while I’m breakfasting . . . And then because I catch the [bus] into work and there’s a local free paper that you get . . which is the Metro which I’m sure everybody has around the country . . . and that has just soundbites . . . and sort of pictures from all over the place . . . But again it sets you up. Do you follow up these stories? Some of them yeah . . . well a lot of them you catch them . . . it’s mentioned several times throughout the day . . . and it’s seeped into your consciousness anyway. (Henry, 52, works in insurance, northern suburb)
THE PUBLIC CONNECTION PROJECT I read the business section [of The Times] everyday and I read all of it, partially because I’m interested and there’s people who I still know . . . And I’m just interested in what happens to the financial world in general, just to see what’s developing. And I’m . . . interested in the country and the politics of the country and so forth. And worldwide events. I like to keep up to date and see what’s going on. (John, ret’d financial services chief exec, Northern suburb) Distanced? Diarists for whom neither media nor world of public issues salient Negative factors: lack of time for media/ media access less important than disillusion/distance/alternative values. Some factors (lack of efficacy in political matters) may be partly compensated by media consumption; others (alt values) may not. Positive factors: celebrity interest, work, collective solidarity, personal values Feedback loops: through social expectations and individual values
THE PUBLIC CONNECTION PROJECT The personal value of following news I need the radio 24 hours. Like regular 24 hours because all the time in car, I listen radio news and everything. . . . the news all the time, every hour I have to listen to news just to find it out what’s happening. (Ashok, 47, garage manager) Yeah, I’ve always felt that anyway that you need to know what’s going on all over the world. (Kylie, 24, unemployed, inner city London) I’m compulsive, I have to pick up any paper that I see and have a look through it. (Enid, 62, retired school assistant, London suburb) What I find quite astonishing really that most people I know really just don’t care about what’s going on. They’re focused on their own thing and as long as they know that David Beckham’s had a new hair cut and that they can go and get it done at the salon just like this, . . . they just carry on with stuff. (Josh, 24, trainee architect, northern suburb)
THE PUBLIC CONNECTION PROJECT but value of keeping up with the news may be absent: I mainly pick the news up from the internet or radio news and I think well should I be more aware and what difference does it make in the world whether I am or not, and sometimes I think I should but (quietly) I’m not (laughs) (Beccy, 27, marketing executive, Northern suburb). I think there’s a hell of a lot of choice out there and I think, I more think it’s up to me to go and find out and be informed. . . . I think everybody would have their own line. My cynical friend would say that you know everybody should be obligated to know about politics and everybody should use their vote responsibly because he’s really into that, so that’s what his line would be. Whereas me, . . . I don’t know where my line would be because I know I look at a lot celebrity news but that’s not important and I wouldn’t say people were obliged to know about that at all. But certain things in my head I think I should be obliged to know about I’m not.(Beccy)
THE PUBLIC CONNECTION PROJECT Underlying orientation frames: including family, work, social, education, media as ‘social’ connection + individual routine. Social/family frame = the most associated with lack of mediated public connection. Talk At lunchtime, [female name] (the other half of the marketing team) and I did some web surfing to catch up on the news. We like anything light-hearted and diverting to entertain us, especially when we’re so busy. I was checking out Courtney Love’s latest adventures on nme.com, and she was checking out Ananova for celebrity gossip. (Beccy) I’ve discussed a lot at the magistrates. I usually go down and get there about half an hour before the court starts and everyone has a cup of coffee and you have a chat and there’s about an hour and a half over lunch time and inevitably you lunch and generally talk to the people you’ve been sitting with. You get a good cross section of views there cause there’s all sorts of people magistrates. It’s very interesting to hear people’s views. (John)
THE PUBLIC CONNECTION PROJECT Democracy there’s really very little an individual can do. In fact, nothing that an individual can do. I could feel as strongly as I like about an issue and my wife’s always complaining that I do feel strongly about an issue and do nothing about it because there’s nothing you can do about it. Well I suppose I could do, I could stand in the middle of [the city] and spout but nobody’s take a bit of notice, would they? (John, Northern suburb focus group, January 2005). It’s all right having a duty and following things but is there an action at the end of it? For some people if there isn’t then what’s the point? I’m not saying that’s my view but you could put that forward, is there a point if there’s nothing at the end of it? (Sheila, Midlands rural focus group, December 2004) Media consumption and the (missing) action-context of neoliberal democracies
