Living Without the Screen

Causes and Consequences of Life without Television

Marina Krcmar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781135592073
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Living Without the Screen provides an in-depth study of those American families and individuals who opt not to watch television, exploring the reasons behind their choices, discussing their beliefs about television, and examining the current role of television in the American family. Author Marina Krcmar answers several questions in the volume: What is television? Who are those people who reject it? What are their reasons for doing so? How do they believe their lives are different because of this choice? What impact does this choice have on media research? This volume provides a current, distinctive, and important look at how personal choices on media use are made, and how these choices reflect more broadly on media's place in today's society.

A compelling exploration of the motivations and rationales for those who choose to live without television, this book is a must-read for scholars and researchers working in children and media, media literacy, sociology, family studies and related areas. It will also be of interest to anyone with questions about media usage and the choices families make regarding the role of media in their lives.

Part I
Introduction and Overview

The first portion of this book lays the groundwork for the research itself. I discuss the need for the research, the data collection process, and the sample both in the aggregate and in detail. I also discuss how nonviewers gave up television. In this first section of the book, we cover how nonviewers feel about living without television and their attitudes towards it. The final chapter in Part I presents three definitions of television: television as medium, content, and industry. These three definitions are then used to group the second, third, and fourth sections of the book. Much of the data for the first section of the book was gathered from the in-depth interviews.

Chapter 1
Living without Television

In this chapter, I begin by discussing why we need a book about families who do not watch television. I bring in the concept of negative space, a concept that emerged in the art world. Applying this to media research I ask if we can learn about television itself by studying those who purposefully do not watch it. I then discuss various definitions of television, emphasizing the importance of allowing television to be defined by audiences and by nonviewers, rather than by researchers. Last, I provide an overview of the chapters and give a brief summary of each one.

Why write a book about families who live without television? Perhaps for several reasons. First, from the available statistics, the number of families who live without television is likely to be somewhat larger than the actual numbers suggest. Whereas some 85% of American homes have cable (Ireland, 2005) and a whopping 98% have at least one television, these numbers do not paint a thoroughly accurate picture. Although almost all of the people I interviewed for this book consider themselves “TV-free,”(except those who participated in the control group) only one-third of the nonviewing families have no television set in their homes. In fact, some even subscribe to cable in order to access the Internet—although they do not have it hooked up to their television. In certain areas it is in fact cheaper to subscribe to a full spectrum of cable channels that get bundled in with Internet service than it is to have cable Internet service alone. And approximately two-thirds of this group have a television and VCR or DVD player that they keep in a closet and pull out to watch an occasional movie.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, media researchers, myself among them, have based their research agendas on a fairly straightforward assumption: people watch television. Preschool-aged children watch four hours per day (Comstock & Sharrer, 2001); the average adult watches three hours per day; elderly people watch upwards of six hours per day. In the average American household, the television is on for seven hours per day. However, there are those who truly watch none and we know little about them (see Foss & Alexander, 1996; and Zinsmeister, 1997 for exceptions). There is much to learn about television specifically and perhaps families more broadly by studying those who do not watch.

Negative Space

The metaphor of negative space has been used by some scholars (e.g., Daly, 2003) to understand how what we do not do, what we do not attend to, or what we do not study offers insights into our theories about topics that do garner our attention. In this book, I believe looking at families who do not watch television can tell us something about topics that have been researched time and time again: families and television.

The concept of negative space emerged initially in the study of art. Positive space in art refers to the images, the shapes, the forms that make up an image, a canvas or a frame. Negative space is simply that which is not taken up by the image. It is what is not the image or, phrased more positively, it is made up of the shapes and forms that are left when the object or image of attention is removed. In art, we are unaccustomed to looking at pictures, photographs, and drawings this way. We see things and objects, not the space and the shape of the space that surrounds objects. But as many artists argue, there is much to be learned by studying negative space. Daly (2003) has pointed out that “drawing and theorizing are parallel processes as both are concerned with representation…Our theorizing activity, like our everyday sensory experience, is always a matter of straddling the tensions between perception and imperception and attending to and ignoring”. In other words, each theory is based on choosing certain variables and relationships and ignoring others. It is a process of focusing our attention, which, by definition, requires us to eliminate certain things from focus. Ultimately, then, if an understanding of art and a facility with drawing can be improved through attention to negative space—that which surrounds what we attend to and that which is not there—might our theories also benefit from studying what is not there? In the case of media research, might we learn something about television by studying those who actively and purposefully choose to avoid it?

Over five decades of research on the effects of media, or television more specifically, has made the implicit assumption that adults and children watch television. Television viewing is taken to be a universal activity—like eating or sleeping—which is, therefore, interesting to study not only in its effects, but more recently, in the way it is used (e.g., Rubin, 2002). It is certainly valuable to study the effects of mass media. It is equally important to study those who purposefully choose not to watch. Something about the choice to avoid television, and about the home life that emerges from this choice, may help us come to understand the activity of watching television more thoroughly. We learn something about how individuals and families structure their time and their interactions with each other and how they come to hold the attitudes that they do. From this perspective, television in the home is not only moving images but something that affects families beyond the content presented. In other words, television is part of the social make-up of the household. Like another family member, it can interrupt a conversation, or provide fodder to start one. Therefore, it is possible that, socially speaking, homes without television may operate somewhat differently from homes with it.

Why might this be the case? Several researchers have considered the social aspects of television. Lull (1980) was one of the early researchers to examine the social uses of television. He argued that families use television not only as an entertainment medium, but for social uses as well. Although family members may watch particular content, how they watch, when they watch, and with whom they watch affects the social interaction in the family. He argues that families watch television to minimize conflict between arguing members or alternately, to provide an opportunity for two or more members to share physical proximity and contact. In other words, as early as 25 years ago, Lull emphasized that television has many functions.

Alexander (2001) has also suggested that television is more than an audio-visual technology. She has suggested that, examined in the context of the home, television is neither an object of perception nor of social cognition. It is neither an inanimate object, nor a social actor. Therefore, because it is neither inanimate nor quite interactive, Alexander views television as occupying an uneasy place in the American home, what she refers to as “contested space.” Like Lull, Alexander has taken television to be an important part of the home not only because of what television presents on its screen, but also because of how television affects the patterns, rhythms, activities, and textures of family life. No other appliance seems to hold quite so much sway.¹ In both cases, the social uses of television and television as contested space, it is given an almost social power that it simply does not have in the homes explored in this book. If we remove the almost-family member of television, what is left in its place? Even a contested space leaves a void. What, if anything, fills the space?

Of the people who do not watch television, there is much we do not know. We do not know why they have made the choices they have, how they came to choose a life without television, what their ideas are or if those with children raise them in ways that differ from those who do have television. In fact, we do not even know if there is a stereotypical home without television, or if there are just many homes that for one reason or another, be it lack of time, interest or social ideology, do not watch television, sharing little else in common. Although Foss and Alexander (1996) argue that individuals who are heavy viewers and those who watch no television have similar conceptions of television (e.g., television has effects, television viewing can be an addiction), it is unclear from their research how nonviewers gave up television, why they did so or how their lives differ as a result. By studying them and by studying this negative space in media research, we can learn more about television and, I would argue, about families.

It is the goal of this book, then, to address some of those questions and to take a closer look at families who live without television. I will examine their motives for dropping television and their reasons for remaining without it. I will discuss their conceptions of television, their ideas about family life, and how they spend their time. I have interviewed single adults, couples without children, families with young or older children living in the home, and older couples, empty nesters whose children were raised without television and who now continue to live without it. In short, I will look at these individuals with the hope that they have something to offer our understanding of media consumption and, more broadly, to our understanding of families.

Defining Television

Although television itself seems a fairly straightforward entity, Andreasen (2002) describes how advances in technology have confounded our study of the medium. Perhaps the first technology that affected our study of television was the video cassette recorder. The VCR can be used to tape programs from broadcast and replay them at a time that is more convenient. The VCR can also be used to watch movies that originally played in the theaters or ones that were designed specifically for home use. Is this television? It may depend on the focus of the researcher. If I am interested in the effect of amount of screen time on children’s reading skills, I may well count time spent with recorded material as television. However, if I am interested in the effects of commercials, I may be less likely to do so. So recorded programs are and are not television.

In addition, Andreasen (2002) has aptly asked, “If the rubric of television viewing appropriately includes the consumption of time-shifted programs, does it apply to those that, in addition, undergo a shifted locus?”. Here, Andreasen explores how the Internet may or may not be television, depending on how the question is phrased and certainly depending on who you ask. She reports that Mark Cuban, president of Broadcast.com would argue that the Internet is not television, regardless of where the content appeared initially. Instead, he argued that it is a different medium. As we will discuss in this book, Cuban shares something in common with a subset of the nonviewers—those who consider television, by definition, a medium that provides a potentially continuous flow of stimulus, complete with programs and commercials. For these nonviewers, television is defined by its continuity and its omnipresence, not by its content (e.g., commercials, sex, violence) per se. Therefore, although it is not the purpose of this book to explore if new technologies still qualify as television, these debates do bring up yet another interesting question, one that was answered by those who participated in this study: What is television?

Although I began this research into nonviewing households with a fairly strict definition—a home with no television set in it—I began to take a more phenomenological approach and expanded the definition based on the families’ own definitions. “Why do you consider yourselves TV-free?” I’d ask. “Because we don’t watch television,” they’d respond. Often, someone would pipe in “Didn’t we watch the Super Bowl last year?” “No, that was two years ago. Remember, we still had that old brown couch of your mother’s?” So, as I began to understand it, living without television is not a structural feature of the household, but a choice about what to do in it. So a family can consider themselves nonviewers, own a television that they keep in a closet, use it to watch movies and even, for some homes, rent a program that initially aired on broadcast television. But by their own definition, they do not “watch” television.

Therefore, the way we have defined television has been dominated by “positive space.” We have defined television, first, by discussing the structural and technological features of the medium. Although Andreasen (2002) is certainly right in addressing how changes in technology have impacted the use of television in most American homes, a discussion of this nature still limits our understanding of television. Television is still perceived as an object with features, and those features then affect the use of television by families. It does not give us a chance to consider how families define television. Second, media researchers define television as it is used by families who watch it. They may have cable. They may have favorite programs that they watch in the evening or during meals. In other words, they see themselves as television viewers. They are the “positive space” in the landscape of media research. However, in the present study, two-thirds of the homes owned television sets yet identified themselves as nonviewers. It is very valuable here to consider what a television is, or what television watching is for these nonviewers. In exploring this negative space, we learn much about the use of television and we provide opportunity for people to define what it is.

Overview and Organization of the Chapters

In chapter 2, I describe the sample and method in detail. Overall, there were three main strategies for data collection for this project: interviews, surveys and time-use diaries. First, I explored the themes that emerge in the in-depth interviews and in-home observations. In total, I interviewed 120 nonviewers in 62 different families. Of these, 72 were adults and 48 were children. I also interviewed 20 adult viewers in 18 different families. Second, I had 63 of the adult nonviewers, and 29 of the child nonviewers keep time-use diaries and respond to surveys. I also had a matched sample of 62 adult viewers and 30 child viewers keep time-use diaries and respond to identical surveys. The survey questions asked about behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs concerning politics, consumerism, religion, education, and computer use. I will discuss these strategies in greater detail later in the book.

In chapter 3, I discuss the three main ways that people give up television: attrition, “kicking the habit,” and environmental change. The first process is attrition. For those who eliminate television through attrition, television gradually stops having interest or meaning for them. This group stops watching television and then gets rid of it or stores it in the basement almost as an after-thought. The second process I refer to as kicking the habit. These individuals actually get rid of their set, sometimes in dramatic ways because they perceive it to have become a problem either for themselves or for their family in general. They may continue to desire it after it is gone, but perceive their viewing as a bad habit to be quit. Third, I discuss environmental reasons. When individuals give up television for environmental reasons, some outside factor such as a move or a divorce results in the loss of the television set; however, the set is never replaced because the individual or family comes to prefer living without it.

In chapter 3 I also introduce the uses and gratifications approach (Rubin, 2002). Here, I discuss Rubin’s dimensions of television use motives (e.g., escape, information gain) and utilize these to interpret both viewers’ and nonviewers’ motivations for their behavior. Whereas both viewers and nonviewers discuss television in ways that are consistent with a uses and gratifications perspective, viewers see benefits to the various uses of television where nonviewers see drawbacks. For example, viewers may discuss the importance of keeping up with the news; however, nonviewers question the quality of information gained from television news. Also consistent with a uses and gratifications approach, nonviewers have replaced the uses of television with other stimulus. The “negative space” that is left when television is removed does not remain empty. Instead, the gaps left when television is absent are filled with human interaction, time spent in hobbies or reading the news on the Internet or in the newspaper.

Chapter 4 addresses attitudes towards living without television for adults and children. Although all adults in the sample are advocates of living without television, it is perhaps more surprising that children of all ages seemed to view it as a benefit as well. Although in families without television, adolescents sometimes complained about their loss of television as social capital, neither children nor adolescents seemed to miss television content. In this chapter I also discuss the importance of family attitudes and behaviors about television in relation to children’s responses to nonviewing.

In chapter 5, I introduce the notion of television not as a technology that delivers audiovisual stimulus, but as a multi-faceted concept in the minds of nonviewers. In other words, I discuss what television is for nonviewers. Because about two-thirds of the people who participated in the study—and who thus consider themselves nonviewers—actually own a television set, I became interested in their own understanding of what is meant by television. Nonviewers work under the assumption that television is either television content, such as sex or violence; a medium that provides a potentially ongoing stream of content; or an industry, complete with producers, actors and advertisers. In this chapter, I begin discussing these various ways of perceiving television and how that conceptualization is related to the outcomes families expect from living without it. Overall, the research revealed that there is no unambiguous link between a given definition of television and how a family uses or does not use it. Rather, individuals’ attitudes toward television and their discussion of it revealed a philosophy, or perhaps a working definition of television for themselves and their families that was incorporated into their approach to it, their reasons for rejecting it, and more broadly, into their approach towards their family life.

In this vein, chapter 5 also introduces the concept of family systems as a framework for understanding some of the ideas that emerge in the interviews. In general, systems theory is the study of the organization of phenomena, such as parts of a mechanical system, employees in an organization or members of a family. Systems are thought to be made up of regular interaction between phenomena (e.g., family members). Interdependent phenomena typically exhibit some coherent behavior. A system is also open to and interacts with its environment, including information in the environment. From a systems perspective, no one part can be studied independently. Rather, the relations between and arrangement of the phenomenon must be studied simultaneously. For example, an attitude about television in the home may best be understood concomitantly with attitudes towards family life. Using this systems perspective, we discuss how television and attitudes about it can be seen as part of the family system. Even in families without television, beliefs about it are often present in family discussions, in individuals’ conceptions of their own family and in beliefs about decisions they make regarding their family. In fact, in nonviewing homes, the absence of television is often seen by members as an important defining feature of the family. Therefore, I argue that television is part of the family system even in, or especially in, families without it.

The remainder of the book is broken into three sections, reflecting the three definitions of television. Chapters 6–8 reflect television as content, chapters 9–12 reflect television as a medium and chapters 13–14 reflect television as an industry. In each of the three sections, the individual chapters reflect nonviewers’ beliefs ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• PART I Introduction and Overview
• PART II Television as Content
• PART III Television as Medium
• PART IV Television as Industry
• References