How We Use the Media

Strategies, Modes and Styles

Benjamin Krämer, Felix Frey, Benjamin Krämer, Felix Frey

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9783030413125
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030413132
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This volume considers strategies, modalities, and styles of media use and reception. Dynamic changes in media technology and infrastructure have spurred important changes in media use. Looking at these developments within the common conceptual framework of reception strategies, modes and styles of media use and reception, this volume is highly relevant against the background of the changing media environment. When it comes to media use and reception, communication research has mainly dealt with two much-cited questions: What do the media do with the people? What do the people do with the media? In comparison, the discipline has devoted less attention to how the media are used, the modalities, patterns or configurations of the actual practices of media use. The volume features original contributions, both empirical and theoretical, on the key concepts and approaches in the field, covering old and new media and different types of media content. Offering a comprehensive overview of existing research as well as promoting original findings and insights, the volume will be of interest to communication researchers, students, and scholars.

© The Author(s) 2020

B. Krämer, F. Frey (eds.)How We Use the Media Transforming Communications – Studies in Cross-Media Researchhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41313-2_1

Begin Abstract

1. Strategies, Modes and Styles of Media Use and Reception: An Introduction

Felix Frey¹ and Benjamin Krämer²

(1)

Institute of Communication and Media Studies, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany

(2)

Department of Media and Communication, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany

Felix Frey (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Benjamin Krämer

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

The structure of the field of communication studies is often described by referring to a number of very broad research questions: Who uses which media to communicate what or to inform themselves, to entertain themselves and so on? How often or how long is some media channel or content being used? What are the causes and motives to use certain media or some type of media content? What are the effects of this exposure? and so on. In contrast, the question of how the media are being used by individuals has not really entered the canon of traditional research interests and is not commonly used to characterize an established field of research in the discipline. We think this is worth changing. Therefore, the primary aim of this volume is to make a contribution to the formation and further development of a field of research that considers the qualities, modalities and dynamics of the act or process of media use itself—especially against the background assumption of different possible ways of using the same media—as a worthwhile object sui generis.

Why the ‘How’ Matters

Why do we think this question and research that strives to answer it to be relevant in the first place? We can openly admit that more or less data-driven applied research on media use does not necessarily have to take into consideration the different modes, strategies or styles of media use, in particular if it is merely interested in market shares or commercially relevant audience data that can be gathered efficiently by automatically storing behavioral traces. The very aim of such research is to make media use comparable, abstracting from differences between individual practices, and to quantify it in terms of a common “currency” (minutes, clicks, likes etc.) that is converted into other currencies such as money when marketing the “audience commodity” (Smythe, 1981). However, even technically recorded data on behavioral patterns can already reveal not only preferences and other attitudes but also formal features of practices of media use which we may describe as styles, repertoires, habits and so on, that is, aspects of how the media are being used instead of only what and when (see Frey & Krämer, in this volume, and Krämer & Frey, 2019, discussing different methodological approaches). And if producers and platform providers seek to optimize the experience of their users or the effects of advertising, it may also be relevant to analyze how content is being selected, processed and appropriated.

Much beyond the effects of advertising, media effects research in general should also consider the different ways users approach media content and has already done so to a certain degree. However, many studies only compare effects of a small number of modalities of processing or experience (such as heuristic vs. systematic processing or a stronger or weaker sense of transportation) while effects research still has to take the broad variety of modes of reception that have been theorized and investigated elsewhere into consideration.

Apart from these applications in other fields, the study of how we use the media constitutes basic research into some of the most common practices in everyday life. Not only what we do but how we do it is part of our personality, way of living, interactions and of the pleasures or displeasures of everyday life. If mediated worlds are part of the overall world we live in, the way we approach these worlds shapes our experiences and our image of the world as a whole. How we select the media channels and content we use (or whether we let others or technical systems decide), how much attention we devote to them, whether we maintain a distanced or highly involved attitude and so on can affect our emotional experiences, our sense of entertainment, what we learn from the media and many other aspects of our experiences and a wide range of outcomes.

The analysis of how we actually perform practices of media use makes implicit knowledge explicit and open to (critical) reflection and intervention. Such knowledge can then be discussed, taught, used for positive purposes or no longer put to use if it produces problematic consequences (in the postface, we shortly reflect on the political implications of the analysis of how we use the media). We may become more mindful in our everyday media use and aware of alternatives to our practices. However, the expectation that our doings should constantly be critically reflected should itself be critically reflected because, paradoxically, this expectation can contribute to an overly strict and generalized norm of self-reflection and self-optimization. Some practices of media use can actually be problematic, but we often also feel guilty about some practices due to questionable norms and expectations.

Our personal but socially structured way of doing things is also a factor in the overall impression we leave on others and on which they base their social judgments. Furthermore, how we use the media is discussed normatively in everyday conversations and is a topic of discourses on, among others, parenting, education and media literacy. For example, we may ask ourselves or others: At what age should children be allowed to choose what they watch on TV or online, and how should they do it? When is it acceptable to look at one’s smartphone during conversations? Should we allow our children to listen to music while learning for school? Is it okay to binge-watch whole seasons of series? Do we read news differently on websites or in apps than in printed newspapers and, if so, which way of reading is better? and so on. Such discourses may also be a relevant object of study by themselves. However, the contributions in this volume do not analyze discourses on ways of using the media or attempt to answer such normative questions but study these practices themselves.

This volume brings together a number of contributions that represent different perspectives, theoretical foundations and methodological approaches on this topic. In their entirety (and together with some omissions explained below) they provide an overview of the work already done in the field so far and at the same time further develop it. Nevertheless, our selection—and the omission—of approaches also reflects our personal view of this topic, which is why we would like to explain our considerations when compiling this volume in the following. In a first step, we would like to attempt a rough overview of the relevant branches of research in order to then present the composition of the volume in a second step. It goes without saying that we have to characterize the research areas addressed in a very general way and cannot do justice to every single study in the areas mentioned.

A Sketch of the Research Field

Audience research and uses and effects approaches that pursue the research questions mentioned at the beginning consider research on media use predominantly as the determination of market shares or the measurement of a dose of media content assumed to lead to some effect in question. If media use is examined as a dependent variable, it is mostly media selection and the extent of usage that are to be explained by sociodemographic variables (including social class membership), individual motives or attitudes. The actual act or process of media use on the other hand is of little interest in this type of research.

This also applies to large parts of the Cultural Studies tradition in media research. Although these approaches put readers’ or viewers’ interpretive activity conceptually in the center, they are primarily concerned with the result of this activity and largely remain silent on the actual subjective processes during a media encounter that bring about the positioned individual’s particular decoding or interpretation of a media text (...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Strategies, Modes and Styles of Media Use and Reception: An Introduction
• 2. The Praxeology of Media Use
• 3. Strategies of Media Use: Linking Television Use and Life, Social Structure and Practice
• 4. The Effects of Withholding Information in Movies: Explorations into Cinema Beyond Hollywood
• 5. Modes of Multi-screening: A Qualitative Approach to Practices of Combining Various Screens
• 6. Interdisciplinary Research on Modes of Listening to Music and Sound
• 7. Socially Shared Television Viewing: Preconditions, Processes and Effects of Co-viewing and Social TV
• 8. The Nano Level of Media Use: Situational Influences on (Mobile) Media Use
• 9. Media Use in Media Change: From Mass Press Take-Off to the 1920s Plurimedialisation. Demarcation of a Research Field
• 10. The Methodological Intricacies of Researching Strategies, Modes, and Styles of Media Use and Reception
• 11. Towards a Common Theoretical Framework—And Some Remarks on the Politics of Innerlichkeit
• Back Matter