Media Consumption And Public Engagement » (First Edition)

NICK COULDRY is Professor of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK. He is the author or editor of several books including Media Rituals: A Critical Approach and Listening Beyond the Echoes: Media, Ethics and Agency in an Uncertain World.

SONIA LIVINGSTONE is Professor of Social Psychology, London School of Economics, UK. She is the author or editor of many books including Young People and New Media, Making Sense of Television: the Psychology of Audience Interpretation (in its 2nd edition) and Handbook of New Media.

TIM MARKHAM is Lecturer in Journalism, Department of Continuing Education, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK.

Contemporary democracies are based on the belief that media can deliver the attention of the voting populations. But in an age of multiplying media, political disillusionment, and time-scarcity, is this plausible any longer? This book addresses this major question head on, drawing on the voices of people from the UK who were asked to write diaries about their experiences (or not) of 'public connection', as well as survey data and comparative research in the USA and elsewhere.

List of Tables     x
List of Figures     xi
Preface     xiii
Theoretical Foundations
Democracy and the Presumption of Attention     3
Introduction     3
The idea of 'public connection'     5
Public connection: the conceptual and empirical background     8
Accounts of the crisis of democracy     12
The current UK and international context     16
Conclusion     20
Media Consumption and Public Connection     23
Why media consumption?     23
The plurality of media     24
'The media' - legitimate object of blame?     26
Mediating a shared frame of attention     28
From the collective to the public     30
The traditional centrality of the news     32
Engaging with media in late modernity     34
New and emerging sites of mediated public connection     37
Conclusion     40
Tracking Public Connection: Methodological Issues     42
Overall design     42
Research precedents     43
Diary methodology     45
Issues of interpretation     50
The Public Connection Survey     55
Comparingthe diary and survey data     56
Conclusion     57
The Public Connection Project
Introduction     61
Diary phase     61
Survey phase     63
Mediated Public Connection: Broad Dynamics     65
Introduction     65
Modelling individual diarists' public connection     66
The dynamics of mediated public connection     76
Underlying orientations     81
Public/private     83
An alternative definition of the 'public' world?     84
Conclusion     87
The Variability of Media Use     88
The nature of our evidence     88
Patterns of media use     97
Quality of media use     98
Media use and wider routine     103
Critical media use and media literacy     105
Conclusion     109
Values, Talk and Action     111
Values     111
The duty to keep up with the news     113
Talk     114
Action     121
Conclusion     127
Democracy Seen from Afar     130
Henry     130
Josh     132
Andrea      133
Kylie     135
Beccy     136
Samantha     138
Bill     140
Sheila     142
Shared concerns     144
Conclusion     145
Engagement and Mediation: Findings from the Public Connection Survey     147
Introduction     147
Declining public participation     148
Linking media consumption to public participation     153
Mediating participation     157
Relating political participation and public connection     160
Contextualising participation     166
Conclusion     170
Conclusion
Conclusion: The Future of Public Connection     179
Review of our findings     180
The Public Connection Survey     185
Summary of empirical findings     188
Where do we go from here?     188
Conclusion     194
Appendices
The Public Connection Diarists     196
Regional Profiles     199
Interview and Focus Group Schedules     203
Technical Note on Timeline Construction     212
Survey questions     215
Demographic Breakdown of Survey Population     219
References      221
Index     239