Category Books

TV Living: Television, Culture and Everyday Life »

Authors: David Gauntlett, Annette Hill
ISBN-13: 9780415184861, ISBN-10: 041518486X
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Taylor & Francis, Inc.
Date Published: April 1999
Edition: (Non-applicable)

Author Biography: David Gauntlett

Book Synopsis

TV Living presents the surprising results of the largest survey of television viewing habits ever completed. For five years, 500 people kept a diary of their television viewing, their lives, and the relationship between the two. The results upset and confirmed commonly held beliefs about audiences, such as: television is not a masculine domain, the elderly audience has diverse tastes, and people regulate how much violence, sex, or bad language they watch. This clear and engaging book, which includes actual quotes from diaries, presents an exciting, literate, and thoughtful picture of the complex and fascinating relationship between mass media and people's lives today.

	Preface	x
	Acknowledgements	xii
1	Introduction	1
	Studying television and everyday life	3
	The Audience Tracking Study methodology	13
2	Television and everyday life	21
	Television and the organisation of time	23
	Household life and television	35
	Television, the household and everyday life	49
	Summary of key findings	50
3	News consumption and everyday life	52
	Previous studies of news consumption	52
	News and current affairs	54
	Patterns of news consumption	63
	News consumption: young adults	67
	News consumption: adults	72
	Television news and everyday life	76
	Summary of key findings	78
4	Transitions and change	79
	Previous studies of television and life changes	79
	Young adults: transition and change	82
	Adults: transition and change	93
	Couples, life changes and television	101
	Transitions and change in life before 50	108
	Summary of key findings	109
5	Television's personal meanings: companionship, guilt and social interaction	110
	What television means to individuals	112
	Television guilt	119
	Talking about television	128
	Television and everyday life: meaning and identity	130
	Television and identity in the Audience Tracking Study Diaries	132
	Television's personal meanings	138
	Summary of key findings	139
6	Video and technology in the home	141
	The rise of video	142
	Video and everyday life in the Audience Tracking Study	143
	Satellite and cable	161
	Other television technologies, and the future	165
	Enough technology?	170
	Summary of key findings	171
7	The retired and elderly audiences	173
	What does it mean to be old?	176
	Life in retirement	182
	Elderly people's relationship with television	195
	The elderly on watching television	200
	Television viewing in later life: some theory	205
	Summary of key findings	207
8	Gender and television	209
	Previous studies of gender and television	209
	What do men and women actually watch?	218
	Should we talk about 'women's' and 'men's' interests?	219
	Is television output biased towards women or men?	221
	Should we still classify soap operas as 'women's programmes'?	226
	The representation of women	230
	Catering for men with sport and sex?	233
	The representation of homosexuality	238
	Gender issues in the household	240
	A change of gender	245
	Summary of key findings	246
9	Television violence and other controversies	248
	Previous studies of television violence and issues of taste	248
	Media portrayals of violence	251
	Television drama	261
	Perceptions of violence	267
	Regulation and self-regulation	272
	Bad language, sex and nudity, and issues of taste	274
	Studying violence and taste	280
	Summary of key findings	281
10	Conclusions	283
	Time and change	284
	Gender: changing landscapes	285
	Identity	287
	Seduction	288
	A fragmented audience?	288
	Reflections on writing diaries and the research process	289
	Television consumers: consumed by television?	291
Appendix	Further methodological details	294
	References	297
	Index	306