3rd European Communication Conference
12—15 October 2010
CONTENT
Abstracts Section 1 - Audience and Reception Studies ...3
Abstracts Section 2 - Communication and Democracy... 31
Abstracts Section 3 - Communication History...56
Abstracts Section 4 - Communication Law and Policy ... 73
Abstracts Section 5 - Diaspora, Migration and the Media ...93
Abstracts Section 6 - Digital Culture and Communication...116
Abstracts Section 7 - Film Studies ... 143
Abstracts Section 8 - Gender and Communication... 155
Abstracts Section 9 - International and Intercultural Communication ... 170
Abstracts Section 10 - Interpersonal Communication and Social Interaction ... 192
Abstracts Section 11 - Journalism Studies...207
Abstracts Section 12 - Organisational and Strategic Communication...235
Abstracts Section 13 - Philosophy of Communication ...248
Abstracts Section 14 - Political Communication ... 260
Abstracts Section 15 - Radio Research ...297
Abstracts Section 16 - Science and Environment Communication ... 312
ABSTRACTS SECTION 1
AUDIENCE AND RECEPTION STUDIES
PANEL 1-1
US AND THEM
WED 13 OCT 11:15-12:45 ROOM PHIL D
Rolf Halse, University of Bergen, Norway
Negotiating borders between ingroups and outgroups: Ethnic
Norwegians and Norwegian Muslims speak out about the
Muslim-American neighbour as terrorist in 24
TV-serials can play an important role in fixing or changing the positions of different groups within contemporary societies. Mus-lims is a group which has often been portrayed as negative stereo-types in Hollywood’s TV-entertainment. The traditional Muslim stereotype is usually located in Hollywood’s ‘Middle East’ and its image is easy recognizable for the typical recurring visual elements. A new, threatening Muslim stereotype was found in the 2002-03 US TV-season by Jack G. Shaheen (2008): the Muslim Arab-American Neighbour as Terrorist. He has since documented over 50 programs featuring this stereotype. In a textual analysis on 24’s representation of a Muslim family, Rolf Halse (2009) studies the new Muslim stereotype’s character traits, and relates the stereo-type’s change visually to its relocalization and adaption to the US post 9-11. Halse finds that the Muslim American ‘next door neighbour’ terrorist seems to resemble the appearance of the aver-age American; on the outside it differs from the traditional stereo-type, but within it is the same old. This paper presents a reception study of the 24’s storyline about the Muslim family, examining how different interpretive communities of young adults in Norway read and comprehend 24’s representation. The intention is to investigate which kinds of understandings and attitudes informants express in their conversations about the new Muslim stereotype after having watched 24, and to shed light on how 24’s text can mobilize stereo-types and enable stereotyping among the viewers. This is achieved by identifying and ‘tapping’ the range and variety of attitudes and understandings by using focus group interviews. The findings reveal different patterns of reception. The ethnic Norwegian participants found gratifications in 24’s storyline, while a majority of the Norwe-gian Muslim participants found it unpleasant and offensive. An important contribution to the fear which the stereotype evoked in the ethnic Norwegians was related to the suspense it created in the negotiation process of categorization. The informants seemed un-certain of the characters ethnicity and status, probably because the characters on the surface don’t resemble traditional Muslim stereo-types. But when first categorized as Muslims by a member of the focus group, the labelling act triggered a powerful response where the conversation would change in a xenophobic direction. This indicates how the interpretive community modified the perception
of the Muslim stereotype by socially patterned readings. There was a notable distinction in how different people were divided into groups in the interpretative communities’ readings, depending on who defined the group. Most frequently, the ethnic Norwegians would label the Muslim characters and the people they associated them with as ‘the foreigners’ – as an unspecified, homogeneous outgroup, while most of the Muslim informants seemed to regard ‘Americans’, whom they held responsible for the program, as a more specific outgroup. The ethnic Norwegians operated with a larger Western’ ingroup which included both Americans and Euro-peans. Both ethnic Norwegians and Norwegian Muslims applied Muslims as a group label; for Norwegian Muslims it was a natural ingroup-label whereas ethnic Norwegians used it as a more specific outgroup-label.
Alexander Dhoest/Nele Simons, University of Antwerp, Belgium
We're here, but are we queer? Exploring gay and lesbian media use
Paraphrasing the famous queer activist phrase ‘We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!’, this paper starts from the observation that gay and lesbian sexuality has become mainstream in Western soci-ety and media, but wonders whether this presence is necessarily ‘queer’. This term was used from the 1990s in order to question rigid sexual categories, stressing the discursive construction of sexuality. It also refers to acts of subversion and resistance, for instance through ‘queer readings’ of mainstream media. While the development of queer theory was extremely fruitful for the analysis of sexuality, the term ‘queer’ is (deliberately) difficult to pin down and has proven more helpful in theoretical and textual analysis than in empirical social science research. In particular, while analyses of the heteronormativity of media representations abound and alter-native queer readings are readily suggested by academics, little has been published on the actual media uses and interpretations by gay and lesbian audiences. This is all the more necessary in a society where gay and lesbian rights (although still limited) have made a huge progress, supported by mass media eagerly portraying gays and lesbians in a variety of genres and contexts. Are subversion and resistance (still) the dominant modes of gay and lesbian media use? In order to explore this issue, this paper builds upon a combined quantitative and qualitative approach. In a first stage, on online survey (N= 761) was used to chart patterns of gay and lesbian media use in Flanders (Dutch-speaking North Belgium), focusing in par-ticular on uses and appreciations of gay and lesbian media content and representations. In the analysis of these data we try to establish whether there are particular (shared) gay and lesbian media tastes and how happy gays and lesbians are with the media available to them. In a second stage, 60 in-depth interviews with respondents drawn from the online sample were used to get more detailed in-formation on their readings and appreciations of gay and lesbian representations. The findings show a variety of responses which
illustrate the intersectionality of identity: sometimes sexuality becomes salient (i.e. at the time of coming out), sometimes gender, age or level of education seem to be more important in explaining differences in media use and appreciation. We find very few indica-tions of ‘queer’ (resistant) readings, the overall tone being quite positive or at least indifferent towards mainstream media. In line with queer theory, there is some resistance towards fixed categories, but this does not necessarily lead to resistant readings: for most respondents, sexuality is not all that much of an issue most of the time. This may be an indication of the gradual normalisation of gay and lesbian sexuality in contemporary Flemish media and society.
Nitida Sangsingkeo, University of Surrey, United Kingdom
Hearing audiences: an analysis of the dynamic constructions of
“mental illness” in the Thai cultural context
This ethnographic study, conducted during September 2008 - May 2009, on forty-nine Thai women from three different settings (Emergency Home, Rehabilitation centre and Everyday life setting) examines how Thai women make sense of mental health in their everyday lives and in the unique context of Thai culture. While the discourse of ‘medical expert’ in the media is the centre of analysis in this study, it also analyses construction of mental health from women’s everyday experiences along with the alternative discourse of ‘spiritual health and the holistic wellbeing’.
The study reflects that ‘mental illness’ is the key element embedded in the practice of the dominant discourse of experts and that in some degrees it influenced how women understood mental health differently. Although women were asked about mental health, their answers often contained the negative connotations of mental ill-ness. The result shows that women use the terms ‘Baa’ (madness) and ‘Rok Jit’ (means mental illness, the mentally ill, a ‘psycho’) in their daily discussions of mental health, sometimes as a source of metaphor to refer to people with ‘abnormal’ behaviour or in differ-ent contexts such as insults, jokes, etc. while several informants mentioned examples of sexual violence when talking about mental illness. The overall result confirms a cross-cultural perspective that it is rather impossible to understand mental health exclusively without considering a range of social factors that interact with cultural considerations.
This paper mainly investigates how mental illness is constructed through women’s diverse experiences (immediate experience, aleatory experience and mass-mediated experience) with the men-tally ill and challenges the view that the mass-mediated stereotypes of the mentally ill can be simply detrimental to perception of the public. The study argues that there is interplay of the multiple constructions of mental illness cross-functioned in one’s reception toward the topic and that there are some reproductions and some challenges for negative images of mental illness. This paper also explores key concepts related to mental illness and discusses women as audiences of mass-mediated representations. It also demonstrates a resistance between the media power versus the power of audiences as active agents whose perceptions did not simply rely on the media but capable of challenging such construc-tion and re-define their role of being ‘co-constructors’ on their own understanding of mental illness.
Veronika Krönert, University of Bremen, Germany
Celebrities as transcultural brand symbols? The case of the Pope
as a religious media star
The paper addresses the role of celebrities within the context of transcultural communities. Drawing on empirically grounded in-sights into the staging and appropriation of the Pope as a religious brand symbol it sheds light on the struggles of meaning centered on
the media figure of the Pope, arguing that as a ‚projection screen‘ for various and even contradictory ways of being Catholic, it turns out to be a transculturally shared reference point for the re-articulation of Catholicism as an imagined religious community. The argument is based on an analysis of the Papal visit in Germany during the 2005 World Youth Day and the reception of the media event in Germany and Italy, funded by the German Research Foun-dation. Besides quantitative and qualitative content analyses of television and print coverage in both countries, the study included 47 thematically focused interviews with 15 German and 11 Italian Catholics aged 15 to 30 who witnessed the event via media. The interviews were conducted in two waves and analyzed within the analytical framework of Grounded Theory giving special attention to transcultural and temporal comparison.
Theoretically, the paper takes up the current debate on celebrity culture and on the mediatization of religion. Whereas the former reflects on the increasing importance of celebrities in a globalizing media industry the latter tackles the role of mediated communica-tion and media institucommunica-tions within wider processes of religious change. The paper integrates both perspectives in a three step argument, developing further the idea of the Pope as a transcultur-ally accessible brand symbol of Catholicism.
After some introductory remarks I will give two examples how the Pope is staged as a religious celebrity in different media contexts. They show that as a media figure he symbolizes both, the sacred claims of the institutional Church and the popular forms of lived religiousness, holding them together by virtue of his mediated charisma. So, his potentiality as a catholic brand symbol consists in the ability to open up readings of religious continuity and change and thus to resolve the ambiguity of religious individualization at least symbolically..
Against this background I will focus on how young believers address the Pope as a media figure. The transcultural comparison shows that they encounter the authoritative claims represented by the Pope with great sovereignty, yet showing respect for his personal integrity. Thus, as a moral instance he is ‚authentic‘ not so much as a formal religious authority representing the ‚sacred centre‘ of Catholicism as a transcultural religious community but as an indi-vidual struggling with the contradictions between institutional demands and individual spirituality the young believers themselves feel subjected to within everyday life.
To conclude I will discuss the ambiguity of the staging of the Pope as a catholic brand symbol, arguing that it is the tension between the sacred claim of the papal office and the immediacy of the media staging of the mediated persona as religious celebrity his credibility as a religious leader depends on. However, this transgression of boundaries between religion and popular culture points to shifting meaning horizons of what it means to be Catholic today which erode the formal authority of the institutional Church.
Phillip Müller, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany
Ralf Hohlfeld, University of Passau, Germany
The macro-level third-person effect and its social consequences
Introduction: Micro- and Macro-Level Third-Person Perceptions: The third-person effect has been understood as a psychological phenomenon. Research has shown that individuals perceive the media´s influence on others stronger than on themselves. This effect increases with a growing social distance between the individ-ual and the reference group. We suggest that this biased perception of media influence in different social groups should be reproduced and shared in communicative action between the individuals. Third-person perceptions could, for example, be mirrored in the media´s foreign coverage. Thus, third-person effects which are normally understood on the micro level can become relevant on a
macro-level as well.
Our study examined if the individual effect extends to communica-tively shared biased perceptions of the media influence in other countries. In an earlier quantitative content analysis of articles from four German and three American quality newspapers (N = 2204) we demonstrated the existence of such intercultural third-person presentations in the mass media. This finding led us to the question how third-person presentations in media influence the third-person perceptions of audiences and what their social function is. This relationship was tested in an experiment on the effects of third-person presentations.
Method: Experiment on the Effects of Third-Person Presentations: The not-representative sample of the experiment consisted of N = 31 German students that were randomly split up in two groups. Both of the groups were asked to estimate the influence of politi-cian’s TV appearances on themselves, the German and the Ameri-can electorate. Then they were confronted with a newspaper article that dealt with the influence of televised debates on the election outcome in Germany and the US. One of the articles implied the influence to be stronger in the US (experimental group) while the other one suggested an equal influence in the two countries (control group).
Findings: In the pre-test, both control and experimental group showed almost the same statistically significant third-person per-ceptions. Afterwards, the intercultural third-person perception of the control group decreased and lost statistical significance while the experimental group´s perception increased. We also found that the control group’s evaluation of the media influence on self did not change at all and was therefore stronger than the evaluation of both the German and the US electorate at t2. The experimental group, whose third-person perceptions had been confirmed by the stimu-lus, however, enhanced its self evaluation as a result of this affirma-tion.
Conclusion: The results of the experiment demonstrated that the reception of intercultural third-person presentations leads to a validation of existing third-person perceptions and simultaneously contributes to the individual’s self enhancement. This individual self enhancement is based on two aspects of our findings: First, the individual’s third-person perception turned out to be right; and second, the individual is a member of the group that is generally less suggestible and therefore better evaluated. The second aspect offers a link to the social function of third-person presentations in media. By reassuring individuals of the superiority of their own social group the macro-level third-person effect contributes to the identification with the group and thereby legitimates the group's existence and secures its duration.
POSTER SESSION 1
WED 13 OCT 12:45-13:30 ROOM PHIL FOYER
Beate Wellnitz, Berlin, Germany
Jana Scheerer, University of Potsdam, Germany
"If I were you, I'd stay outside": Online fan communities between
affirmation and subversion. A case study of law and order SVU
(NBC)
When NBC aired a teaser for an upcoming episode of "Law and Order SVU" in February 2010, there were strong reactions in sev-eral online fan communities. The teaser showed character Detective Olivia Benson being kissed by a lesbian woman against her will and harshly commenting on the incident. Online fan communities discussed this scene as homophobic.
In fact, the scene seems like an answer to the fan fiction and board comments revolving around "Law and Order SVU". The online
community of "A&O-Shippers" takes the show as a semiotic re-source for stories about a romantic relationship between Detective Olivia Benson and female ADA Alex Cabot, while "E&O-Shippers" favor to see Olivia Benson involved with her partner Eliot Stabler. With Olivia Benson turning down a woman with the words “I am straight” in the teaser, the semiotic material the show offers is dramatically altered. As Fiske (1989) points out, meaning is con-structed at the intersection between the text's and the recipient's delimitations. Olivia Bensons' explicit statement on her heterosexu-ality clearly delimits the resources the text offers for a homosexual reading of the Benson/Cabot relationship.
For the online fan communities, this development creates a mo-ment of crisis, in which the semiotic material restricts possible readings and some alternative readings can no longer co-exist with the dominant text. At this point, the inherent tension between the subversive pleasure of alternative readings and its affirmative as-pects, as well as the power asymmetry between media producers and fans surfaces and is formulated explicitly.
In the proposed paper, we take this moment of crisis as an access point to the issues of power, representation and resistance underly-ing the communication in online fan communities. We track the discussion threads on Twitter, You Tube and in several forums that followed the "Law and Order SVU"-teaser. In analyzing the fan communities' reactions on the shift in the semiotic material the series offers, we want to address the following questions: - Which strategies do fans use to deal with the scene presented in the teaser? Do they try to adjust existing or construct new alterna-tive readings, or distance themselves from the show?
- How do fans frame their posts – as mere commentaries on a fic-tional text, or as political statements? How do they use the semiotic resources the TV series and specifically the teaser offer to discuss political standpoints?
- How is the teaser used to construct community and mark bounda-ries between communities and institutions (e.g. A&O-shippers vs. E&O-shippers vs. producers)?
Online fan communities and fan fiction have been debated both in terms of their subversive, participatory potential and as 'audience labor' that constitutes a cheap alternative to market research in-struments and even takes over the actual work of entertaining (Andrejevic 2008). With our paper, we hope to contribute to this discussion by analyzing a moment in which the tension between subversion and affirmation breaks open.
Stephanie Geise, University of Erfurt, Germany
"Vision that matters": Insights in processes of visual perception and
its effects - results of an experimental eye tracking study using the
example of election posters
Politics requires intermediation. Although a rising importance of the application of vis-ual stimuli in the political communication process is in discussion, Visual Communication has not yet been the main focus of researchers. Moreover, it is still a much-used objec-tion that the superficial character of imagery is contradictory to the rational discourses of political communication. However, in times of information overload, application of visual strategies could also be interpreted as a positive development. Because of its characteris-tic – especial-ly the often cited Picture Superiority Effect (that can be summarised as follows: via the superiority of communication impact, visual communicated contents lead to higher attention and stronger activation, are deciphered more easily, remembered longer, recognized and memorized better) – the Visual Communica-tion of political content could be interpreted as a substitute in times of (political) representation crisis. Even so, findings concerning the special impact of Visual Communication are often countered by the objection that they are not transferable to the political field, where
perceptual selectivity is triggered by individual po-litical predisposi-tion. But little systematic research has been undertaken so far to analyse the effectiveness of Visual Political Communication. In this paper, an experimental multi-methodological Visual Com-munication study is presented, tending to ascertain findings in Visual Communication theory and transfer them to the field of political communications. Perception, reception and effects of 40 figurative and typographic posters of German elections have been analyzed comparatively in a multi-dimensional experimental setting – using an innovative combination of eye tracking,
RTR-measurements and interviews of 220 recipients in a quoted sample (by: age, gender, political identification, educational status). With this empirical data we draw conclusions on the following questions: 1. What do viewers focus on when they are exposed to election posters? How is their visual perception (observation behaviour and scan path) structured?
2. In how far can insights in Visual Communication Theory – espe-cially the Picture Superiority Effect – be applied to communication of political contents?
4. What are the effects on the viewers’ visual perception, reception, recall and recognition evaluation depending on their predisposi-tions?
5. What are the effects depending on the configuration of the me-dium (visual vs. textual mode)?
Based on findings in visual perception, visual processing and cogni-tive psychology, we assume that superiority effects of Visual Com-munication apply also in the field of political information process-ing. Moreover, we presume that political Visual Communication modes have an impact to predominate textual communication modes. In our paper, these general postulations are specified through the theoretical and empirical foundation of three relevant steps in the perception process: the pre-conscious peripheral per-ception and evaluation of the first impression, the influences of a stimulus on attention and activation and their rein-forcement effects, as well as the active and passive memorization capability. Our results reveal support for our assumption that the application of Visual Communication exerts positive influence on the percep-tion and processing of political informapercep-tion and therefore might improve the impact of political communication modes.
Ines Vogel/Uli Gleich, University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany
What makes a good drama? Audience evaluations of emotionally
challenging movies
A great deal of the time people spend using media is consumed by watching fictional entertainment. Especially full-length movies are extremely popular among the audience. Movies invite viewers to explore (new) cognitive and emotional experiences often serving the purpose of enjoyment (see Schwab, 2004, 2008). Some movies however, challenge their audience by inducing not only pleasurable emotional experiences such as enjoyment, but also emotions gener-ally rated as negative and unpleasant (e.g. sadness, grief, sorrow). Emotionally challenging movies (ECMs) are commonly labeled with film genres such as “drama”, “tragedy” or “melodrama”. According to Gehrau (2001), film genre labels evoke audience expectations regarding content, typical plot progressions and cinematography of a movie. Moreover, audience expectations affect selection, informa-tion processing, understanding and evaluainforma-tion of a film stimulus. A quite similar point of view is proposed by Ohler (1994). The author assumes that film related knowledge (e.g. narrative knowledge on typical plots and protagonists) helps viewers to process film infor-mation and follow the development of a story line.
Research to date has tended to focus on positively entertaining movies and TV programs rather than on ECMs. In addition, little attention has been paid to understanding how viewers evaluate
different forms ECMs and which criteria play an important role in the evaluation process. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to iden-tify relevant film related criteria (e.g. quality of the story, acting performance) underlying the assessment of ECMs.
In an online survey, 605 participants were randomly assigned to one of five film genres frequently associated with ECMs (e.g. drama, melodrama). Participants were asked to name a good and a bad movie example of the assigned genre and explain the reasons for their evaluation of the movie. The answers given were then content analyzed based on a codebook including cinematographic (e.g. camera, lighting in the film, visual effects) and sound related vari-ables (e.g. music) along with varivari-ables regarding acting perform-ance, theme of the story and quality of the plot.
The findings of this study indicate that positive evaluations of ECMs are based on a broader variety of evaluation criteria than negative evaluations. Whereas negative evaluations mainly focus on cogni-tive quality aspects (e.g. perceived realism, originality and complex-ity of the story), positive evaluations also take acting performance, cinematographic variables and viewers’ emotional reactions to the movie into account. Since ECMs can be defined as highly emotion-alizing film stimuli, the importance of emotional reactions as evaluation criteria implies that viewers have clearly outlined expec-tations concerning sought emotional effects when watching ECMs. The results suggest that only ECMs that are successful in strongly absorbing their viewers and inducing intense emotional reactions (e.g. sadness) are rated positively. The presentation concludes by discussing the role of viewer characteristics (e.g. viewing prefer-ences, film knowledge) in the evaluation process.
Stijn Reijnders, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands
On the trail of 007: Places of the imagination in the world of James
Bond
Visiting the settings of popular films and TV series has become a growing niche in the tourist market. Little is known about what makes these visits so appealing. This article proposes that film and TV settings appeal because they serve as ‘places of the imagination’, material-symbolic moorings for a shared world of imagination. This is explored on the basis of the case of James Bond. Twenty-three interviews were conducted with James Bond fans who had visited one or more Bond film locations in recent years. These interviews indicated that when they visit the location, Bond fans make a thor-ough comparison between the physical site and the pictures from the film. Fans collect material ‘evidence’ for two mental concepts, ‘imagination’ and ‘reality.’ After these concepts have been estab-lished, the contrast is knowingly transgressed in a subsequent phase. By performing certain mimetic actions, the story is brought to life, and fans can briefly connect to and enter into the imagined world, bringing back collective as well as personal memories. In the case of Bond, this imaginary world seems to be first and foremost a masculine world, in which fans rediscover their masculinity, cele-brate it and define it.
Nicholas Bowman, Young Harris College, United States
Daniel Schultheiss/Christina Schumann, Ilmenau University of
Technology, Germany
"I feel, therefore I play (and pay)": The influence of character
attachment on Internet game play motivations and economic
structures
The popularity of video games has caused entertainment scholars to change the way we think about the interactions between audiences and mediated characters. Whereas in the past, scholars used the term parasocial interaction to explain feelings of intimacy and connectedness with distal, fictional characters (Perse & Powell,
1985), video games have qualitatively changed this conceptualiza-tion. Whereas in traditional media forms audience members simply witness the actions of their favorite characters, in video games audiences are placed in near-complete control of their character’s actions (Lewis, Weber, & Bowman, 2008). Thus, a distinguishing feature relevant to the current study that separates video games from non-interactive media is the internalization and psychological merging of a player’s and a character’s mind (Oatley, 1999), referred to in the literature as character attachment (CA; Lewis et al., 2008). Although relevant to any video game in which a character is pre-sent, CA is thought to be especially relevant to role-playing games (RPGs), as the main purpose of these games is to immerse the gamer in the world and psyche of their game character (May, 1994). The current study extends work on Internet game play motivations (Schultheiss, 2007; Schultheiss, Bowman & Schumann, 2008) by investigating the unique role of CA in explaining RPG gamers’ motivations for their game play. CA has been significantly positively correlated with game enjoyment and time spent playing video games – as well as video game addiction – in past research (Lewis et al., 2008). In terms of game play motivations, CA has been found to be significantly positively associated with fantasy, diversion, and social interaction motivations as defined by Yee (2006) and Sherry, Lucas, Greenberg, and Lachlan (2006). Our study will investigate the effect of CA on a variety of video game play motivations identi-fied in the literature (Schultheiss, 2007; Sherry et al., 2006; Yee, 2006). In addition, our study will examine the effects of CA on the economics of RPG Internet games, including willingness to pay for the games and the acceptance of various game distribution chan-nels, such as subscription services and other modes of distribution. Finally, we research the influence of increased CA on gamers’ com-munity and solo game play patterns (Schultheiss et al, 2008). Sur-vey data (N ~ 500) will be collected from European and North American gamers, and comparisons will be made with respect to a variety of theoretically-relevant socio-demographic variables. In addition to survey item responses, participants will be asked to provide a narrative account of the dynamics of their felt CA by responding to prompt questions.
Reint Jan Renes/Cees Van Woerkum, Wageningen University,
Netherlands
Karen Mutsaers, Dutch Youth Institute, Germany
Entertaining and educating the audience: A qualitative evaluation of
a Dutch lifestyle documentary series
The production, reach and potential effect of the Dutch documen-tary series, Voor dik & dun (For thick and thin) were investigated. This television series was based on the Entertainment-Education (EE) strategy and designed to stimulate a healthy lifestyle among its audience.
The main focus of preventive health education is often on issues that do not embody a direct health risk, such as unhealthy eating and lack of physical activity. Therefore, initial interest in the health messages advocated is limited amongst many receivers due to which elaboration of the messages is restricted. EE strategy is the process of purposively designing and implementing a narrative and mediating communication form with the potential of entertaining and educating people, in order to implicitly enhance and facilitate different stages of prosocial behavior change (Bandura, 1986, 2004). The EE strategy posits an unconventional learning method: Its main focus is not on the cognitive processing of information, but rather on an incidental form of learning through narratives and role models (Sood, Menard, & Witte, 2003).
The present study had three aims: (1) to examine the role of the various EE criteria (i.e. narrative involvement, identification with characters, and parasocial interaction) in the development of Voor
dik & dun and their place in the final program; (2) to investigate the problems faced by both television and health professionals in the development of the series (with emphasis on balancing entertain-ment and education); (3) to explore how both viewers and health communication scientists evaluated the series on both entertain-ment and education aspects, as well its potential to influence view-ers’ awareness, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Emphasis was placed on lower socio-economic status groups.
Qualitative data were collected from three perspectives: (1) those involved in the program development, (2) health communication scientists and (3) viewers. In-depth interviews varying from one hour to an hour and a half were used to adduce the perspective of both program developers (television professionals and health pro-fessionals) and health communication scientists. The viewers’ perspective was adduced by means of twelve separate focus group discussions in six different locations in the Netherlands. In addi-tion, viewing figures and website statistics were collected. Results show that Voor dik & dun did not succeed in creating the right balance between a realistic, preventive health message and entertainment characteristics such as excitement and drama. The program did not meet its main aim of attracting low socio-economic status viewers without an initial interest in overweight prevention. Indeed, finding a proper balance between entertainment and educa-tion was difficult for those involved. Findings suggest that to achieve the desired health promoting effects, EE programs should focus first extensively on narrative engagement by means of enter-tainment and later on, when the viewer is engaged, try to educate by means of positive identification with transitional role models.
PANEL 1-2
DISTANCE AND PROXIMITY
WED 13 OCT 14:30-16:00 ROOM PHIL D
Philipp Niemann/Martin Krieg, University of Trier, Germany
"Starting from 24 pictures per second it becomes a movie" – Time
as an influencing factor on the reception process of multimodal
scientific presentations
Due to the complexity of media stimuli in print, online, audio or visual media, the recipient requires to select relevant units of in-formation in the course of time. Being a method of direct data acquisition, eye tracking can visualize this process of attention allocation. A reception study with about 60 scientific lectures will be used as an example to demonstrate how such data can be used for reconstructing a reception theory. In doing so, scientific lectures going along with PowerPoint presentations will be regarded as a paradigm of multimodal stimuli, as they are overall typical of media communication.
“Starting from 24 pictures per second it becomes a movie” (Schüler 2009) is written in an IT news ticker’s notice of the new software version PowerPoint 2010. Firstly, this quote generally clarifies the importance of the temporal dimension of software-based presenta-tions, which have become the quasi-standard in imparting scientific knowledge. Apart from this, the exaggerated statement reveals, which problems for academic activities are entailed by the new mode of presentation. The audiences of conferences are often con-fronted with a multitude of slides within next to no time. As to the importance of the new culture technique for knowledge transfer, the famous statement, imputed to Edward Tufte, “Power-Point Makes You Dumb” (Thompson 2003) still subsumes the publicized opinion accurately – however, there is a lack of empirical reception studies concerned with this issue.
Within the framework of a research project on mediatization effects on sciences, about 60 scientific presentations of diverse scientific disciplines have been tested. In this case, a presentation is consid-ered as the combination of projecting a sequence of slides and a corresponding speech. The research aims to identify typical, gener-alizable patterns of reception and to elaborate on the determining factors (layout of slides, style of presentation, etc.).
In addition to these macrostructural considerations, the process of knowledge transfer is in the focus of interest. In this case the theo-retical basis is an interactive theory of multimodal understanding, as is relevant for media communication as well. Since multimodal presentations can be regarded as a special form of non-linear com-munication, this process of understanding basically is a process of problem solving: Who is the author of the presentation? In which way do the distinct modes depend on each other relating to time and space? etc.
In a second phase of the study, the recorded presentations were systematically manipulated in the reception laboratory, which made it possible to test the influence of diverse modes (presenter, speech, slides) separately. In this connection the eye tracking method was used as well as “thinking-aloud” method and a brief test of knowl-edge.
Within the framework of the conference we will introduce a typol-ogy of patterns of perception for multimodal forms of communica-tion. With the help of exemplary sequences we can, furthermore, demonstrate which role the various modes of presentation and their temporal coordination play for the process of selection and the allocation of attention during knowledge transfer.
Schüler, Hans-Peter 2009: Alles bewegt sich bei PowerPoint 2010, heise online, URL: : http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Alles-bewegt-sich-bei-PowerPoint-2010--/meldung/144338 [4.9.2009].
Thompson, Clive 2003: PowerPoint Makes You Dumb, The New York Times Magazine, December 14, p 88.
Hanna Domeyer, Graduate School Media and Communication,
Hamburg, Germany
Between imagined communities and mediated networks – The array
of belonging within media repertoires
The paper sets off with the basic question: what does media use have to do with how we relate to other people and what groups we feel we belong to? This complex interrelation is affected by current developments in two fields of research that call for a reconsidera-tion of our tradireconsidera-tional concepts of media audiences. In the field of transnational and transcultural communication, globalisation, increasing migration and mobility, as well as deterritorialisation challenge existing concepts of (national) media audiences. At the same time questions of belonging and relating oneself to others become more important especially when using the media. In the field of audience and reception studies, mediated networks created by interpersonal and group media step alongside the dis-persed audiences and imagined communities created by mass media. In addition, the boundaries between audiences and produc-ers get blurred by new forms of media. The research project in general tries to combine these two fields and tackle the described challenges as well as the imbalances of past research by focusing on: the reciprocity between media use and belonging, the entirety of media a user regularly assembles (media repertoire), the relation between the micro level of the individual media user and the macro level of audiences and communities, and a systematic empirical analysis.
The presentation in particular focuses on the above mentioned developments in the field of audience and reception studies. It aims at integrating these into a conceptual framework for the study of the interrelation between media use and belonging. Therefore three steps are taken:
First, research on the relation between media use and belonging is discussed and systematized. With the theories of symbolic interac-tion (Mead; Krotz) and reference groups (Merton) the emphasis is put on the very act of relating. This can be either imagined or “real”. Second, concepts of media audiences are regarded with respect to this distinction. Traditionally it is differentiated between mass media with their dispersed audiences and mediated interpersonal and group communication in social networks. Taking into account the notions of co-audience (Hartmann/Dohle) and electronic com-munities (Höflich) it is argued for regarding different media on a continuum according to the degree of imagination needed to relate to others. Third, the concept of media repertoires
(Hase-brink/Popp/Domeyer) is introduced. It allows for investigating the entirety of different media an individual media user regularly as-sembles and the interrelations amongst these components. Within the media repertoire it can be examined how mass, group and interpersonal media; forms of production and use; different ways of relating to cultural groups and media audiences are combined and how this structure makes subjective sense to the media user. The paper is a theoretical contribution to the discussion on media use and belonging in times of changing cultural and media envi-ronments. Furthermore it provides a conceptual framework for future systematic empirical analysis of this issue. It seeks to cross disciplinary (sociology, social psychology, cultural studies) as well as traditional boundaries of the research field (old and new media; mass, group and interpersonal media; choices and effects).
Maria Kyriakidou, London, United Kingdom
Global memories - global publics? Exploring audience remembering
of distant disasters
Studies of the social character of memory have highlighted its sig-nificance as a resource of meaning, constructed through social interaction on the basis of common experiences. Mostly inspired by Holbawch’s concept of collective memory, the relevant arguments have underlined the centrality of memory for the reproduction of groups and communities through rituals and symbols. Memory, it has been argued, is a process of selective (re)production, implicated in issues of identity, power and authority. It is also embedded with normative and moral imperatives that underline social relations. In this context, the media have been theorised and explored as cultural resources, which play instrumental role in the construction, reser-vation and reconstruction of public memory. As resources of mem-ory, the media are therefore central in the construction of collectiv-ities around mediated experiences. But what happens when these mediated memories are of events beyond the borders of local and national collectivities? What are the dynamics that underline the memory of events witnessed through the global media? Such ques-tions have been considered in relation to the emergence of postna-tional solidarities and the role of the media in the “cosmopolitanisa-tion of memory” (Levy and Sznaider, 2002).
This paper will address these issues in relation to the public mem-ory of globally mediated disasters. It will, in particular, explore the ways audiences discursively construct their memories of distant disasters and implicitly position themselves in relation to these events, articulating their sense of place and belonging. The paper is empirically based on a focus group study of Greek audiences dis-cussing about distant disasters and suffering. Theoretically, it will draw upon constructivist approaches to memory and, in particular, discursive psychology, to illustrate how audiences construct their memories in discussion and the resources they draw upon in this process. What accounts of media disasters do audiences construct? What kind of media discourses, historical narratives and personal stories do they employ to reconstruct the events? What kind of normative evaluations underline their accounts? These are the
questions that the paper will address in an attempt to explore whether the reconstruction of the global past can be seen as consti-tutive of a global public and solidarity. Three points in the empirical material will be particularly highlighted: first, the constant interplay between personal experiences, local and national history and global stories in the recalling and reconstructing of distant suffering; second, the collapse of distinctive lines among some disasters, that become confused in audience memory, and, third, the construction of some events as markers of “global disasters” and interpretative frames for others. Under this light, the construction of “global memory” is illustrated as a complex process contingent upon the media as well as the social and cultural context of their consump-tion.
Levy, D. and Sznaider, N. (2002). ‘Memory Unbound: The Holocaust and the Formation of Cosmopolitan Memory’. In European Journal of Social Theory, 5(1): 87-106.
Nurcay Turkoglu/Sevilen Toprak Alayoglu, Marmara University,
Istanbul, Turkey
Global media formats and neighbourhood mediators: "Far and near"
revisited
Global media formats serve mainly on transcultural spheres; the images of the fabricated needs and/or necessities, call for audience attention globally. The marketing of goods and pleasures for con-sumers as well as the promises of job, money and healthcare work together in a mediated society where reality and fiction are trans-posable.
This paper will work on a comparative understanding between the social media users and audience of old style who are still into tradi-tional social relations. Questioning the use of media; beyond the restrictions of the previous audience studies like the ‘uses and gratifications’ model assuming active audience and ‘cultivation theory’ of 1970’s limited media environment; allows to look through a multi-layer human communication. The mass mediated needs and promises conveyed by the media (old and new), lead to new ways of mediatorship in between the politics of market, media and home. Beyond fans and protest groups of a particular popular media figure (as it is familiar in the case of celebrity culture), there are new ways of receiving and perceiving media formats shaped within public given voice as the embedded audience (Garnham, 2000). Hospitali-ties and/or hostiliHospitali-ties of receiving a media format can give some clues of cultural receptions and perceptions along with the social transformations in a society.
In case of Turkey, there are different ways of audience groupings for those who use social media and those who still live in a more tradi-tional life in their neighbourhoods and their crossroads of popular entertainment. The media production works via ‘semi-professional casting’ with the support of pseudo ‘neighbourhood mediators’ for the talk shows, games and other media products rely on audience participation. The promise of friendly relations by the production team to the audience participation goes beyond the expectations of the media professionals and often cause to the disappointment not just for the studio participants but also for the audience who are less media literate. The issues of ‘far and near’ (Anders, 1964), ‘public and private’ (Livingstone, 2005; Habermas, 1989), ‘global and local’ (Hall, 1997; Morley, 1991) are still valid for discussion in an era where social media is utterly personal even if desperate to have any social connections and public broadcasting is not public anymore.
Following critical audience studies approach, our research between November 2009 and July 2010 in Istanbul is based on the self-observations of media literacy students through live-studio TV programmes and interviews with media professionals and audience. Accompanied with the critical discourse analysis of the programmes we aim to find out if there are encountering areas for global
audi-ence for a global media format and if that makes them any ‘neighbours’. Game shows (i.e. Got Talent, Blind-Date, etc.) and Talk Shows (i.e. Dr. Oz Show and similar Turkish versions) with official and non-official websites, fan club activities, touch-and-go activities in various levels of social media; forums, weblogs, face-book groups, etc. dedicated to particular global media products consumed in Turkey will be analysed.
Dorothée Hefner, University of Music, Drama and Media,
Hanover, Germany
Arthur Raney, Florida State University, United States
Christoph Klimmt, University of Mainz, Germany
Response to (interactive) media characters: Evidence for video
game identification across different cultures
Entertainment research has only recently begun to understand the dimensions and determinants of the video game experience (Vor-derer & Bryant, 2006). One promising concept is identification. Identification with game characters has been conceptualized as a merging between the user and the performed character (Klimmt, Hefner & Vorderer, 2009). This merging alters the temporary self-perception of the players, as they adopt the attributes of media characters into their momentary self-concept. For instance, by identifying with a military commander in a war game, players ex-perience themselves to be more brave and patriotic.
Such changes in self-perception through identification are proposed to be enjoyable for media users, because the altered self is more similar to users’ preferred or idealized self. Shifting one’s self-perception towards the attributes of a media character thus reduces self-discrepancy (Higgins, 1987) and allows users to feel more the way they wished to be (Bessiere, Seay, & Kiesler, 2007).
The social-psychological model of video game identification was tested experimentally. In the present study, we were particularly interested in whether the hypothesized shifts in players’ self-perception due to identification are a universal mechanism or whether players’ cultural background (e.g., different schemata of narratives, different collective norms for ideal selfs) moderates self-related responses to game characters. Consequently, two experi-ments were conducted; one in Germany and one in Florida, US. In these experiments, male university students played either a war game (“Call of Duty 2”; n = 23 in Germany and n = 33 in US), which was intended to elicit identification with a soldier, or a car-racing game (Need for Speed Carbon, n = 25 in Germany and n = 34 in US) which was intended to elicit identification with a car-racer. Identification was measured indirectly using an Implicit Associa-tion Test (IAT, Greenwald & Banaji, 1998). The IAT measured the strengths of cognitive associations between the players’ self and military-related vs. car-racer-related concepts. A high “IAT-score” indicates a strong identification with military characteristics (i.e., strong cognitive association between military concepts and “me”) and high negative IAT-effects indicate a strong identification with race driver characteristics. An ANOVA with stimulus game as factor was computed. Results support our hypothesis. In both cultures, we observed the same pattern: While the IAT-effect for the war game players is positive (Germany, n = 23: M = 31.26, SD = 79.84; Flor-ida, US, n = 33: M = 36.59, SD = 81.48), it is negative for participants who had played the carracing game (Germany, n = 25: M = -45.49, SD = 94.3; Florida, US: n = 34, M = -11.89, SD = 76.77). The findings demonstrate that video game identification is a univer-sal phenomenon: Young male players of different cultures displayed shifts in their self-perception as a response to (stereotypic male) game characters. Identification thus emerges as an empirically robust element in video game enjoyment theory.
PANEL 1-3
IDENTITIES
WED 13 OCT 16:30-18:00 ROOM PHIL D
Isabel Ferin Cunha, University of Coimbra, Portugal
Reception studies on Brazilian telenovelas in Portugal
This article aims to draw up the state of art of Brazilian telenovelas reception studies in Portuguese prime-time since 1977. This televi-sion genre had considerable acceptance until the beginning of the new millennium, then entering in decline (O'Donnell, 1998, Cunha and Cádima, 2002, Cunha, 2009). We start this statement describ-ing the historical context and the factors that contributed to the telenovelas’s success, particularly those associated with the discov-ery of a cultural industry, the sharing of a language and culture (Barker, 2002, Buonanno, 2009, Castelló, 2007, 2009, O'Donnell, 2009,). Secondly we highlight the reception studies, since the late 80’s which sought to understand the behaviours and preferences of the Portuguese in what concern Brazilian telenovelas. Finally we outline the theoretical trends (Cultural Studies Anglo-Saxon and Latin Americans) and authors (eg Ang, Hobson, Morley, Martin-Barbero, Vilches, Lopes) who reported these researches as well the results achieved in recent years.
Kathleen Arendt, University of Erfurt, Germany
Matthias Hastall, Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, Germany
Origins of liking and disliking of fictional television characters
Individuals’ variations in the liking and disliking of television char-acters can be presumed to be greatly influenced by social compari-son processes (Suls, Martin, & Wheeler, 2002). Especially perceived similarity between individuals and television characters seems to play a crucial role in determining the liking of media characters (Hoffner & Buchanan, 2005). Most empirical research in this area was limited in its focus by considering only favored media charac-ters. Knowing why people dislike characters, however, seems essen-tial for a number of reasons: Such knowledge can help to predict conditions in which processes like wishful identification (Hoffner, 1996), parasocial interaction (Schramm & Hartmann, 2008), and transportation (Green & Brock, 2000) fail, and could also help to predict avoidance of television programs and movies. Finally, an understanding of such processes is needed to complement the scientific picture of audience responses towards fictional media characters.
Determinants of media character disliking cannot be inferred from studies investigating favorite characters, because liking and dislik-ing are presumed to be formed in two fundamentally different, neuropsychological systems in humans (Watson, Wiese, Vaidya, & Tellegen, 1999; Carver & White, 1994). The current investigation thus aims to explore both liking and disliking of fictional television characters as important and frequent audience responses. Based on assumptions derived from Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954) and Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), it was hypothesized that liking and disliking of media characters are a function of shared characteristics. In line with the above-mentioned dual-system assumptions, we furthermore presume different media character characteristics as responsible for both responses towards characters.
An online survey study with 254 respondents (76% female, age: M = 24.4, SD = 4.4) was conducted to test these assumptions. A picture list depicting 80 television characters (four male and four female characters from ten popular television programs) was presented to
the respondents, which were asked to pick their most liked and most disliked character and to briefly indicate the reasons for these choices. A list of ten personality characteristics (e.g., social skills, common sense, discipline), derived from the Social Comparison and Interest Scale (SCIS, Thwaites & Dagnan, 2004), was presented for both chosen characters. Respondents were asked to indicate the extent to which they perceive that these ten characteristics describe the chosen characters, as well as themselves. Finally, the personal importance of these ten characteristics when assessing or judging people in the respondents’ daily life was assessed.
About every fifth respondent (19.7%) voted Dr. Gregorie House, lead character of the television show Dr. House, as most liked char-acter, while Lt. Horatio Caine from CSI: Miami appeared as most-disliked character (15%) in our sample. Disliked characters received lower ratings on all ten assessed characteristics. Results indicate that characters’ sense of humor, common sense and physical attrac-tion play a central role for audiences’ liking/disliking, while aspects like sport skills or discipline emerged as rather irrelevant. As pre-dicted, perceived similarity and dissimilarity are closely related to individuals’ liking and disliking of fictional television characters.
Matteo Stefanelli, Catholic University of Milan, Italy
Luca Rossi, University of Urbino, Italy
Media uses and discourses and generational identity: An empirical
research
Generational belonging is a form of cultural identity shaped by objective and subjective factors (Mannheim 1927). Among the first ones: historical events and socio-cultural conditions, educational systems and contents, and media development (Edmunds and Turner 2005). Among the seconds, shaping a collective “we sense” identity (Corsten 1999): the experience of historical and geographi-cal contexts, the sharing of a certain age, the sedimentation of a collective memory and a common sense of belonging. In both sides, media are involved in a very deep way, since old to new digital forms. This deep relation has been studied in recent researches about the youngest digital generation (Buckingham and Willett 2006) as well as about generations rooted in television culture (Aroldi and Colombo 2007).
This is the framework of a vast research project, Media and genera-tions in Italian society (Project of National Interest, PRIN 2006, funded by MIUR and directed by Fausto Colombo), about the rela-tionship between media and four different generational cohorts (Postwar, born in1940/1952 ; Boomers, 1953/1965; Neo,1966/1978 ; Post, 1979/1991). The aim was to investigate the roles played by the media in different moments of the social construction of a shared “generational” identity, strongly affected by a lot of vari-ables, both socio-cultural and technological.
In this paper, we will present the results of the empirical research conducted directly on generational audiences. This research was based on a large sample composed by more than 200 participants, sampled considering geographical criteria (large cities and rural areas), gender and scholarship (low and high level). From a meth-odological point of view, three teams conducted 24 focus groups and 12 individual interviews.
Data have been collected and analysed with the support of qualita-tive analysis software. The analytical grid was designed to investi-gate several key topics: Historical Experience, Cultural repertories, Celebrities, Biographical experience, Social atmosphere, Media, Media connotation, Places of experience, Social Agencies, Values, Identity discourses.
Preliminary analysis lead toward two main results:
1) On a first level it gave a “generational map” of media contents and products inside cohorts’ collective life histories, providing a description of how different generations dealt with different media
landscapes, in terms of texts, brands, technologies, etc. 2) On a second level the analysis allowed to move deeper in the process of construction of generational identity, better defining “generational identity” as a narrative or a mediated discourse able to establish a link between personal and collective identities. This discourses showed a double, interlinked process as :
• a discourse on differences (the perception of a position inside the generational continuum)
• a self-definition discourse (the meanings of this positioning) The paper will present some highlights from the four ‘generational maps’, and will analyze some key issue sorted from the different generational discourses, both in terms of differences and self-definitions.
Anna Maria Lemor, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
Mass media and the project of the self
Self and identity are concepts that have a long history rooted in the evolution of ontological and epistemological inquiry on the nature and practices of human beings. Their rather complex and often interchangeable usage in sociological and media research reflects the close relationship of their interpretations to the larger ontologi-cal and epistemologiontologi-cal questions.
Relying upon in-depth interviews with single parents, this paper will illustrate the various ways in which new and old technologies of information and communication are involved as symbolic sources, resources, and objects not only in processes of identity construction and actualization in particular situational contexts, but also largely in the self-conception project. In the accounts of the single parents interviewed, the distinction between identities, roles and a ‘core’ self along with the role of mass media in their articulation emerge very clearly. The self-conception is recognized in their narratives as the ‘real,’ ‘true,’ ‘core’ self, which is always changing, and yet re-mains a source of psychological stability for them. Indeed, the stories of my informants reflect how the identity as single parent in post-divorce and separation cases is acquired subsequently a radical transformation of lifestyle, routines, and habits. This shift is also responsible for the transformation of the sense of self these parents have. The ‘new’ self is built from the ashes of the ‘old’ one, through the re-interpretation of the practices and values that were part of their lifeworlds. In many instances, it involves a radical change of habits, also within the context of media consumption practices, due to psychological, economic, and social factors.
In conclusion, this paper highlights the need to continue to theorize about the relationship between media and the self project under-stood as complex dynamic process in which cultural, social, eco-nomic, and historical factors play into. Against the limitations of theorizing about the concept of the self, derived from viewing the adherence to institutional canons and individual’s agency as mutu-ally exclusive in social reality, in this paper I argue that the self needs to be considered as a ‘project’ whose fluidity and reflexivity provide individuals with the flexibility to negotiate and adapt their sense of self, their ‘true self’, to the necessities and constraints that their everyday life brings, and to utilize indiscriminately for their expressions the symbols available in their cultural horizon that best suit their needs and the ones of their significant others.
The data for this paper is largely drawn from the author’s disserta-tional qualitative research work on single parents households (Russo 2003) derived from her involvement in a large multi-year ethnographic project in the U.S. titled “Symbolism, Meaning and the New Media @ Home.” In the project we were interested in investigating the uses and discursive locations of old and new tech-nologies in everyday family life.
André Jansson, Karlstad University, Sweden
Interveillance and identity: The social forces of interactive
surveillance
The changing, digitized character of surveillance has been fre-quently debated and analyzed during the last decade, leading to a variety of conceptualizations, which in different ways seek to cap-ture what is ‘new’ about contemporary surveillance. Among the most pregnant formulations we find, for instance, ‘spaces of surveil-lant-simulation’ (Graham, 1998), ‘the surveillant assemblage’ (Haggerty and Ericson, 2000), ‘the capsular civilization’ (De Cauter, 2004), and ‘the digital enclosure’ (Andrejevic, 2007). These and other concepts have in common their explication of a new socio-spatial regime of surveillance, delineating surveillance as a dis-persed, yet socially segregating realm of participatory monitoring activities (cf also Albrechtslund, 2008). Through an increasing variety of interactive everyday mediations, sometimes conceived of as emancipatory and mobilizing, people-as-consumers also gener-ate their own enclosure. As shown in recent studies (e g Best, 2010) people’s awareness of the new face of surveillance, as well as their level of practical reflexivity, varies greatly. But the deeper socio-cultural understanding of how, and through which social and cul-tural registers, new monitoring techniques are legitimized in every-day praxis is still lacking.
Expanding on these complex discussions the paper develops three empirically grounded arguments. Firstly, it is argued that one key to an understanding of the popular acceptance of mediated self-monitoring is the increasingly diversified cultural form of new ICT devices (cf Williams, 1974). A networked mobile telephone may function simultaneously as a means of consumption, a means of expressivity, a means of security, a means of connectivity, etc, and thus also pertains to a diversity of social reflexivity domains. Thus the likelihood that surveillance is justified as indispensible in-creases.
Secondly, within each of the reflexivity domains there is the prom-ise of new forms of gazing (seeing) and self-expression (being seen), ranging from the lure of webcam sites to the simulated self-(re)discovery that occurs through automatic on-line consumer profiling. This is to say that surveillance largely operates through a logic we may call interveillance – a logic that brings pleasure, ex-citement and engagement to the processes of surveillance. Through the social saturation of media convergence and user interactivity, interveillance has emerged as a dominant feature of the cultural form of everyday media, masking much of the underlying impera-tives of commercial (and other types of) surveillance.
Thirdly, the paper points to the socially stratified role of lance in the process of identity creation. In general terms interveil-lance blurs the line between social control and experiences of par-ticipation and self-confirmation, attaining a dual significance for the founding of ontological security (Giddens, 1991). But the shape of these processes varies considerably depending on the possession of various social resources. Drawing on previous qualitative studies of mediated social practice, as well as fresh quantitative data from the ongoing Swedish project Secure Spaces: Media, Consumption and Social Surveillance, it is suggested that the social appropriation of, or coping with, interveillance technologies articulates a reflexiv-ity gap grounded in the power geometries of late (or reflexive) modernity.
