CONNECTION OR DISCONNECTION

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CONNECTION OR DISCONNECTION?

• TRACKING THE MEDIATED PUBLIC SPHERE IN EVERYDAY
  LIFE
• NICK COULDRY AND TIM MARKHAM, LSE

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CONNECTION OR DISCONNECTION?

• Precedents?
• 1. public sphere theory (Habermas, 1989, 1996)
• - original bounded site of public deliberation
• - later network of differentiated spaces (from
  informal discussion
• to formal deliberation)
• 2. Dahlgren (2003) on the circuit of
  civic culture
• - critical of limitations of deliberative
  democracy theory
• - 6 dimensions/ moments to circuit not just
  discussion but also values, affinity, knowledge,
  practices, identities
• 3. What range of sites / types of linkage
  between practices should we examine when the
  mediated public sphere is embedded in everyday
  life?

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CONNECTION OR DISCONNECTION?

• Media Consumption and the Future of Public
  Connection
• Funded under ESRC/ AHRB Cultures of Consumption
  Programme Oct03-Mar06
• Methods Diaries (supplemented by pre- and
  post-interviews, focus groups) survey
• Diarists sample (37) recruited 2004
• Gender close to 50/50 Male/ female
• Age overall age balance good 18-69 (12 diarists
  ? 30 12 diarists 30-50 13 diarists ? 50). But
  men 30-50 difficult to recruit so men ? 50
  overrepresented overall
• Class AB overrepresented, D difficult to
  recruit, C and E close to UK population .
• Diary completion (ie 10-12 weeks) lower from
  class Es and M/F aged 30-50. But evened out if
  look at substantial completion (all but one
  diarist)
• Ethnicity 9 non-white out of 37 (5
  Afro-Caribbean, 3 south Asian, 1 mixed ethnicity)
• Media Access balance comparable to UK averages
  at time (changing fast)
• 6 Regions poor inner city London mid-income
  suburban London poor urban South England 2
  mid-high income North England suburbs
  mixed-income rural Midlands
• Diary format (diaries written Feb04 Aug04)
• Majority written (email, typed, handwritten) 5
  used audio tape

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CONNECTION OR DISCONNECTION?

• Aim to test out 2 common assumptions
• 1. existence of shared orientation to public
  world (public connection)
• 2. public connection sustained by media
  consumption
• Mediated public connection (media consumption
  patterns public orientation)
• Basic heterogeneity
• Diarists where media connection stronger
• Diarists where public connection stronger
• Diarists for whom neither media nor world of
  public issues salient
• Negative factors disillusion/distance/alternative
  values gt lack of time for media/ media access
  lack of subjective efficacy in political matters
  may be compensated by habit of mediated public
  connection
• Underlying orientation frames including family,
  social, work, education, religion individual
  routine. Social/family frame (not
  individualisation) most likely counter-weight to
  mediated public connection.

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CONNECTION OR DISCONNECTION?

• TALK
• Where evening meal, drinks with friends, work
• (casual chat, lunchbreak discussions),
  incidental
• Exclusions avoiding doom gloom and sensitive
  issues interweaving
• Standard gendered talk about news
• Debate and disagreement
• Talk about talk
• Lack of satisfying discursive context
• Talk and Action the missing link

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CONNECTION OR DISCONNECTION?

• Well, theres a lot of sport talked about you
  know and Im not particularly sporty so I cant
  involve myself too much with that and a lot of
  people talk about holidays. I find that type of
  talk very shallow. I tend to back off a bit,
  its not deep enough for me. I dont have
  great, Im not really endowed with great wisdom
  or original thought or even much of a wordsmith
  really but I do find certain subjects a bit
  shallow.
• Diarist 27 (retired printer, suburb of northern
  city)
• I didnt used to discuss country living as much
  at work because they were quite city, town
  oriented people. I didnt talk about going
  hunting. I felt quite bad about myself that I
  wasnt flying the flag but I just thought I wont
  go there. Its a huge big debate. The person I
  sit near is very vegetarian and shes not going
  to understand what Im trying to say and I like
  her but I dont want to fall out with her, I just
  wont go there.
• Diarist 38 (woman, 47, senior nursing officer,
  rural Midlands)

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CONNECTION OR DISCONNECTION?

• CONCLUSION
• Disconnections between talk situations, between
  talk/ action?
• We recently, this last September we did our
  usual annual national user group
• conference and name of boss did a very sort of
  rousing speech and name
• whos chair of the national user group got up,
  very rousing speech saying write
• to your MPs, youve got to write to your MPs, get
  involved, you know, show
• support. If you want to choose your system, if
  you want control over . .. . what
• you do on your day-to-day, write. And a lot of
  people are saying, well you know
• its going to happen anyway, you know whats the
  point and a lot of people like,
• yes, Ive written to my MP and Im gonna go see
  him and its very interesting
• how seeing whether people believe that you can
  affect whats going to happen
• or whether its going to happen anyway despite
  what you think.
• Diarist 24/Interview 2 (woman, aged 27, marketing
  executive, Northern suburb)