Page 29 - Cultural Change and Ordinary Life

20 Cultural change and ordinary life

Conclusion

I have argued in this chapter for a theory and account of ordinary life that
combines a stress on the mundane and the routine with the study of the
extraordinary pleasures that people find in their ordinary lives. Such an
account sees social interaction with friends and family as critically important
in a world that is increasingly media drenched. Moreover, it allows attention
to the formation and reformation of identities and to people’s desires to see
themselves as individuals. Thus, while the theory of ordinary life encapsulates
the mundane, it is not defined by it. People enjoy their ordinary lives as well as
hating parts of it (as Bull’s study shows). It is this dynamic and others that are
crucial. However, I do not frame this in terms of now redundant overarching
ideas of resistance to and incorporation into sovereign power sources.
To exemplify aspects of this position consider the following extract from
an interview with a middle-class woman about her media use (Longhurst et al.
2001: 138):
Q You haven’t got a video recorder, have you got satellite or cable?
A I’ve got a small portable with video player in it, but that’s pre-
dominantly for the OU.
Q What about your daughter?
A Yes, she sometimes watches the cartoons. Mary Poppins, that kind
of thing.
Q What about radio?
A All the time.
Q What sort of things?
A I have it permanently tuned to Radio 4.
Q In the home?
A Yes.
Q In the car?
A I would do in the car, but it’s [mumble].
Q So what sort of things do you listen to if it’s on permanently?
A Today in the morning, again in the afternoon.
Q But at other times during the evening?
A Yes, if I’m washing up. I like the 6.30 slot usually a comedy or a
play and Saturdays I like because . . . No it’s on whenever I’m in the
kitchen. When I get through the door the first thing I do is switch
the radio on. That’s my Dad, my Dad always listened to the radio,
that’s where I get it from. G’s [daughter] the same, she listens
rather than watching. Comedy programmes, I’m Sorry I Haven’t a
Clue, Desert Island Discs.
The respondent locates her media use in her busy life and her Open
University course. At the time when she was in the process of a divorce, from a
husband who came from a ‘higher’ class position, she expresses the way in
which her daughter’s taste for radio is like hers. Moreover, the taste for radio is
for the classic middle-class station of Radio 4. I argue that this encapsulates a
number of themes introduced so far and further developed in the progress of
this book. The process of media audiencing is performed in ordinary life and in