Page 89 - Cultural Change and Ordinary Life

80 Cultural change and ordinary life

acceptable levels of violence were and views on this issue do change over
time.
Gauntlett and Hill identify some overall conclusions to their research,
which are of significance for my argument here. First, they make points about
time. People scheduled their viewing and were concerned about the time that
they spent watching TV. Moreover:
Time was also a factor in broader terms, as over the five years in which
the participants wrote diaries we were able to observe the significance of
transitions, changes and shifts in the character of their lives. Starting or
finishing a relationship, periods of depression or grief, or changes in a
person’s perception of how generally ‘busy’ they were (for example, if
exams were imminent, or had just passed), as well as the changing atten-
tion requirements of other members of a household or family, could all
have an effect upon how much TV was watched, and the quality of
engagement with it.
(Gauntlett and Hill 2005: 284)
Second, there were some particularly important findings with respect
to gender. Specifically, they say that ‘we generally found some breakdown of
the polarised distinction between men’s and women’s tastes and the uses of
the media that previous studies had emphasised’. Some specific findings with
respect to these issues have already been summarized earlier. They suggest that
these studies should be seen as more ‘of their time’ than they are often seen
to be.
Third, as has been summarized earlier, the relationship between television
and identity was fine grained:

People’s individual identities are clearly touched by the media in very
gentle ways: whilst the ways in which people see themselves and others
may be subtly influenced by many different television elements, this is
not something which we would be able to trace in a study of this kind.
(Gauntlett and Hill 2005: 287)
This is perhaps a more significant finding than Gauntlett and Hill recog-
nize, as it does suggest that very generalizing arguments about media and
identity change should be treated with some degree of caution, in favour of the
recognition of the complexities involved that are shown by empirical research.
Fourth, they conclude that television is seen as ‘seductive’ by respond-
ents. People seek to resist TV. As we found (Savage et al. 2005), people are
defensive about their television watching. They want to say that they do not
watch it or that they only watch particular types of programme (see, further,
Chapter 8). People seek to structure their viewing. Some control over TV over-
load was maintained by the way in which programming seemed to be divided
into three types: favourite programmes, which were always watched, or else
would ideally be taped; other programmes, which would be routinely watched
but which would not be listed as favourites – the news and teatime soaps were
particularly likely to be in this category; and other shows, which would be
watched because they happened to be on, looked engaging enough and there
was time to see them (p. 288).