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Conclusion: what is produced? 267

This pervasiveness further seems to have achieved a kind of continuity
in most of these homes. There is a “flow” to life as it has been described
here, and the media play their role. They are markers of the patterns of
daily life, and important markers of key moments (conversations) in the
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developing “moral economy” of the household. They are the stuff of
conversations within the family and beyond it. Media technologies are
important markers and resources, part of the social and cultural inventory
that helps establish the family’s place in the web of social relations. At the
same time, the media are not determinative of all that goes on. Unlike
some previous work that assumed a central role for media in directing the
flow of experience in private life, in the households we’ve heard from
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here, the relationship between media and the rest of daily experience seems
more interactive. As I have said, it is not an easy or a settled matter, but it
is not a situation where the “flow” of life is in many ways the media
“flow.”

Media as “the common culture”
The media are not pervasive or ubiquitous only because of their physical
or sociostructural location. They are also important in these accounts for
what they convey: a “common culture” that is at one and the same time
both challenging and alluring. Its attraction arises from its presumed loca-
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tion at the center of the culture. The media are assumed to (and found to)
represent symbols, events, and ideas that are both important and lodged in
a broader social and cultural context. These interviewees seem to want to
be part of that discourse. For the time being, at least, it seems that televi-
sion, more than other media, is the embodiment of that cultural space. It
remains to be seen whether this will continue to hold sway as the media
evolve. 5
Television’s role as a conveyor of this common culture seems to work
on three levels in these interviews. First, a number of our interviewees, as
we noted in Chapters 6 and 7, treat the media – particularly television – as
a kind of “right” or “expectation.” As a particular example, we noted Jay
Milliken’s explanation for his television choices, “I can only get two or
three channels” and he watches what is on them. This notion of
“expectation” is evident in subtle ways across a wide range of the inter-
views. For example, parents who articulate clear ideas about the problems
with the media and concerns about their children’s attraction to media,
un-selfconsciously report curling up to Jay Leno or David Letterman
each night at another point in the interview.
The second level on which television, in particular, seems to function as
a “common culture” lies in its capacity to convey a common set of
symbols, ideas, and languages, elements that become part of a common
cultural “currency.” The latest fads, trends, idioms, and icons can be
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