Researching media use in families – an integrative approach

Paus-hasebrink, I. (2011). Researching media use in families – an integrative approach . Zagreb conference: "New challenges and methodological innovations in European media audience research". 7-9 April 2011.

Abstract: Children and their parents have to be experts in dealing with their demanding everyday lives. In order to be able to act, to make sense of everyday experiences and to cope with everyday life, orientation is needed – for children and their parents. This is the main reason why they use media, and they do this in form of media repertoires (Hasebrink & Popp 2006), relating to their age, gender and their socio-economic status. In addition, children and parents use media based on their identity or life topic to cope with their developmental or life tasks and experiences in daily life in a reasonable manner. Dealing with media also depends on personal preferences and interests and is part of specific every-day-life-world concepts, of different milieus to which children and their parents belong in their families and which affects how they handle media. Against this background, research is faced with the interplay of internal and external factors of reality and consequently with different levels of research. Starting at Bourdieu’s „Theory of Practice“(1979) and Habermas’ spheres of practical actions in everyday life (Habermas 1988, 473) (such as work life, politics and law and private sphere) the paper at hand will present an integral approach on researching the use of media in families. The paper will discuss the question from the perspective of „Practical Meaning“, of „Praxeology“ (Weiß 2000) in order to close the hiatus between relevant factors on the macro level (socio-economic aspects) and on the micro level (individual aspects).