Approaching cross-media usage anthropologically

Runnel, P. (2011). Approaching cross-media usage anthropologically . Zagreb conference: "New challenges and methodological innovations in European media audience research". 7-9 April 2011.

Abstract: Current research on audiences tends to focus on single rather than linked media technologies. Media usage, however, is usually contextualised in a larger media repertoire, where different media and different usage modes are interacting with each other and media use is largely social. Usage modes, such as family communication, are shifting towards multiple-platform communication, where preserving relationships depend on a plurality of media and people experience various social and emotional consequences of their choices. In such situation, we as researchers hope to get access not only to the ‘what’ of media use but also to the ‘what for’ and ‘how’. The presentation will focus on the study in the pilot phase, looking at mediated inter-generational relationships, focusing upon daily uses of technologies and anchoring media engagement in relation to the diversity of contexts and purposes. Media usage practices are not considered directly as media-centred, they alter existing practices, rather than replacing them. Based on anthropological approach, the study seeks for a phenomenologically grounded understanding and relying on the ethnographic presence rather than separate actions of media usage. Anthropological approach to media audience research is a field of methodological debates. Although multi- sited ethnography seems to be a self-evident approach the question how to research cross-media usage and apply “participant observation” in order to be there, when cultural process is happening via mobile phone conversations, letters, and other media contexts, is still a challenge.