Television, culture and everyday life

TV Living presents the findings of a British Film Institute project in which 500 participants completed detailed questionnaire-diaries over a five-year period, writing some three and a half million words on their lives, their television watching, and the relationship between the two. David Gauntlett and Annette Hill use this extensive survey to explore some of the most fundamental questions in media and cultural studies, focusing on issues of gender, identity, the impact of new technologies, and the impact of viewers ’ own changing ideas and experiences. Opening up new areas of debate, the study sheds new light on audiences and their responses to issues such as sex and violence on television. The structure of the study enables the authors to track individual respondents ’ changing attitudes to new media as they experience life changes of their own. Each chapter addresses a major contemporary theme in media studies: how families negotiate viewing choices, the impact of new technologies such as video, satellite and cable, how young people make the transition from children’s TV to ‘adult ’ programming, viewers ’ often guilty or ambivalent feelings about watching television, and audience responses to representations of women, disability, and violence. A unique study of contemporary TV audience behaviour and attitudes, TV Living offers a fascinating insight into the complex relationship between mass media and people’s lives today