Digital inclusion, media consumption and generations: uses by Portuguese and

American families

Cristina Ponte, José Alberto Simões (FCSH, UNLisbon, Portugal)Joe Straubhaar, Jeremiah Spence, Viviana Rojas (UTAustin, USA),

Nádie Machado-Spence (UFRGS, Brazil)

Structure of the presentation

• Brief presentation of the Project, part of the UTAustin|Portugal Program

• Generations & media: conceptualisation

• Portuguese and US families in two generations

- macro level: socio-structural factors

- micro level: families

- The genogram as a tool

• Next steps…

Project Digital inclusion and participation:Conceptual and contextual frameworks

Contextual frameworks

Socio-economic structures

Media systems and media penetration

Education systems

Migration History

Social dynamics

Digital access

Mainly based on Statistics

Qualitative methodology: life stories, interviewing families

Training young researchers: around 100 pos-graduated and

graduated students involved; qualitative research methods

Development and testing research tools: semi-strutured

interviews on life history and media history; genograms; guidelines

for observation in public spaces

Purposive sampling, similar criteria based on diversity of social

class background, education, ethnicity, migration status, age and

gender; Non-users and users of digital media; in Austin,

comparability to families interviewed ten years ago

Fieldwork: 2009 (8 weeks): 65 families in Portugal, 26 in Texas –

transcription and analyses by students

Emerging research topics

Media use(s) by age/generation: how the eldest people (55+) or the youngest people (30-) experienced the media (Middle age 31-54 also examined in Austin)

Gender differences over the use of the digital media

How immigrants use the digital media in their diaspora and acculturation

Digital exclusion and social exclusion

Importance and use of public access and training

Generational differences over the use of digital media

Generations and media

The question of generation• Generation is a theoretically complex and multidimensional

concept.

• At least two distinct definitions have been at stake:

1. a demographic definition which tends to consider generation merely as a cohort that may link different age groups to a specific time frame.

2. a cultural definition which considers that generations are determined by common experiences, linked with particular historical circumstances under which a specific generation comes to identify itself as a collective entity (i.e., K. Mannheim, 1990 [1928]).

• Edmunds and Turner (2002) propose a definition that brings together these two notions: “In a general sense, we may define a generation as an age cohort that comes to have social significance by virtue of constituting itself as cultural identity” (Edmunds and Turner, 2002: 7).

• A cohort definition may be useful to describe and explain social change, but it neglects a subjective dimension (or the interpretation) of the biographical and historical circumstances (Corsten, 1999).

• The importance of belonging to a generation or “sharing a collective time” is a crucial dimension of a cultural definition.

• Not everyone shares the same consciousness of belonging to a generation, hence the distinction (Mannheim; Edmunds & Turner):– “potential” generation (or “generational site”) – related with mere historical

location;

– “effective” generation (or “generational actuality”) – those who share that consciousness.

• The notion of “generational units” identifies divisions within “effective generations”, although it faces some difficulties in accommodating particular life courses and social trajectories not entirely explained by collective generational behavior.

Relation between media and generation

1. Why generation matters for media consumption?

• The question of why generation matters for defining media consumption reflects the importance of the historical circumstances and the resources held by each individual and their families in particular periods and how they shape their media uses.

• Families’ “media cultures” reflect different contexts of socialization.

• How generational similarities contribute to create a common ground for using and interpreting media experiences or alternatively what is different (and why) in such experience?

2. Why media consumption matters for defining a generation?

• Media consumption may also matter for defining generation, in the sense that specific media tastes and representationsare built as a result of particular media related activities which define a common generational experience.

• The nature of the events that might shape a generation doesn’t have to be necessarily “traumatic” (Mannheim, Edmunds and Turner) but may include consumerism and taste cultures.

• It is precisely this acceptation which lies underneath what some authors have called “generational semantics” (Corsten, 1999; Aroldi, 2011).

Generational semantics

• People tend to share a common interpretation or “lexicon” provided by specific experiences of consumption connected with particular moments in their lives (Aroldi, 2011; Corsten, 1999).

• The importance of the formative period of adolescence and youth has been noticed has the occasion for sharing a common habitus (Bourdieu, 1993) toward distinctive media goods.

• Cultural transmission: the question of transmitting such “tastes” and making them “exclusive” lies at the heart several theories that recognize the significance of resources available at particular moments in time by concrete groups (Bourdieu, 1993; Edmunds and Turner, 2002)

Generational sites in Portugal and the US

1970 and 2000

Portugal and the US/Texas in 1970 and 2000

Political system Dictatorship Democracy Democracy Democracy

Primary Sector 28% 3% US; 4% Texas

5% 2,4% US

Secondary sector

33,4% 35,9% US; 34,3% Texas

34,7% 18,8%

Tertiary sector 38,5% 61% US; 61,8% Texas

59,9% 78,8% US

Iliteracy above the age of 7

25,6% 1% 10,0% 1%

Higher education or post secondary

3,6% 61% US (+ de 25 anos)

11.5% 75,7% Texas (+de 25 anos)

1970 2000

Generational sites - Portugal: from 1960 to 2001PORTUGUESE SOCIETY 1960 1970 1991 2001

Political Regime Dictatorship Dictatorship Democracy Democracy

Total resident population 8.889.392 8.611.125 9.867.147 10.356.117

Population in clusters> 10.000 habitants (%) 22 26 33 40

Infant mortality (per thousand) 77,5 55,5 10,8 5Births in health facilities (%) 18,4 37,5 96,5 99,7

Resident population under 15 years old (%) 29,2 28,4 20,6  16,0Total fertility rate (per thousand) 3,2 3 1,6  1,5

Births outside marriage 9,5 7,3 15,6  23,4Households with 5 people or more (%) 17,1 15,9 6,6  3,3

Employment in the primary sector (%) 43,9 28,1 13,5 5,4Employment in the secondary sector (%) 27,4  33,4 36,9 34,7 

Employment in the tertiary sector (%) 27,5 36 48.2 56 

Minimum age to work 10 years old 12 years old 16 years old 16 years old

Illiteracy above the age of 7 33,1 25 11 10

Pop. 20+ yrs old high school graduate (%) 3,8 4,4 7,8 22,6Nr. of students in higher education (v. aprox.) 22 thous 46 thous 186 thous 388 thous

Libraries 89 288 622 980

Generations and the media in Portugal: TV’s imprint

Media use by age groups in Portuguese society (%)

Source: ERC/ISCTE, National Survey, 2008.

From the macro to the micro level

Six families in Portugal from the 1950s to the

1990s

Portugal: childhood and adolescence contexts

• Born before 1974: political dictatorship and colonial war; deruralization, the industrial and urban suburbs growth; the first generation to benefit from the universal access of the compulsory education (4 years); people born in the era of the TV launching, released in 1957.

• Born between 1974 and1985: political change; social and economic crises; entering the EU; schooling network broadened; media penetration within the household, from cassetes to pirate radio stations, colour TV and videogames.

• Born after 1985: the contemporary generation of the large Malls, cable and private TV channels, internet, cell phones, low price laptops; media convergence.

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Making toys, lively streets, absent media

• I used to make dolls food, those things you do with dolls I did with my dog and my chick. (…) Celebrating the Saints, we used to make street camp fires and jump over them. (Ana, 1951, from an industrialized area near Lisbon)

• The games we did… we invented. We used to make a ball made of cloth and we played football with it. (Carlos, 1957, childhood in a rural area)

• I enjoyed making food with herbs to feed the dolls. (Dora, 1967, from a rural area)

• I played with my brother, with pebbles… They were our cars. The bigger pebbles were trucks and the smaller were cars and we made little dirt roads. (Ernesto, 1968, from a rural area)

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

The late arrival of TV in the home

• I still remember the first tv broadcast, in black and white I was five years old, so I was not born in the tv era. (Ana, 1951, mother housewife, father shop assistant)

• As a child we had the radio, only after things started to appear, I really can’t say at what pace, but the tv came, the record player, the recorder… (Dora, 1967, mother housewife, father smalltime entrepreneur)

• When we first bought a tv, I sat on the floor in the living-room seeing a football match (I ate football…) just staring at the television… Wow having a television at home!... (Ernesto, 1968, parents farmers)

• At first we didn’t have a tv, we would watch it over at a neighbor’s. My parents only bought one later. (Fernanda, 1981, mother cleaning lady, father construction worker)

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Experiencing childhood in the 1980’s, early 1990’s

• I’ve always read a lot. I always remember having magazines and newspapers at home... and there was childrens books and magazines... The television at home was never the center os attentions in our living room… (André, 1974, parents with higher education)

• What I really liked to do was read! When I was a kid I liked all the different types of children’s books. I loved Disney books, at that time they came with tapes…. (Cláudia, 1984, parents have 4 yrs of primary school)

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Experiencing childhood at the turn of the century

• I played a lot with my cousin, listening to music and playing video games. In my adolescence I recorded the songs that I really liked… We always had a computer. Well at least for the last 20 years. (Diana, 1988, parents high school graduates)

• When I was young I spent a lot of time playing video games, playing Playstation… Watching television… Now I don’t even watch tv anymore, and the computer is really just to chat to friends on Messenger, now mainly it’s the skateboard. (Eduardo, 1993, parents high school graduates completed in an outreach program)

• When I was really young, what I really liked to do was run in the streets. When I became a teenager I spent all my time on the Playstation and I actually run but on the Playstation. Fábio, 1994, parents have the 4th and 6th grade)

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Youth, age, gender and environment

Media to keep informed Media for enjoyment Media where more time is spent

Fábio, 15, low SES)

The television, it’s more usual, and it is also more fashionable to use the television.

It’s the computer, Playstation.

Computer. The computer, bud, without a doubt.

Eduardo, 16, medium SES

Where I really keep informed is on the television, the news, I guess.

It’s the computer, yes, the computer without a doubt.

Computer and television, for sure.

Maria, 15, medium-low SES

Maybe the internet. Watching television they just give us everything or shall I say feed us it’s tiring. Using the keyboard to write and seeing what we write is more interesting.

The television. Television. When I start to watch something, I want to know what’s going to happen… I start to watch and I’m just taken by it.

Carina, 17, low SES

I use the television. Sometimes I read the newspapers and magazines. In the newspapers it’s the up to date news and in the magazines it’s the latest gossip. And I listen to the radio.

Television. Using the magazines or the television.

Luís, 17, high SES

Television. I don’t really want to watch, but then the program starts and I just keep watching.

PC, television and the X-box

Television.

About parents generation

• Share a generational site whose structure of opportunity was marked by a scarcity of resources in a modern society.

• While they share a generational actuality in infancy, their teenage shows them as belonging to different generational units:

- It was going to the cinema in Lisbon, the garage parties, the new albums, the banned films we watched at the movies… (Ana, 58)

- It was more the movies, the parties but I was very controlled, the parties were in the afternoon, they were matinées… (Berta, 55)

- My adolescence? Oh, looking after the flock of sheep. In those days our parents… “You’ll do the 4th grade and go to work” (Carlos, 52)

- I started working when I was 13, as a busboy, my parents could not afford to let me study. (Ernesto, 41)

About children’s generation (youth and adolescents)

• Share the generational site: benefits from the political democratization and values of freedom, culture and social mobility arriving to families of less economic and cultural capital, who invest on their children so that they have more opportunities than they had.

• Sharing a generational actuality which is distinct to that of their parents, they express to have lived a happy and shielded childhood, without making reference to poverty and economic difficulties, they naturally perceive their leisure time and their choices of media – as their own. The media plays the role of “study auxiliary” and for leisure at home

• Generational units should be taken into account.

US generations

Immersed in TV, ambivalent on digital mediaOlder Boomers/Silent Generations

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

From Multichannel TV to digital media, Gen Y, Younger Boomers

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Immersed in digital media, Millenials

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Comparing families

The genogram as a tool

Socioeconomic genogram: tool for

examining family and trajectory

Families as sites of resources, reproduction of status, or change of status

Bertaux and Thompson

Trajectory of family social mobility across generations

Bourdieu

Capital, habitus and dispositions

Linguistic

Educational, cultural

Familial

Choices within structural limits, family trajectories

For immigrants, language capital, social capital, cultural capital all present barriers to

ICT use

SEG Research

Background–Families as sites of resources, reproduction of status, or change of status

Gonzalez’ theory of information resource availability and disposition to use over

generations

Gonzalez’ methods for trajectory

Genograms back three generations from informant

56 genograms providing information on 904 people, back to grandparents or

great grandparents

In 2004-06, in-depth interviews by undergrad and grad students about general

life histories and life histories with media and ICTs

SEG findings from Texas

• multiple regression analysis: when examining hispanics, language is a more important determinant than ethnicity in formation of both educational and occupational prestige

• regression and path analysis models: educational prestige tracks closer than occupational in social mobility

• path analysis model: within a 3 generation family, the strongest transmission path in between maternal grandfather & index person

Families• The socioeconomic genograms were the data

source

• Families were the unit of analysis

• They were divided into Portuguese, Immigrant and Refugio (Portugal to Colonies to Portugal) Families

• And, given scores from -10 to +10 for geographic mobility, social mobility, occupational prestige and educational prestige

• These were mapped in a quadrant scatter plot

By: Jeremiah Spence, UT-Austin, jspence5@mail.utexas.edu, 10 May 2011

Mapping Families in Portugal+ Educational

Prestige+ Occupational

Prestige

Educational PrestigeOccupational

Prestige

lower

middle class

non-mobile

lower

middle class

medium-mobile

lower

middle class

high-mobile

emigrants

refugiados

luso-african

immigrants

most families of

university students519

514

Family - Portugal

Family - Portugal

U.S. Family (Austin)

U.S. Family (Austin)

Next steps

• Analyse childhood and adolescence memories among US families (parents born in the US in the 1950 and 1960s and their children) – contact with the US media diet – is there a similar or different “generational semantics“?

• Connecting macro and micro levels of analysis – how childhood and adolescence’s experiences with the media matter for digital inclusion and participation in different ages, nowadays?