The family living room - a final battleground for digital technology?

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The family living room – a final battleground
           for digital technology?
              An ethnographic study of urban/suburban
            low middle class households in the Oslo area.

             Draft paper presented at the conference
 “Domestication and the Consumption of New Media Technologies”
          InDiMedia – University of Aalborg, Denmark.
                       November 1-2, 2004

                        By Dag Slettemeås

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Content

  Content .................................................................................................................................. 2
  1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 2
  2. The industry battle ....................................................................................................... 3
  3. Present-day media patterns in Norway ...................................................................... 4
  4. The introduction and evolution of electronic media in Norwegian households ..... 5
  5. The importance of entertainment and the post-modern angle ................................ 6
  6. Suburbia, home and moral economy.......................................................................... 8
  7. The families and ICT/ media consumption.............................................................. 11
    - A brief introduction to the families................................................................................ 11
    - The media and the living room ...................................................................................... 12
    - Interacting with the media and the importance of entertainment .................................. 14
    - The moral aspects of ICT consumption ......................................................................... 21
    - New digital media – medium for change in the family?................................................ 23
  8. Conclusion................................................................................................................... 26
  References ........................................................................................................................... 27

    1. Introduction
This article will explore the significance and meaning a few select families in Norway attach
to their appropriation and use of electronic media in the home context. First, we will provide a
theoretical and factual foundation for the later empirical data analysis. We will also discuss
entertainment as an issue relevant for the industry focus on developing fun technology and
entertaining or adventurous content for what post-modernist scholars would term present-day
hedonistic consumers. The empirical scope will be confined to suburban/ satellite town
families in the Oslo district living in housing cooperatives. The living room, often seen as the
hearth of family socialization, will be at the core of our contextual, temporal and spatial
interpretations.

The title has a dual significance as it draws attention to the tensions and negotiations that
flourish in families regarding their use of various media technologies. Simultaneously the title
refers to the ongoing battle between the computer industry and the consumer electronics
industry in getting access to, and control of, the technologies consumed in the home – or more
specifically the living room – and which are often wrapped in the “entertainment cloak”. This
means that e.g. TVs, computers and game consoles are to a greater extent being marketed as
entertainment devices.

An article in the Financial Times has rendered visible this ongoing battle between the
consumer electronics industry and the computer industry in their attempts to capture and
control the hub for digital products and usage – the family living room. The question of why
this has become such a fierce battle is naturally begged. Related insights of what makes the
living room such an important familial entity is also an issue that must be addressed in this
context.

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It is acknowledged that over the past 10 years convergence facilitated by digital development
has been a key mantra for tech companies, analysts and politicians alike. Digitisation creates
opportunities for merging electronic gadgets and media into one or a few devices – if so
needed. In a similar fashion critics have posed the question whether this really is what the
consumers of the 21st century have been waiting for? We will now look at some filtered ideas
of how these questions can be approached and systematized in a relevant framework.

    2. The industry battle
We pursue the “fact” that digital technology has merged the markets of the consumer
electronics companies and the computer companies. This gives us the industrial reasoning for
focusing on the living room as a spatial container or “cash machine” for media products.
Digitisation is relevant for merely every electronic consumer product and present-day
companies are trying to establish their own technology in the merged, ever-expanding
consumer market. The giants on both sides have traditionally enjoyed less competition and
more control over their respective markets. In the digitised world both industries see
opportunities in milking the new market for digital devices and services, and the living room
is anticipated to be the centre for digital entertainment. The visualization is that in the living
room family members will indulge in TV, Internet, music, photos, home videos, games etc. –
easily controlled through one central digital “brain”. Hence every tech and service company
will produce great advantages in controlling this brain and thus influence the digital
consumption pattern of the household.

The computer industry has primarily envisaged the “entertainment PC”1 and the vision is that
most households will store their digital content on PC hard drives, use flat panel screens for
viewing, and utilize high-speed wireless networks for distribution of content in the home2. We
can expect the industry to glorify the post-modern view of the “fun-seeking” individual in
their marketing – a consumer in search of adventure and new ways to realise herself.
Consumer electronics companies apparently thrive on the same notion. However, they believe
that TVs rather than PCs will be the centre of the digital home. Their anticipation is that
consumers seek products that can be switched on and off immediately with no “boot-time”,
and that won’t crash like the computers often do.

Both industries admit that this battle will be hard, but ultimately the consumers will decide
who wins. Critics have noted that consumers are creative and rational in their interaction with
technology and content and that they so far have managed to connect and recreate existing
technology and functions according to their own needs. Hence, the new trend of a central
digital hub may not be as relevant according to this view. Families, in particular those with
constrained economies, will still find their own ways – they will domesticate the technology
according to their own moral economy (Silverstone et al 1992, Silverstone 1994) and
functional or hedonistic needs, which still are contextualized needs. This is what our article
will describe as consumer initiated pragmatic convergence, not necessarily driven by
industry-led device-/ platform-/ content convergence of ICTs3. The empirical data from Oslo
will help us look critically at this development by analysing how a few households organise
their everyday lives and interact with media technology in a domestic/ home context.

1
  I.e. the Windows XP Media Center 2005
2
  Financial Times, January 14 2004. “Countdown to a battle for the living room”, p.9
3
  Information and communication technologies

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Before moving on to the empirical data and analysis, and the theoretical perspectives relevant
for this paper, we will provide some insight into the broader Norwegian reality. A few
statistical data on media consumption and a brief historical account of the electronic media
development in Norway, will figure as a backdrop.

    3. Present-day media patterns in Norway
This short introduction to actual media consumption will provide a view of the general
tendency before looking more closely at individual families and the contextualized media use.
The trend is that media consumption over the past few years has proved to be fairly stable.
Looking at our primary leisure activity, TV-consumption, this is still the activity (or passivity)
that demands most of our leisure time. Close to 80 percent of Norwegian citizens watch
television every day4. Men and women seem to have a fairly similar viewing pattern regarding
time spent on TV consumption. Teenagers have the highest percentage of viewers, while the
elderly spend the longest hours in front of the TV-set. Relative to previous years, teenagers
have increased their viewing share with more than half an hour from 2001 to 2002, while the
average increase for the population at large is 15 minutes. In total, Norwegian citizens spend
between 2 and 3 hours daily in front of their TV.

Those with higher education and higher income seem to consume less TV than those with
lower income and lower education. This could be related to higher disposable income in this
group, and thus more money to spend on alternative leisure activities. Another finding is that
people in the Oslo area spend on average less time with the remote control than the average
Norwegian (close to 2 hours per day). The wide array of alternative cultural activities in urban
areas could be one potential explanation for this.

In addition to TV consumption, PCs and the Internet have captured more of our leisure time.
This has happened at an increasing rate over the past 10 years. In many households the PC is
centrally placed in the house, usually in the living room (but still in a peripheral part of this
room), or in a separate office-space. In many homes this is due to lack of space, particularly in
urban areas where smaller apartments are common. We can assume that the spatial boundaries
make families in smaller condos more constrained and hence also more strategically aware of
where they place and consume their various media (Silverstone 1993).

Recently, consumer electronics stores in Norway have experienced a dramatic surge in sales
of portable PCs compared to traditional desk-top computers. In 2003 one of the major
electronic retail stores sold about 70-80 percent portable computers, a radical increase
according to one CEO5. His prediction was that the “future is extremely portable”. This trend
could indicate a change in the PCs placement in the household too. Portability makes the PC a
potential nomad, not a device to be placed at an “office desk” in the fringe of the living room.
However, there are features and functions of the PC that binds it to a certain location (as long
as cables and wires dominate appliance connections). Regular documents and printouts from
the Internet require a printer to be connected and maybe a scanner as well. All the added
devices need to be in the immediate proximity of the PC and thus portability is not as obvious
as it seems to be at first glance.

4
  SSB: Norsk mediebarometer; ”Ser TV i over 2 timer daglig”. Ref.: www.ssb.no/magasinet/slik_lever_vi/art-
2004-04-21-01.html
5
  Elektronikkbransjen 6/2003; ”Fremtiden er bærbar”, p. 54

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Before going into the theoretical framework we will frame the empirical data in a more
general historical context. Hence, a brief description of the development of electronic media
in Norway will give some idea of the significance of these media in the modern era.

    4. The introduction and evolution of electronic media in Norwegian households
The radio was the first electronic entertainment device in Norwegian households. The radio
provided families (primarily in the Oslo area) with information and entertainment from 1924
onwards. These broadcasts were privately initiated, and NRK6 (the national broadcaster)
produced radio shows commencing in 1933. During the first few years more than 50 percent
of broadcast time was devoted to music. Additional content were stock messages, agriculture-
related prices and the weather forecast, while politics and religious programs were not
approved of at that time (Grytli & Støa 1998).

During the 1950s most Norwegian households possessed a radio, and entertainment programs
were particularly popular. Quizzes and radio plays managed to attract and hold the family in
suspense by the radio for hours. The radio also had a central place in the living room, as the
TV has today, and it was often built into the furniture. The new media device became a family
magnet for social congregation. The radio was usually a physically large device and could be
as big as modern day TVs. In addition it became a status symbol and the families of the 1950s
had no intention of hiding it. They rather placed it centrally in their living rooms. Over time
we have seen a dramatic reduction in size of the radio apparatus, as well as a reduction in
functional and symbolic importance. The gradual replacement of the radio with the present-
day family altar – the television set – seemed inevitable.

The first TV broadcast trials in Norway were conducted in 1954. However, more regular and
daily broadcasts first appeared in 1960. By the mid-1960s half of the population had access to
TV broadcasts and the television gradually evolved to become common property. The TV, as
object and medium, influenced the living room in a more radical way than the radio ever did.
It proved to influence furnishing as well as family socialisation to a great extent. Grytli &
Støa (1998:196) claim that access to more channels and several electronic medias in the 1950s
even gave rise to the idea of two “zones” in the living room – one “quiet zone” and one “noisy
zone”. These adjustments conveyed the need for individual freedom in choosing how to be
entertained, seen in relation to the expanding possibilities in the development of content.
Another factor gives some idea to the power of the television in changing habits and the use
of different rooms. In Norway, up till the 1960s and –70s, many living rooms were not heated
and were only used for entertaining guests. Television changed this as these rooms became
permanently heated so family members could watch programs on a daily basis.

Ien Ang (1996) describes the TV as the most powerful medium of our modern age, a medium
developed in the Western world at the apex of social modernity – the 1950s and 1960s. This
modernity was (ideally) built out of a nationally coherent, if not culturally homogenous,
citizenry “whose private lives were organized within nuclear families living in comfortable,
suburban middle-class homes” (ibid.:5). TV and national broadcasting were seen as central
elements in orchestrating these families into a national imaginary. The integrative power of
the TV appeared to be overwhelming. Silverstone (1994:100) emphasizes that this
development was not trouble-free, and that the appearance of the TV spurred a certain anxiety
among middle-class housewives, due to the new contradictions of public and private worlds.

6
    Norsk rikskringkasting

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These explanations are drawn primarily from the American historical development.
Nevertheless, they have a significant value as a frame for understanding the development of
television in Norway as well.

Looking further at the 1970s, Ang points to the rapid take-up (or appropriation in
Silverstone’s sense) of the VCR during the latter part of this decade. In Norway this take-up
period came with a certain delay relative to the American development. Anyhow, the
significance of the VCR development is the opting out function from centralized transmission.
The VCR challenged the power of a few central providers in scheduling programmes for
simultaneous consumption by all (Ang 1996:11). Household members could now time-shift
programmes and rent video entertainment from outside the broadcasting framework. This led
to the manifestation of the active audience. The element of “choice” was introduced and
according to Ang the audiences retreated from the integrative pull of modern television
through this development:

       “The VCR disrupted the modern entanglement between centralized transmission and
       privatized reception because it displaced the locus of control over the circulation of texts to
       more local contexts.” (Ibid.)

Still, the “activity” of the consumer at this point in time was limited to moving away from
passive audience-mass to becoming a more selective consumer, still with a limited choice.

In the following we will return to what we initially set out as an industry focus on
entertainment, and the value of entertainment in providing technology and content companies
with “cash”. How is entertainment viewed in the literature and why is entertainment believed
to be a key component to revenues and success?

    5. The importance of entertainment and the post-modern angle
The first part of this paper has given a brief illustration of the battle for power and market
shares between the computer industry and the consumer electronics industry, and how
entertainment is becoming omnipresent and a main feature of new products. Entertainment is
thus permeating the “ICT-related” industry, as information and communication does not seem
to be sufficient services for the consumer. Here we will look at a few post-modernist ideas of
why entertainment should be more important and relevant in today’s consumer society than in
previous years.

A general feature is that post-modernist scholars have turned their attention to the era of the
individual hedonistic consumer seeking to realise him- or herself in the post-industrial society.
Consumption, not production, is the key element of this model society. As Wolf (1999)
expresses it:

       “After fifteen, twenty, thirty years of workaholism, this generation is now turning to its
       hedonistic, fun-seeking roots”…”this economically powerful segment of the population is
       ready to kick back and have fun, and it has the money to pay for it.” (Wolf 1999:32)

What Wolf is referring to is the importance of “entertainment content” – or the “E-factor” –
which comprises both entertainment content and experiences. Adopting this view, companies
today need to exceed the efforts of their competitors to “amuse, arouse, and inform
customers” (Wolf 1999:54). Consequently, such a development demands entertainment
experiences that can engage consumers. The risk, or the opportunity of this ”entertainment

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economy”, is a spiral effect where new, fresh and provocative services are launched at an
increasingly faster pace. The question of importance to scholars and industries alike is
whether the consumer of today and tomorrow is ready to be “adventure-oriented”. By this
latter term we seek to combine the function of entertainment with the increasing possibilities
in multimedia technology of creating larger and more “realistic” content, which consumers
can interact with and engage in. Activity, choice and virtual (but realistic) experiences are key
concepts in the adventure orientation.

The alternative reaction of consumers could be that the entertainment factor will overwhelm
in the sense that it focuses away from other values that dominate and permeate the moral
economy of the family household. This evaluation would imply that there are certain
instances where entertainment seems legitimate and others where more dreary information
and communication needs reign. Another element consistent with moral values of certain
households would be reducing time spent on consuming digitally mediated content or
avoiding certain types of content mediated through new media channels (Helle-Valle 2003).

So far we have sketched a few scenarios of the potential effects of increasing virtual
adventure orientation. We can see how the element of “choice” is made ever more relevant as
interactivity and entertainment flourish through digitisation. Relevant are also the ideas of
“opting-out” and “time shifting”. In the empirical analysis later we will look at how the
families in the Oslo suburb relate to entertainment and how moral, temporal, spatial and/or
economic constraints influence their media consumption patterns.

Taking a step back and focusing once more on television, Ang (1996) in her audience
research from the 1980s and -90s, moves away from modernist ways of looking at and
understanding TV audiences. Her main point is that TV itself has undergone “massive post-
modernization” (Ang 1996:3), which is manifested through developments such as
pluralisation, diversification, commercialization, commodification, internationalization and
decentralization. Hence established paradigms of how TV operates in culture and society are
challenged. Dominant modernist paradigms of mass communication research have according
to Ang no scholary apparatus ready to deal with the “mess” created by the post-modernization
of TV. Ang points to the apparently unstoppable and ever-expanding volume and reach of TV
and other media culture over the last decades. The discourse of choice in post-modern culture
has expanded drastically and focuses on the libratory benefits of personal autonomy and
individual self-determination:

        “No longer tied to ’tradition’ or the restrictions of class, gender, or race, subjects in the post-
        modern world are now impelled to constantly reconstruct and reinvent themselves; in pursuit
        of happiness, life is defined as the ability to make an ever-increasing number of choices. The
        concept of ’life-style’ articulates this particularly post-modern predicament.” (Ang 1996:13)

Applying the post-modern logic to the computer, a second primary medium we are
preoccupied with in our studies, Sherry Turkle discusses transparency / opaqueness in relation
to the development of the computer (Turkle 1995). In the late 1970s the computer was by
some referred to as a giant calculator. It was seen as “transparent” when users could “look
beyond the magic to the mechanism”7. Early computers needed exact instructions to perform
and programming was essential for operation. The invention of graphical user interfaces that

7
 From: ”An interview with Sherry Turkle” – The Hedgehog Review. Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture.
Web ref.: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-hh?id=DavTurk1-
1.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all

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came with more processing power “hid the machine from its user”. Opaque interfaces made
computers more accessible for the ordinary consumer. By this she means that the machine
“disappeared” in a way and that the functions became more apparent to the ordinary user.
Turkle describes the 1984 Machintosh as the epitome of this technological change:

       “The Machintosh ‘desktop’ introduced a way of thinking about the computer that put a
       premium on the manipulation of a surface simulation. The desktop’s interactive objects, its
       dialogue boxes in which the computer ‘spoke’ to its user, pointed toward new kinds of
       experience in which people did not so much command machines as enter into conversations
       with them” (Ibid.)

The new meaning of transparency was no longer related to looking into the technology itself,
but rather to the new visibility of documents and programs represented by new graphic
interfaces, in particular the use of icons. The competence of the user in this context is related
to making things work without going “below the screen surface”. A simple interface which
requires no programming by the user, made the computer accessible to a mass of consumers.
The computer became a “personal computer” (a PC). Turning back to post-modern thinking:
The search for depth and mechanism, and hence origins and structure, is futile in Turkle’s
view, while the exploration of shifting surfaces is realistic and rewarding, and has been
carried forth by the computer as a “carrier object”. Moreover, Turkle refers to Fredric
Jameson who characterized post-modernization as the precedence of surface over depth,
simulation over the “real” and play over seriousness. These characterizations fit the current
computer aesthetics.

    6. Suburbia, home and moral economy
The media situation has not changed dramatically over the past 50-60 years, at least
considering the leading objects of radio and television. The TV has proved to be a resilient
media device and it is only in the last few years that we have seen more noticeable changes.
The introduction of the PC and the Internet has made the computer a competitor to the TV. At
the same time game consoles have fostered a new way of using the TV screen. However, the
general idea is that TV consumption is stable or slowly increasing, while the use of PC and
Internet is increasing at a higher rate. Less time spent on housework or more efficient routines
could account for some of this general trend. Another explanation could be “time-stacking”;
the idea that we consume several media simultaneously, like surfing the Internet while having
the TV on as “background noise”. We will see how this tendency is reflected in the data later.
The use of Mp3-players, mobile phones, PDAs, etc are obviously new media technologies
which are competing for consumer time.

In our study from a satellite town near Oslo, the interviews were conducted with the aim of
studying how families organise their daily lives, and how this organisation is influenced by,
and influences, the use of new electronic or digital media. In particular we have looked at the
consumption patterns related to television, computers and game consoles, as well related
services and appliances connected to these media-objects.

When we in this context portray Norwegian families in a sort of urban/suburban setting, it is
not the traditional equivalent of the American “suburbia” of the 1950s we’re referring to. The
term “suburbanization” has most frequently been assimilated with post-World War II
America, where small pockets of dwellings where constructed adjoining larger cities (Giddens
1993:577). This process peaked in the 1950s and 1960s and the exodus of people joining
suburban life consisted mainly of a homogeneous mass of white middle-class families with

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children. These families wished to escape the inner city life of pollution, congestion and crime
to more spacious homes with gardens in quieter areas. Many of these suburban areas became
separate cities, and commuting to the inner cities through connecting highways and public
transport became more common.

In this paper we wish to focus on the typical low middle-class in suburban block buildings in
the outskirts of Oslo. These areas were constructed in the 1960s and 1970s to facilitate
housing for an expanding city population, and motivated many low-income families with
children to move out of the city. The term “satellite town” might hence be more useful and
explanatory for our purpose. The area of investigation consists of block buildings containing
more than 2500 people in a prescribed area of housing cooperatives. As families moved in
during 1970 and onwards, this generated a huge influx of people establishing a new home at
the same time. At the time of construction the families moving in were more homogenous as a
group than present day families living in the cooperatives. A large immigrant population now
makes this area one of the most heterogeneous in the country. This facet is an important
contextual factor, and is important to include as we study ICT consumption in a family
context. In this particular study we are not looking at the ethnic dimension.

To understand the home we can apply Silverstone’s notion of the concept. He refers to the
home as a construct – i.e. it is not a space but a place. The family must have some emotional
attachment to this place at some time (Silverstone 1994:26). A place, like the home, is a
human space, where the focus is on experience, intention, memories and desire. Joshua
Meyrowitz (1985) looks at the significance of new electronic media relative to society and
home in his book No Sense of Place. In relation to television and other media he explains how
these actually dislocate place from space and makes the home a part of the larger world. The
same can to a certain extent be said about the computer as the Internet has brought the world
into the home.

The theoretical argument of a dominant moral economy permeating family life, as opposed to
the formal economy of the public world, is at the core of the domestication theory tradition.
Silverstone et al (1992) saw the need for an integrative frame in which to study household
practices and relations as well as the consumption of ICTs. Previously, scholars operated with
a variety of perspectives without a strong framework in this field. By drawing on
anthropological literature, and in particular Thompson’s famous work on eighteenth century
England and ‘the moral economy of the English crowd’ (Thompson 1971), a notion of the
household as a moral economy was properly conceived. The household is seen, through these
conceptual lenses, as being part of the larger transactional system and the formal economy of
the public sphere. The household is in a way part and parcel of this system but at the same
time the antithesis – constituting a private sphere of non-economic relations.

Still the household engages in the formal economy and appropriates commodities into the
domestic culture of the household – a process referred to as the domestication of objects. This
signifies a process in which the commodity leaves the market and its role as a commodity and
enters into the private meaning-universe of the home. It is through this translation
appropriated by the household, then incorporated into the spatial and temporal routines of the
household, and over time redefined in accordance with a set of values and mores
characterizing the specific household (and the larger cultural value-set of the region/nation).

Silverstone et al (1992) refer to de Certeau (1984) who is preoccupied with everyday life and
the negotiation of meanings in relation to commodities. de Certeau sees the public meanings

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inscribed by and through commodities as open to negotiation in the domestic or private
sphere. It is this negotiation of meaning that Silverstone claims is defined by and articulated
through the moral economy of the household. It must be stated that Silverstone’s perspective
is based on the conception of a modern, western culture:

       ‘At its core is a concern with the complex set of relationships that mark and define the
       place and significance of the domestic in the modern world – a significance enhanced,
       mediated, contained, even constrained, by our ever-increasing range of information
       and communication technologies…’ (Silverstone et al 1992:1)

In relation to the use of electronic or digital media Helle-Valle (2003) starts out his study with
the assumption that household members are active and critical subjects, constantly evaluating
their own ICT-consumption. The individuals perceive of the family as a social context where
ideas, perspectives and moral evaluations are constructed. The family is hence a cultural
category and the family context shapes the perception of reality of the family members –
within this context. The “family” is then a cultural construction of the “home”. The socio-
economic aspect of the home is on the other hand referred to as the “household”.

Through this framework, largely inspired by Silverstone et al (1992), Helle-Valle registered in
his empirical observations ambivalence among parents in the household regarding ICT
consumption. The sheer amount of TV and PC usage indicated an apparent interest and joy in
consuming ICT content. At the same time some families in his study showed a certain
anxiety, unrest or negativity regarding the same usage. To some extent this can be interpreted
as a lack of accordance between ICT engagement and dominant family values. In other words,
ICTs seem to point to an undermination of a highly valued family sociality. This could be
related to too much usage (time) or wrong usage (content). ICT can also, through its power as
entertainer, absorb the family member into a world that blocks out the other family members.
This might be perceived as a threat to family sociality, as well as to the family members’
physical health (too little activity). If too much time is spent in this way the threat can appear
imminent. ICTs like TV and PC/ Internet are also mediators of “the public” domain, reflecting
meanings, values and norms that may be in disaccord with dominant family values.

As we can see from the earlier description of radio and television consumption in Norway in
the 1950’s, and the ideal model and role of TV in modernity, these conflicts where not as
relevant or accentuated as they seem to be in today’s socially and culturally converged, high-
tech saturated, western society.

Keeping our attention on the spatial, Giddens (1993) refers what social geographers have
introduced as time-space convergence. This is to analyse how social development and
technological change affect patterns of social activity. Giddens explains how social activities
are organized in time and space by means of the concept of regionalization. This refers to how
social life is zoned in time-space. His example to illustrate this is the modern private dwelling,
which is regionalized into rooms and hallways. The rooms are not just physically separate
areas, but they are zoned in time as well as space. Kitchen and living rooms are used during
daytime and evening, while bedrooms are meant for nightly activity/inactivity. The point is
that the interaction that occurs in these “regions” is bounded both by spatial and temporal
divisions (ibid: 106). Using Goffman’s (1959) interpretation, some areas of the home will
form back-regions and others front- or performance-regions.

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In this paper our emphasis will lie on the use of ICT devices and content in a family context
with a special focus the living room and how this is perceived of and actually used. A
traditional idea is that this room is the social hearth of the family home. Today, others would
argue that the kitchen is the most prominent room of the household. The argument is that the
kitchen has moved from being a back-stage area for the traditional the housewife to become a
front-stage space of social congregation. Still, our focus will be on the living room as we
assume that most ICT and entertainment interaction will take place in this room.

    7. The families and ICT/ media consumption
Our empirical data consists of interviews with six families living in the same housing
cooperative. They live in fairly small two- to four-room apartments in blocks. Even though
the families live under similar conditions the households differ on many other parameters. In
particular they differ regarding family status and life phase as we can see from this list of
interviewees: older widow, young separated woman with child, divorced middle-aged woman
with two older children, young couple with no children, married couple (non-ethnic-
Norwegian wife) and one child, and middle-aged couple with grown child living temporarily
at home.

We conducted qualitative interviews with these six families during spring 2004. Central to the
scope and focus of this paper is the appropriation and use of ICTs, particularly in the living
room, as well as negotiations and moral issues regarding technologies and their use. We
conducted the interviews applying an explorative approach, working with a semi-structured
interview guide, and otherwise letting the conversations “flow” as we expected that
interesting themes would appear during the course of the interviews. Due to the fact that
individuals and groups (families) where approached with the same method, we lack the group
dynamics and the family negotiation and discussion process in the single households. Still, we
considered both individual projects and family projects to give us rich data.

Our ambition then is not to compare households with similar life structures in similar life
phases, but rather to look at variations in household constructions, and see how differences in
age, life phase, gender, marital status, etc might give interesting data for further investigation.
Another factor is that all households have access to the same TV channel package and they
have equal opportunities in connecting to high-speed Internet access through the cooperative.
However, potential mediation of content is structured by the actual service package
subscribed to and the types of ICT-devices appropriated for reception (TV and PC). The
limited number of interviews gives us no opportunity to construct typologies or statistically
generalise. We might however disclose interesting processes and mechanisms (Elster 1989)
by looking at the variations within and between the respective households.

- A brief introduction to the families

H1 – Older widow:
This older woman has lived on her own since her husband died a while ago. She has been
faithful to her apartment for almost 30 years and she is highly familiar with the
neighbourhood and the general development of the local area. She describes herself as an easy
learner and proves to be active and engaged. She is now over 80 years old and uses no
medications. In order to stay healthy she walks regularly in the woods, either alone or with a
group, and she meets people of her own age at the university for the elderly.

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H2 – Young separated women with child:
This young woman grew up in the suburb in question. She moved out for a few years, but
then decided to move back. This decision was made due to the convenience of living in a
familiar area when raising her child, and having good access to nursery school and a car-free
environment. She has lived in her present apartment for 1 ½ years. She has a son who soon is
ready to commence primary school. Our respondent is herself a student and spends most of
her time at school or at home working on her laptop computer. Still, she is not very familiar
with the technology or vocabulary of electronic and digital media.

H3 – Divorced middle-aged woman with two older children:
This middle-aged woman got divorced and moved into her present apartment 4 years ago. Her
two children live at home with her and the boy is 17 and the girl 21 years old. Presently the
mother works a lot and has a fairly hectic schedule. She quit smoking and started exercising a
short while ago to “avoid putting on weight” and to boost her energy level. The boy is present
during the interview, chatting on the Internet in the hallway. A general overview indicates that
the woman is very much a fan of the TV and watching movies is her favourite pastime, along
with reading books. The boy is the main “tech-freak” of the family utilizing all present ICTs
in the household extensively.

H4 – Young couple:
This young couple moved into the housing cooperative only a few months prior to the
interview. The man, 24 years of age, is the primary respondent, while the girl is working at
the kitchen table. He is an electrician but has a keen interest in other technical issues as well.
He appears to know a lot about computers, broadband, and current issues in that field.

H5 – Married man with one child and non-ethnic-Norwegian wife:
This interview was conducted with the family father only. His Philippine wife and their 12-
year-old daughter were not present during the interview. The family had already lived in the
apartment six years prior to the interview. The father has a long history of working with
computers and gives well-articulated answers regarding technical issues.

H6 – Middle-aged couple:
This middle-aged couple was interviewed together. They moved into the apartment half a year
prior to the interview and are fairly new to the local environment. Their adult son, who is
staying with them temporarily occupying one of the rooms, was not present during the
interview (only momentarily at the end). The man is working regular hours while the woman
is temporarily on sick leave. The woman clearly takes the leading role in the conversation.

- The media and the living room
As all these families live in smaller apartments and there is as such a spatial limitation to
where they can place and consume their various ICTs. We found that this factor, on a general
level, affected and constrained the families’ choice-set as well as fostering pragmatic ideas of
where to place and how to consume the ICTs. When looking at the television in this context
there is not much new. All the families have TVs centrally placed in the living room and only
a few have extra TVs in other rooms. This is mainly due to limited space, a constrained
economy, or a strategic choice to leave out the TV and confine it to the living room. A general
feature is that they all have broadband Internet access and close to 25 channels in their TV-
package.

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The PC on the other hand has a more diverse placement among the households. None of the
apartments have a spare room or a so-called “office space” where to put the PC, but most of
the households used a “storage room” for this purpose. The young mother (H2) and the young
couple (H4) have portable computers and can engage with PC wherever they want. Still there
seem to be limitations to the activities, partly due to cabling (electrical cords and broadband
outlet) and partly due to fixed routines of PC consumption.

The young mother (H2) uses the portable PC at school very day. She brings it home
afterwards and does her homework on the dining table (in the living room close to the kitchen
area). She only uses the PC for school-related work and hardly ever for entertainment
purposes. The mother and the son live in a smaller apartment. Regarding space, the portability
of the PC and the lack of a separate room make the living room a working room as well as a
leisure room where the TV and the PC compete for attention. The dining table turns into a
functional “office-desk” while the couch is rarely used for school-related work. There is,
however, no clear separation between “work-space” and “leisure-space”.

The young couple (H4) has an apartment with an open solution, where the living room and the
kitchen are more or less integrated. A new flat screen TV (not LCD or plasma) is placed
centrally in the living room. They also have a small TV in the bedroom, but only a few
channels are available on this terminal. In the living room they have the full channel package.
The portable PC is placed temporarily next to the TV as the broadband outlet is in this area.
They are planning a new outlet behind the couch so they can place the PC on the small table
adjacent to the 3-seater. Presently they have to sit on a stool near the TV table to access the
Internet trough the PC. They look forward to be able to do their PC activities from the couch.

The situation is different for the divorced mother (H3). The family has one TV in the living
room, and a smaller one in the woman’s bedroom – which is not connected. It is actually
supposed to be in her caravan. The reception is also very bad. The family computer is in the
hallway, near the living room. They have Internet access through a broadband connection
with the lowest capacity available – the result of a cost-benefit calculation. The boy, however,
is in favour of a faster connection. Broadband-connection was offered to the housing
cooperative one year subsequent to their moving in. Prior to this they had neither an Internet-
connection nor a PC in the household. So the favourable broadband offer directly influenced
their appropriation of the PC.

By placing the PC in the hallway PC usage becomes visible to all, having both positive and
negative consequences. Sometimes more private matters become very public, particularly for
the children. The mother can on the other hand exercise more control over content and time
use, if she feels the need. Another aspect is that the person using the PC can still take part in
conversations taking place in the living room. The placement of the PC appears to be a
compromise of several factors. First of all the mother indicates that it’s a conscious choice to
keep it out of the living room. The hallway is claimed to be the only option due to space
constraints. Other, non-viable options would be a corner somewhere or a storage room. That
would be too “claustrophobic” and too “clogged”, according to the mother. Moving the PC to
one of the bedrooms would mean drilling holes in the wall. “So it is just practicalities that
made it that way. Plus, I didn’t want it in the living room anyway. It makes enough noise as it
does already from around the corner”, the mother confirms.

Contrary to the H3-family, the family with the 12-year old daughter (H5) has a desktop
computer which is placed in a small storage room (situated in the hall near the living room).

                                               13
This storage room functions as a “work room” for the whole family. The room is neatly
decorated and has bookshelves and pictures. Recently the father bought a cable and a router,
and he has plans of stretching the cable from the PC to the router. He finds it much more
convenient to stretch the cable than to move the PC into the living room:

       “It’s ok to make a separation…we’re 3 people in one apartment. And if we were to…have a
       PC in addition…a sort of a PC-table to work on and to be entertained…in reality that wouldn’t
       work. I don’t think so. It would be too much load on one single PC. It would have been used
       too extensively (laughter), then we would need queue tickets (laughter).”

When asked whether they would continue having the TV in the living room, his answer is:
“Yes, it will probably stay there. The fact is that this is the piece of furniture we use a whole
lot.” It is here interesting how he refers to the TV as furniture and not as a piece of technology
(cf. chapter 4).

The middle-aged couple (H6) has an older TV and a VHS in the living room. The son also has
a TV, a DVD and a computer in his room. In addition, the family has a computer with a
connected printer on a computer table in the living room, next to the couch. The couple
explains how this is a temporary solution, and how the PC-table will be moved into the son’s
room as soon as he moves out. This room will then turn into an “office” or “hobby” room – a
functional redefinition of space. The woman says the living room is too small for a PC, and
the husband refers to the abundance of paper produced and stacked in the living room as a
problem.

- Interacting with the media and the importance of entertainment
The media consumption of the older woman (H1) is largely confined to radio (kitchen) and
TV (living room). In addition she has a VHS and a DVD-player, the latter being provided by
her son. The VHS is used occasionally, while she has some trouble managing the DVD. The
buttons on the remote control she finds tricky to use. Nevertheless, she was highly impressed
the first time her son showed her pictures of her grandchildren on the TV screen, through
digital photographs on CD-ROMs. The virtual album was somehow better than the classic
album, in her view, since the images where bigger and more people could watch them
simultaneously.

Her association with the TV medium is discouraged by the development of youth programs,
which she refers to as “hip, and overloaded with screaming, noise and fuss”. She prefers
Norwegian and Swedish programs, distinguished by “conversations” and “art”. In addition,
documentaries and news proves to be important to her. Actually she compares news by first
watching Swedish broadcast, then turning to the Norwegian news. She finds this comparison
amusing. She hardly ever watches TV during daytime since she is usually out walking,
meeting friends or going to the university for the elderly for a lecture. Regarding her TV
consumption she has no regular viewing pattern. On occasion she watches morning-TV before
going out. She usually returns home before dark and stays inside after that.

Her son has, in addition to providing her with a DVD, tried to convince her into buying a
computer, but she has resisted. His argument was that she could “get so much” from it, and
meet people there (on the Internet). However, she feels a stronger need to get out, exercise her
body and socialize with people. Another factor, which made it harder for her to resist, is the
fact that her grandchild thinks it is no fun visiting her anymore since she doesn’t have a PC or

                                                14
Internet-access. Still, she has made a final decision not to bring the PC into her home – she is
too old in her own view and does not have the energy to learn a new complex technology.

The entertainment factor does not seem to be closely related to electronic media in her case –
she rather entertains herself in the classic, “analogue” way, and uses electronic media to serve
her information needs. An exception is the use of TV in relation with CD-ROM pictures.

In ranking her ICTs our interviewee gave highest priority to her telephone. Then came the TV
and the radio. Communication with the world outside, with friends and family, seems to be
vital for her well being, even though time spent on this medium relative to TV and radio is
marginal. The TV is more important than the radio, particularly due to its significance as a
“night companion”. There is more variation on the TV than on the radio in her view, and the
visual enhances the experience. In addition, compared with newspapers, she finds TV and
radio news more trustworthy. This is a feature that could pertain to her “modern” upbringing,
as discussed earlier. She belongs to the generation that grew up with a homogenous, educating
broadcast schedule, and a generational effect of profound trust in the state/media can be
related to her generation and hence explain her view in this matter.

When it comes to TV consumption the lone mother (H2) mostly watches programs at night
when she comes home from school, and sometimes in the morning before leaving for school.
In this case she “buys” herself half an hour of freedom to get dressed in peace: “…it is to
avoid answering questions at 7 in the morning, right, then you’re pretty tired!” So in real
terms it’s the boy that consumes morning TV and hence the TV functions as a nanny. At night
her TV pattern is not very regular. She also studies after school and her TV consumption is
therefore constrained by her requirement to do homework. The TV is however switched on
almost automatically as she enters the apartment, but it is not left on uncritically. If there is
nothing on she turns it off and does some reading instead. A regular TV-night normally starts
with children’s TV, and the two of them watch this together. Hotell Cæsar, a popular but
criticized soap series, succeeds children’s TV and sometimes they both end up watching it
even though it’s a little late for the young boy in her view.

The mother’s PC usage is extensive. As a student she is completely dependent on the laptop
and refers to it as a “major tool”. In her opinion, she uses the PC more frequently than the TV
in certain periods. Her flexibility regarding PC-usage is partly facilitated by a “fronter-
program” provided by her school. This program functions as a portal to relevant information
and can be accessed at all times. Otherwise, search engines are frequently used, while
entertainment on the Internet is “boring” according to her. The kind of cross-media
consumption8 that new reality-programs offer, where different media (TV, Internet and mobile
phones) can be used simultaneously, is in her eyes “horrible stuff”.

The portable PC has been in the woman’s possession for 1 ½ years and belongs to her mother.
The PC entered the home when she got a broadband connection installed. She claims that she
will buy a new PC for herself when her child commences school. She anticipates that he will
need it in primary school, and for games etc. In addition she will need a PC with higher
capacity as she moves on through the educational system. She is reluctant to games as we
could see from an earlier statement, but in this context the games referred to are “educational”
in character, and hence legitimate in her eyes. She refers to these games as “spelling-games”
and “calculating-games”.

8
    See the work of InDiMedia, University of Aalborg: www.indimedia.dk

                                                     15
In relation to ICTs she has never considered getting rid off the TV and the PC. These are
objects of necessity to her, indicated through these two statements: “You need a TV in a
way”, and, “Now I need a PC, I am dependent on it”. But her PC dependency is related to her
present life-project – her studies: “…otherwise I don’t really need a PC”, she concludes.

In ranking her ICTs, the first medium that comes to our interviewee’s mind is the telephone
(fixed wire). Now that she is alone the telephone has become increasingly important, the same
rationale as for the old widow. When comparing the TV and the PC the young mother gives a
slightly higher preference to the PC, due to her present life phase as a student. Still the TV is
important to her: “When you are alone it is ok to have some sound!” The PC is portable and
often situated in the living room, on the dining table. She sometimes “time-stacks” by
working on the PC while having the TV on in the background. Still, one can claim that this is
not really time-stacking as she rarely pays attention to the content of the TV program when
using the PC.

TV consumption in the family with two children living at home (H3) takes place primarily at
night, since all of them leave the apartment to go to work or school in the morning. However,
the mother occasionally glimpses at morning TV and the children watch cartoons in the
weekends. The boy has no problem admitting to his extensive cartoon watching. The TV is
switched on immediately when one of the family members arrives at home. The mother utters
a certain guilt in this case: “…yes, I am afraid it is (switched on)!” She uses the TV as a time-
out before making supper. She is a busy worker in a service-profession and gets physically
and mentally tired after a day’s work. If the apartment is empty she sometimes uses the TV as
background noise. Radio is no alternative option for her, neither at home nor at work.

Negotiations around which programs to watch happens from time to time, usually when the
children want to watch MTV or cartoons. Still, they appear to have no big fights or
discussions over this. They also have more common programs of interest that they watch
together, like The Simpsons, Everybody loves Raymond and Friends. Negotiations are more
noticeable when the mother’s new boyfriend comes to visit. He is a soccer-fan but has no
support for his passion in this family: “That is pretty tough!”, the mother exclaims, referring
to her boyfriend’s futile attempts at watching soccer in the H3-appartment. He also deviates
regarding other programs. He enjoys Discovery and Animal Planet, while the family
shamrock is more into comedies and movies.

Ranking TV and PC relative to each other is an easy task to our interviewee: “For my part?
Wow! TV wins big time!” She has several other statements indicating the importance and
significance of TV in her life (various quotes):

       -   “No, not for me. To me it’s…last time we didn’t have a TV lasted two days I think!”

       -   “…I cannot live my life without a TV, no.”

       -   “…we’re TV people, it just…we’ve become kind of American…”

When it comes to PC consumption, the mother explains that the reason she invested in a
computer was for her children to get familiar with the PC as a “tool” and to use it for school
work. However, her intention did not work out exactly the way she wanted: “It ended up
being the youngest one using the PC most of the time. No doubt about it. Sits there almost
every day. Chatting and other things.”

                                                16
The divorced mother has access to a PC at work as well, but uses it primarily to e-mail and to
check the intranet. At home she rarely touches the computer, and if so happens, it is only to
access her online bank and to check out potential travel destinations.

She goes on to describe her son’s computer use as very extensive – several hours every day –
while her daughter maybe spends a few hours every week in front of the PC-screen. The boy
describes his own use (from the hallway, peeping in) to be centred on Internet-games, chatting
using MSN, and downloading music. Downloading films on the other hand takes too much
time with their present Internet-connection.

The boy is very active in an Internet-game community and he spends a great amount of time
playing online. He plays with random people he meets through the community, which has
more than 3000 participants. The more time he spends online the better the chances are of
winning or climbing the ranking list.

In addition to playing at home he meets up with a group of peers (a “clan”) in another area of
town. He brings with him his X-box controls and the members of the group (of 16) play
against each other. This group consists mainly of friends from his previous school. Sometimes
they play against clans from other cities and then they meet up “physically” as they have not
gotten into the “virtual” yet. The boy looks forward to play the game “Halo 2”. This is an
Internet-based game, which means they can play all together while sitting at home. In such a
case the social (physical) aspects of playing disappear.

The considerable amount of time spent in front of the PC in the hallway worries the mother.
But she explains that her son sometimes watches TV “with them” by peeping in from the
chair in the hallway. Then he is “in a way together with us and at the same time outside to”,
the mother adds.

The son goes on to explain how he sometimes listens to radio, watches TV and plays games
on the PC simultaneously. When asked if he can concentrate on all three, his answer is a short
“yes”. His mother follows up with: “At least you think you do”. This kind of time-stacking,
which we saw some indication of with the young separated mother as well, is probably more
common among youth than among the middle-aged and elderly. Today’s young have grown
up with all these media and are used to consuming several mediated texts simultaneously.

Regarding content, entertainment is clear winner in the family. Good movies, soaps and
entertainment programs rank high. The family also uses VHS and DVD (through the X-box)
to watch movies from time to time. A VoD9 function over broadband could be a service that
would fit this family’s media pattern, according to the mother. But it is not a vital service as
they easily can rent movies in the nearby video store.

The man in the “young couple” household (H4) talks in a relative ambivalent way about their
media consumption. He seems to be satisfied with the current TV package (constituting
around 25-30 channels), but he adds that the two national broadcast channels would suffice:
“…because one ends up gaping (at the TV) anyway”, hinting that they already spend too
much time in front of the TV. “Time flies so much faster when you have a lot to watch”. After
work they normally spend two to three hours in the couch watching TV, until other activities

9
    Video-on-Demand

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