Public Service Television and Young Audiences In
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PUBLIC SERVICE TELEVISION AND YOUNG AUDIENCES IN GERMANY AND SWEDEN An Explorative Study About Young Audiences’ Opinion about and Use of Television and Public Service Broadcasting Alina Lingnau Stockholm University Department of Media Studies/JMK Thesis for the Degree of Master of Arts in Media and Communication Studies H10 M Master Advisor: Bo Mårtenson Date of Submission: May 24th 2012 Public Service Broadcasters and Young Audiences in Germany and Sweden | Alina Lingnau Abstract Stockholm University Department of Media Studies/JMK Master’s Thesis, Spring 2012 Title : Public Service Broadcasters and Young Audiences in Germany and Sweden Author : Alina Lingnau Advisor : Bo Mårtenson In the Swedish and German media landscapes public service broadcasters are well- established. Young people however prefer private channels which leads to a legitimization problem for the public service broadcasters because they do not reach the whole population. When airing popular programmes on the other hand, they are criticized for not being distinguishable from commercial competitors. This problem is intensifying by current technological developments and the need to redefine public service broadcasting. This study investigates the young audiences’ use of and opinion about public service broadcasters against the social and technological background of their media use. Therefore semi- structured interviews were carrying out with Swedish and German adolescents. The findings suggest that even though differences in the two countries’ public service channels are obvious, the young people’s opinion about them are quite similar; they appreciate the high quality news and information programmes but hardly connect the public service channels to entertainment which is the kind of programming they are most interested in and therefore they do not necessarily belong to the young people’s media repertoires. The study illustrates the public service broadcasters’ need to adjust their content more to the audiences’ desires and to more explicitly take young people into account while at the same time sticking to their core competences of high quality informative programmes. Keywords : Public Service Broadcasting, Television, Adolescents, Sweden, Germany 1 Public Service Broadcasters and Young Audiences in Germany and Sweden | Alina Lingnau Content 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 4 2. Background .......................................................................................................................................... 7 2.1 The Swedish Media System ........................................................................................................... 7 2.2 The German Media System ........................................................................................................... 8 2.3 Differences and similarities ......................................................................................................... 10 2.4 PSBs’ Approaches to Reach Young Audiences............................................................................. 12 3. Theoretical Framework ..................................................................................................................... 16 3.1 Current Developments in Public Service Television .................................................................... 16 3.1.1 Ideological Perspectives on PSB ........................................................................................... 16 3.1.2 From PSB to PSM .................................................................................................................. 18 3.1.3 Challenges and Opportunities for PSBs ................................................................................ 19 3.2 Young Audiences ......................................................................................................................... 21 3.2.1 Media Access and Consumption .......................................................................................... 21 3.2.2 Ways of watching TV ............................................................................................................ 23 3.3 Concluding Theoretical Thoughts ................................................................................................ 24 4. Methodology ..................................................................................................................................... 25 4.1 Semi-structured Interviews ......................................................................................................... 25 4.2 Design of the Research Instrument ............................................................................................. 27 4.3 Sampling ...................................................................................................................................... 27 4.4 Conducting of the Interviews ...................................................................................................... 28 4.5 Analysis of the Interviews............................................................................................................ 29 5. Analysis .............................................................................................................................................. 30 5.1 Theme 1: Preferred Content ....................................................................................................... 30 5.2 Theme 2: Young People’s Media Use .......................................................................................... 32 5.2.1 Habits and Social Context ..................................................................................................... 32 5.2.2 Technology ........................................................................................................................... 36 5.3 Theme 3: Perception of PSB ........................................................................................................ 37 5.3.1 Content ................................................................................................................................. 39 5.3.2 PSBs in Comparison with Commercial Channels .................................................................. 41 5.3.3 News ..................................................................................................................................... 46 5.4 Discussion of Results ................................................................................................................... 48 6. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 54 References ............................................................................................................................................. 57 2 Public Service Broadcasters and Young Audiences in Germany and Sweden | Alina Lingnau Appendix ................................................................................................................................................ 62 A Screenshots .................................................................................................................................... 62 B Interview Guideline ........................................................................................................................ 64 C Introduction of Interviewees .......................................................................................................... 67 D Model of Analysis ........................................................................................................................... 71 E Additional Resources ...................................................................................................................... 73 3 Public Service Broadcasters and Young Audiences in Germany and Sweden | Alina Lingnau 1. Introduction For public service broadcasters (PSB) the current developments in the TV landscape, such as privatisation and digitalization, are a challenge because they need to keep up with technological and cultural developments while fulfilling their mission not only to entertain but also to inform and educate the population 1. When looking at the viewing figures however, it is evident that many PSBs do not reach the whole population but mostly adults. In 2008 half of the German public service channels’ viewers were over 60 years old and only five per cent were younger than 30 (cf. Lilienthal, 2009: 12). This shows clearly that public service broadcasting does not fulfil its obligation. It is therefore no wonder that many PSBs try to reach for younger audiences, whether it is through the usage of new technologies like apps and streaming portals (cf. Lowe & Bardoel, 2007) or by designing programmes aimed at that group 2. From an idealistic perspective one would hope that young people admire the high quality of PSBs and can discriminate between them and commercial television. For news programmes Irene Costera Meijer (2007) points out that young people worship the PSBs’ quality even if they do not watch them themselves. This contradiction raises the question of what the younger audiences think about public service TV and why they do not watch it as much as private channels. This thesis is an explorative study with the aims of firstly describing how young people in Germany and Sweden watch TV, secondly investigating