INGEN JUL UDEN JULEKALENDER - En undersøgelse af hvordan julekalenderen som unik mediegenre går i dialog med hverdagslivet i december måned. Sara Aagaard Pedersen Lea Sohn Mikkelsen Ingen%jul%uden%julekalender% % En#undersøgelse#af#hvordan#julekalenderen#som#unik#mediegenre#går#i#dialog#med# hverdagslivet#i#december#måned## # # # # Speciale#i#medievidenskab## Af#Lea#Sohn#Mikkelsen#(20119872)## og#Sara#Aagaard#Pedersen#(201204553)# # # Juni#2017# Institut#for#Kommunikation#og#Kultur## Aarhus#Universitet## # # Vejleder:#Hanne#Bruun## # # Specialet#omfatter#262.080#tegn#svarende#til#109,2#normalsider# Resumé#omfatter#6.790#tegn#svarende#til#2,8#normalsider## # # # Résumé& ! No!Christmas!without!the!TV!Christmas!Calendar! ! An!audience!study!examining!how!the!TV!Christmas!calendar,!as!a!unique!media!genre,! interacts!with!everyday!life!as!it!unfolds!in!December! & For many families, watching the Danish TV Christmas calendar has become an established tradition and an important part of the Christmas season. Observed on December 25th (in Denmark the 24th), Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ and is celebrated by billions of people around the world. Traditions are especially evident during the Christmas season. These traditions shape and define the way Christmas is celebrated including how people interact with one another. Christmas is often celebrated in a micro sociological setting: in small, intimate gatherings of family at home. Family centred values come into focus as people take time off from work and everyday routine activities. The unique media genre of the TV Christmas calendar creates a special social space in which the togetherness and the continuity of family is celebrated in an otherwise individualized media context. The TV Christmas calendar has become an important part of the countdown to Christmas Eve. Even in a time of great tendency for individualization the TV Christmas calendar is still able to bring families together as they watch each of the 24 episodes counting down to Christmas Eve. This year the TV Christmas calendar received massive criticism, yet people still watched it faithfully every night. This thesis aims to investigate this paradox as it indicates factors other than the content of the series may motivate families to watch the TV Christmas calendar. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to analyse the Danish TV Christmas calendar as a unique phenomenon. In particular, we will examine the series ability to create a shared experience in the family and discuss what motivates families to watch the TV Christmas calendar every year. This will be completed through a audience analysis taking as its point of departure last year’s new TV Christmas calendar production; Den anden verden/’The Other World’ (2016). From a ritual theory perspective, the thesis examines how the TV Christmas calendar interacts with everyday life as it unfolds in December. i In the media research field the Danish TV Christmas calendar, seen from a ritual theoretical perspective, is an unexplored and undescribed area. This thesis aims to generate new knowledge about how the phenomenon constitutes a specific form of ritualized media usage. The study is conducted through media ethnographic observations of four families and qualitative interviews with parents and children of each family, which combined constitutes the empirical data the thesis is based on. This method is applied as it is the best way of obtaining information about the families’ subjective opinions and perceptions about the TV Christmas calendar. All four families watched this year’s TV Christmas calendar Den anden verden/’The other World’. A genre analysis of the historical development of the TV Christmas calendar’s content is conducted in order to investigate the TV Christmas calendar as a media phenomenon and gain an understanding of what expectations might be implied in the genre. The genre analysis shows that the Christmas calendar contains genre conventions regarding narrative plot, themes and the ability for identification and fascination. As a result, the viewer has particular expectations for what the TV Christmas calendar must contain to be characterized as a “real” TV Christmas calendar. In the text analysis, Den anden verden/’The other World’ is placed in the genre’s historical development in order to lay the groundwork for the perception analysis’ investigation as to which degree the Christmas calendars content matters in regards to the family’s motivation. As Den anden verden/’The other World’ addresses realistic issues in a magical setting it positions itself within the last period of the genre historical development. In several ways the series relates to the genre and its development however, because of how the series assigns low priority to otherwise central Christmas elements, the series also differs from the genre as it creates an expansion of the genre. In light of the empirical data and the insights from the genre and text analysis, the audience analysis shows that both the TV Christmas calendar’s content and context matters when it comes to possible motivational factors. In the section focusing on the families’ opinions and perceptions concerning the TV Christmas calendar’s content, the analysis shows that the content has to be relevant in regards to its context – Christmas time. Furthermore, the content has to contain elements that prepare the ground for a unifying usage in the family. In general, the families do not care much about the content ii of the TV Christmas calendar as much as the context it is a part of and the feeling of togetherness it creates. The families assign social meaning to the tradition of watching the TV Christmas calendar during December. The media usage of the TV Christmas calendar differentiates significantly from the families’ ordinary media usage, as they almost never gather around the television set during the weekdays. Yet, watching the TV Christmas calendar together is of great importance for all four families as they associate the time with a time of tradition, being together and domesticity. As such, the TV Christmas calendar creates a kind of holy passage of time set apart from daily life. Based on how the families act around and interact with the TV Christmas Calendar the phenomenon can be defined as a family ritual. The thesis concludes that the TV Christmas calendar can be defined as a unique media phenomenon with several factors relating to both content and context that motivate families to watch the series every year. We argue that the TV Christmas calendar consists of a double rituality, as it can be seen as ritual as a noun and ritual as an adjective. The TV Christmas calendar functions as ritual-noun in its inherent rituality as a genre and its essential connectedness to Christmas celebration. At the same time, the TV Christmas calendar can be seen as ritual-adjective because of its social obligation and ritualized usage associated with Christmas values. However, as the TV Christmas calendar can be characterized as a family ritual, one must conclude that Christmas as a festival and the social context, in which the TV Christmas calendar exists, constitutes the primary motivational factor for watching. Yet, the content of the TV Christmas calendar should not be depreciated, as the family wants a TV Christmas calendar with the ability to bring together the family around Christmassy media content. iii Specialet har et samlet omfang på 262.080 tegn, svarende til 109,2 normalsider. Generelt er specialet udarbejdet i fællesskab og vi har begge taget del i samtlige kapitler. Dog hæfter vi formelt set individuelt for udvalgte afsnit i opgaven. Fordelingen fremgår nedenfor, og er angivet ved hjælp af afsnittenes nummerering: Sara: 2.0, 2.1, 2.1.2, 2.1.4, 2.1.7, 2.1.8, 2.2.4, 3.2, 3.2.1, 3.3, 3.3.1, 3.3.2, 3.3.5, 3.3.6, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 5.0, 5.3, 5.4, 6.1, 6.1.1, 6.1.3, hvilket giver 101.375 tegn, svarende til 42,2 normalsider. Lea: 2.1.1, 2.1.3, 2.1.5, 2.1.6, 2.2, 2.2.1, 2.2.2, 2.2.3, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2.2, 3.2.3, 3.3.3, 3.3.4, 3.4, 3.4.1, 3.4.2, 3.5, 4.0, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 5.1, 5.2, 6.0, 6.1.2, 6.1.4, 6.1.5, 6.2, hvilket giver 101.572 tegn, svarende til 42,3 normalsider. Fælles: 1.0, 2.3, 6.2.1, 6.2.2, 6.2.3, 6.3, 7.0, hvilket giver 59.133 tegn, svarende til 24,6 normalsider. ! Indholdsfortegnelse- - Kapitel(1:(Indledning(............................................................................................................(4! 1.1(Problemformulering(.................................................................................................(5! 1.2(Afgrænsning(.................................................................................................................(6! 1.3(Specialets(opbygning(................................................................................................(6! Kapitel(2:(Teoretisk(udgangspunkt(.................................................................................(9! 2.1(Ritualet(..........................................................................................................................(9! 2.1.1!Den!klassiske!definition!af!ritualbegrebet!............................................................!10! 2.1.2!Julen!–!en!rituel!højtid!....................................................................................................!12! 2.1.3!En!fejring!af!sekulære!værdier!...................................................................................!13! 2.1.4!Rothenbuhler!om!ritualet!.............................................................................................!14!