Chapter 1
Culture, media and society
Agency and structure, continuity and change
Karl Erik Rosengren
This book represents an attempt to offer an overview of results gained during twenty-five years of systematic longitudinal research on mass media use by Swedish children, adolescents and young adults, and on the causes and consequences of that media use. Organized within the longitudinal Media Panel Program (MPP) at the Unit of Media and Communication Studies, University of Lund in Sweden, the research has been carried out by a team of communication scholars and sociologists of communication in close contact with European, American and Asian colleagues. The overall theoretical framework of the research venture will be presented in this chapter. Later chapters will offer specification and variation to this overall framework.
CULTURE AND SOCIETY
All human societies may be conceptualized as being composed of three closely related systems: a cultural system of ideas, a social system of actions, and a material system of artefacts. In empirical reality, of course, ideas, actions and artefacts are very closely intertwined, so that it may be extremely difficult to disentangle the ideational, actional and material aspects from each other. This is no argument against the analytical distinction, but it does make empirical analyses difficult, especially since there are a number of other societal subsystems, all of which, in all societies, necessarily encompass elements of those three basic systems. For theoretical purposes each of the three systems may be used to characterize any society (and from either the structural or the processual side of the system, or from both sides). It is often practical, however, to regard societies as being structured primarily by a central element in the ideational, cultural system: its value system (witness innumerable comparative studies; for a recent example, see Lipset 1993).
Actually, all societal structures may be understood in terms of two pairs of very basic value orientations:
•Cognitive/normative value orientation.
•Expressive/instrumental value orientation.
The two pairs of value orientations are defined by the four values of truth and righteousness, beauty and usefulness. These value orientations are very basic indeed. Indeed, they seem to be virtually timeless. They may be expressed in terms of four Indo-European verbs (Latin: sapere/debere, esse/facere; cf. French: savoir/devoir, être/faire) which have their functional counterparts in other families of languages. These very basic value orientations were discussed by early Greek philosophers in terms of Logos and Ethos, Pathos and Praxis. In the eighteenth century, the German poet Friedrich Schiller wrote poetry about them, as did many of his precursors and followers, and recent students of modern advertising and public relations also use them (see Pollay 1984; Nowak 1992: 182). All societal institutions have emerged out of these two pairs of value orientations, and they are still gradually developing around them. The history of basic societal structures and processes may thus be interpreted in terms of an ever-growing functional differentiation between a relatively small number of societal institutions, each based on one specific constellation of value orientations defined by the two pairs of basic value orientations (see, for instance, Parsons 1966). Within each of these institutions, the three basic systems of ideas, actions and artefacts are to be found, so that all institution-based societal subsystems may be conceptualized from an ideational, an actional and an artefactual perspective.
Figure 1.1, illustrating the ‘great wheel of culture in Society’, offers a typology of basic societal institutions grouped around the two pairs of basic value orientations: expressive vs. instrumental value orientation, and cognitive vs. normative value orientation (Rosengren 1984; Rosengren and Windahl 1989: 159 ff.; see, for instance, Berger and Berger 1972: 20; Giddens 1984: 17). The typology is shaped as a so-called circumplex (Guttman 1954; see Katz et al. 1973; Lumsden and Wilson 1981; Shepard 1978). The circumplex locates the main societal subsystems in a two-dimensional space in a way which suggests their closest ‘neighbours’ in society: the system of economy being located between the political and technological systems; literature, between art and scholarship, etc. The circumplex is similar, of course, to several other, more or less Weberian or Parsonian typologies of societal structures, but closest, perhaps, to that presented by Namenwirth and Bibbee (1976), which includes also the element of time, however (see Namenwirth and Weber 1987).
Figure 1.1 represents the three basic systems of ideas, action and artefacts by means of concentric circles. At the centre of the circumplex – the ‘hub of the wheel’ - we find culture, the ideational system of society. Culture, then, is both cognitively and normatively oriented, both expressive and instrumental. It unites and relates, one to the other, the four basic value orientations and their various subsystems. The network of broken lines relating the societal subsystems to each other tells us something about the complexity of the overall system, and of the immense communicative and co-ordinating functions fulfilled by culture: twenty-eight first order interdependencies,
Figure 1.1 The great wheel of culture in society (Adapted from Rosengren (1984))
innumerable secondary and tertiary interdependencies and interactions. These relations connect society's institutional subsystems to each other: religion and politics; politics and science; science and technology; technology and religion, and so on, in never-ending chains of mutual interaction. All such relations may affect both ideas, actions and artefacts of the subsystems, but for pictorial convenience, the lines have been drawn going only from the system of action within one institutional subsystem to that of another.
This way of pictorial representation signals that all these relations have to be established by means of action, often by means of a very special type of action: communication. In all societies, these relations are carried out by means of interpersonal, face-to-face communication; in modern societies, they are often established also by means of mediated interpersonal communication, as well as by organizational and mass communication. As these relations continue, a never-ending process of differentiation between the various societal institutions continues. The institutions thus grow increasingly differentiated and yet remain mutually interdependent. All of them have to keep some part of general societal culture incorporated within their own substructures, continually balancing specific culture (‘political culture’, ‘economic culture’, etc.) against general societal culture. In terms of Figure 1.1., these specific cultures may be thought of as being situated within that part of the communicative network located in the action part of the great wheel of culture in society.
Culture, however, is not only a huge telephone exchange for society, connecting societal systems to each other, not only an immense exchange office converting values of one type into values of another type. It is also an important societal system in its own right, and as such it has to relate to other large societal systems, including the two basic systems of action and artefacts, as well as to virtually all institutionalized subsystems, although, paradoxically, and unlike other large societal systems, culture has no well-established institution of its own. (The institutions of art and literature, of course, deal primarily with high culture, certainly an important component of societal culture, but even more certainly not to be mistaken for societal culture.) What culture actually does have, however, is a set of institutions handling its relationship with the rest of society, primarily the so-called agents of socialization (see below).
The relations between culture and other societal systems form a classic problem of social science. Within a given society, four types of such relations are possible (Rosengren 1981). Figure 1.2 orders these four types in a typology. This is a typology of the relations between the ideational system of culture and the systems of actions and artefact, but it is also a typology of theories concerning these relationships.
Figure 1.2 Four types of relationship between culture and other societal systems (Adapted from Rosengren (1981))
For centuries, heated philosophical debates raged along the axis of materialism/idealism, debates which were rekindled by the wave of Marxist revivalism in the 1960s and 1970s. Gradually, however, the scientific and scholarly discussions moved to the ideologically less inflammable but perhaps more realistic axis of interdepedence/autonomy – even if sometimes the old terminology has been preserved (Bell 1976; Bunge 1981; Harris 1979; Lumsden and Wilson 1981). The answer to these classic debates to a very high degree is related to the time perspective applied. Depending on the level of abstraction (Meddin 1975; cf. Johansson and Miegel 1992: 73), values may change on a time-scale ranging from millennia through centuries and decades to years and parts of a year. ‘It would be strange indeed, if the relationship between culture and other societal structures would be the same under those very different circumstances’ (Carlsson et al. 1981). More often than not, however, interdependence seems to be the best answer (see Rosengren 1981).
The horizontal relations between culture and other societal systems are important, but there is also another type of relations to be heeded, the vertical relations linking units at the macro, meso and micro levels of society to each other. (For recent discussions about these relations in ontological, epistem-ological, theoretical and methodological terms, see, for instance, Alexander et al. (1987), and especially Munch and Smelser (1987).) In these ‘vertical’ relations, society's culture flows from the level of society down to the individual level and back again, in modern societies often by way of the organizational level. In this ever-continuing process relating the macro to the micro level by way of the meso level, societal culture is transformed into individually internalized culture (Munch and Smelser 1987: 380 ff.; Reimer and Rosengren 1990). Since there are such factors as emergent phenomena (Munch and Smelser 1987: 367), aggregated individual culture is not the same as societal culture, of course. As a matter of fact, the relationship between these two manifestations of culture represents one of the most important problems in the sociology of culture and communication, since it may tell us something about the ontological status of culture (see Rosengren 1992a).
The vertical flow between the macro and the micro levels may also be conceived of as a flow between one societal generation and the next, as a rule conceptualized in terms of socialization (Burton 1968; Whiting 1968; Boudon and Bourricaud 1982/1989: 355–361; Gecas 1992). A number of specific societal institutions are engaged in these vertical relations; all of them may be regarded as agents of primary and secondary socialization, enculturation and acculturation (see Rosengren 1985; Rosengren and Windahl 1989: 160 ff.).
There are at least eight main types of socialization agent. Albeit, of course, in sometimes rather different shapes, three of them may be found in even the the most undifferentiated societies: the family, the peer group, and the working group. Three other types of socialization agent are found in somewhat more differentiated societies: priests (sometimes organized in churches), teachers (sometimes organized in schools and universities) and law agents (sometimes organized in courts and police forces). In our types of society we also have two other main types of socialization agent: large social movements and the mass media.
This book is primarily about the use made of mass media by young people. However, since media use is always taking place in a complex matrix of social relations, and since there is always both competition and co-operation between different types of socialization agent, we cannot deal with young people's media use without heeding also other important agents of socialization, primarily the family, the peer group, and school. To understand socialization, we must turn, therefore, from societal structure to social structure. We must also relate the concept of structure to that of agency.
AGENCY AND STRUCTURE
In modern sociology there is perhaps no problem which has been more keenly discussed than that of agency and structure – sociology's version of general system theory's basic distinction between process and structure. (For a good overview of the agency/structure problematics, see Dietz and Burns 1992.)
Agency is understood as the capacity of acting and willing subjects within existing societal and social structures to exercise choice – ‘to be able to act otherwise’ (Giddens 1984: 14) – sometimes even to the extent of transgressing the limits established by those structures. More specifically, agency is taken to be characterized by actors’ ability to undertake the following:
•Intentionally to exercise some sort of power.
•Choose between alternatives.
•Reflect on the consequences of acting (see Dietz and Burns 1992).
As Archer (1990: 82) strongly argues, any study of the interplay between agency and structure over time, any effort to ‘theorize about variations in voluntarism and determinism (and their consequences)’ presupposes that both terms be defined independently of each other. Structure and action, then, just as subject and object, must be kept analytically clearly separate. That is, Archer's ‘dualism’ is to be preferred to Giddens’ ‘duality’ (cf. Giddens 1990).
More often than not, however, the otherwise many-faceted discussions about structure and agency have neglected the basic distinction between societal structure as briefly discussed in the previous section, and social structure as primarily defined by the four basic variables of age and gender, class and status. The distinction is important, however. Societal structures offer the general institutional framework within which, in a given society, individual and collective action may take place. Social structures define Individuals' positions in a multidimensional space, the four most important dimensions of which are age, gender, status and social class. When societal and social structures have had their say, there is some space left for individual agency within which to form individual actions and patterns of actions (including, of course, more or less conscious, more or less systematically organized attempts at changing societal and social structures).
We thus have three types of patterned action (see Thunberg et al. 1981: 61; Johansson and Miegel 1992: 22 ff.; Reimer 1994; see also several chapters in this volume, especially Chapters 5, 10 and 12):
1Forms of life: patterns of action determined primarily by societal structure.
2Ways of life: patterns of action determined primarily by positions in social structure.
3Lifestyles: patterns of action determined primarily by individual agency.
These are patterns analytically defined, of course. The three patterns are nested. Synthetic patterns empirically observed at the individual level (‘individual lifestyles’; see Johansson and Miegel 1992), therefore, always include elements of all three types of pattern. Analytically, lifestyles may be observed as the relationship between, on the one hand, individual characteristics such as values, attitudes, interests, tastes, etc., and on the other, patterns of action, after control for relevant structural and positional variables (see Rosengren 1992b). The relationships between societal structure, individual position in the social system, individual characteristics and patterns of action are illustrated in Figure 1.3. (In statistical terms these relationships may be conceptualized as the beta coefficients of multivariate analyses.)
Over the decades, interest in the notion of lifestyle has fluctuated; definitions of the concept of lifestyle have been many and varied (see Chapters 10-12). There is small doubt, though, that during the last decade or so, there has been a renewed interest in the concept, at the same time as its definition has moved towards an increased accent on the role of the individual as the builder of his or her own lifestyle (see, for instance, Giddens 1991: 81). More often than not, however, the distinction between forms of life, ways of life and lifestyles is not clearly observed.
Figure 1.3 Three determinants of patterns of action
This argumentation relates quite naturally to debates which have continued for decades within socialization research. These debates have concerned characteristics of the two parties involved in all socialization processes: society (as represented by its agents of socialization), and the individual being socialized (McCron 1976; cf. Gecas 1992). In such debates, society has often been regarded as characterized primarily by either conflict or consensus. The individual socialized is often characterized either as a willing and acting subject, or as a more or less passive object of strong forces outside or within itself. When combined, the two distinctions result in a typology of socialization which is presented in Figure 1.4. The typology is highly reminiscent of a well-known typology for schools of sociology, originally presented by Burrell and Morgan (1979) and related to communication research by Rosengren (1983a, 1989a, 1993); the similarity between the two typologies offers strong validation to both of them.
Each of the two dimensions of the typology represents a number of theoretical and practical problems. A partial solution to the theoretical subject/object problematics (which is, of course, closely related to the agency/ structure debate) is represented by the distinction between structurally, positionally and individually determined patterns of action (see above). The practical conflict/consensus problematics is handled in the socialization process by letting objectively existing social differences stand out as morally, politically and/or religiously motivated, so that what from a social science perspective may be regarded as a causal relation, from the individual's perspective may appear as subjectively willed, and morally proper action. By
Figure 1.4 typology of approaches in socialization research
thus transforming causality into finality, socialization at the same time may transform conflict into consensus (cf. the Marxian notion of false consciousness; Boudon and Bourricaud 1982/1989: 358). However subtle it may be, this control process is never perfect. There is always some free space left, interstices in which potential dissidents may find each other and build plans for future change (in most societies, the freedom left to peer groups among young adolescents is perhaps the best example; see Rosengren 1992c). In addition, there is always more to socialization than control. All agents of socialization also provide intellectual, emotional, social and material resources which may be used by those being socialized – sometimes, in ways completely unforeseen by society and its representatives, the agents of socialization.
The control exercised and the resources put at the disposal of the agents of socialization represent two basic dimensions by means of which all socialization processes may very economically be characterized. Indeed, the two dimensions are so basic as to be applicable not only to processes of socialization but to all social groups and their internal and external interactions. The two dimensions have been independently introduced by scholars in disciplines and traditions of research such as child psychiatry (Olson et al. 1979; Barnes and Olson 1985) and family communication (Chaffee et al. 1971; Lull 1980; Jarlbro 1986; Ritchie 1991; see also Chapters 8 and 10 in this volume). Today, the best known example of this very general idea may be Anthony Giddens’ notion of structure as ‘rules and resources’ (Giddens 1990: 301; cf. Clark 1990: 25). A systematic search would no doubt reveal that similar notions have been applied also in other types of social science. (Mary Douglas’ conceptual pair of ‘grid/group’ (Douglas 1970; cf., for instance, Gross and Rayner 1985; Wildawsky 1989) shows some similarity, too, with the control/resources dimensions. Although the grid/group typology has been very differentially interpreted, it refers primarily to control conceptualized as within and between group structuring, leaving the notion of resources by the roadside.)
In its most general form, the typology is presented in Figure 1.5, subsuming the special cases of socialization typology just mentioned (see Rosengren 1985; cf. also Chapters 8 and 10).
The types in Figure 1.5 represent ideal types, which, of course, in their pure form are seldom or never found in reality. This should be kept in mind, but it is no argument against the typology as such. Because of its generality, the typology is relevant to both the content, the process, and the agents of socialization. In empirical research, of course, it has to be adapted and modified according to the specific circumstances at hand, and its very general dimensions probably have to be specified. The typology as it stands, though, can also be directly related to a number of problems, for instance to those three central and well-known categories of conflict and consensus originally presented and discussed by Hirschman (1970, 1981, 1985) - ‘Exit’, ‘Voice’, and ‘Loyalty’.
Figure 1.5 A typology of socialization conditions H = high; L = low
In cells 1 and 3, both ‘Voice’ and ‘Exit’ seem to be most naturally applied (‘Exit’ being perhaps more frequent than ‘Voice’ in cell 1, ‘Voice’ than ‘Exit’ in cell 3, since in cell 1 (because of its high control) ‘Exit’ may sometimes be the only way to articulate ‘Voice’, while in cell 3 (because of its low control) ‘Exit’ may not always be very necessary). In cells 2 and 4, on the other hand, both alternatives seem to be less applicable. In cell 2, resources may not suffice for ‘Voice’, control may be too hard for ‘Exit’. Here ‘Loyalty’ seems to be the natural alternative. In cell 4, neither ‘Exit’, nor ‘Voice’, nor ‘Loyalty’ may be very relevant at all, since cold indifference probably dampens everything. The inhabitants of this cell tend to have a weak voice, they have not much to which they might be loyal, and they may not consider exit very much – for the simple reason that they are already out.
A general conclusion to be drawn from the typology is that the independence of socializees from their agents of socialization will probably tend to be lowest in cell 2, highest in cell 3. Under the conditions of the latter cell it would probably be least difficult to arrive at that sometimes very productive outcome of a conflict: to agree to disagree.
For better and for worse, the availability of voice and exit further innovation. Processes of innovation, then, are most likely to occur in cell 3, and to some extent in cell 1. In cell 2, Roger's Innovators should be found; in cell 1, his Early Adopters (Rogers 1983), always remembering the following, of course:
1Another word for exit is drop-out.
2Not all exits and drop-outs are based on innovations.
In principle, the same argumentation should be valid when writ large, at the societal level. In some societies or parts of societies, for some periods of time, resources are plenty and social control, low. Renaissance Florence, and the Vienna of the early twentieth century come to mind, but less dramatic examples may certainly be found. In all countries and all times, there seem to be some regions which are more prone to innovation than others – and some which are less prone to innovation (Hagerstrand 1968). In the final analysis, this leads us back to the relationship between culture and other societal systems, this time in terms of continuity and change.
CONTINUITY AND CHANGE
Let's return for a moment to the relations between culture and other societal systems previously discussed in typological terms, and illustrated in Figures 1.1. and 1.2. Both figures actually build on the silent assumption that societies are closed systems. No societies are closed systems, however, and Figure 1.6 heeds that trivial and yet very basic truth, also turning the typological models of Figures 1.1 and 1.2 into a causally oriented model.
Figure 1.6 A causal model for the relations between culture and other societal systems
It will be seen that the model corresponds to cell 1 of Figure 1.2, characterized by interaction between culture and other societal systems. Two complications have been introduced: external influences from other societies, and a generational filter between culture and other societal systems.
Societies may be conceptualized as systems of ideas, actions and artefacts, but actions are carried out by human beings, also producing ideas and material artefacts. Human beings tend to live ‘three score years and ten’, internalizing societal culture primarily during their first twenty years or so. Their capacity for innovation as a rule being rather low after their first one or two score years, they then tend to spend large portions of their lives reproducing what has been internalized. A consequence of these basic facts of life is that there is a generational filter between culture and other societal systems, reducing the rate of innovative exchange between society's general culture and other societal systems. New ideas born within and between creative brains, new patterns of actions emerging among innovative groups of people, new types of artefacts devised and produced by homo sapiens et faber, therefore, are not instantaneously accepted – as innovation research has shown again and again (Hagerstrand 1968; Rogers 1983; Perry 1992). Innovations tend to be produced by relatively young generations, and the filter of relatively old generations reduces the rate of change, thus producing a certain amount of societal stability, a precarious balance between continuity and change.
The outcome of this interplay is that overall societal change tends to be relatively slow. In modern societies, all generations seem to feel they live in a period of rapid change, and perhaps they do. But changes thus perceived are often relatively superficial. The basic characteristics of societal culture as such tend to change only slowly, often passing by unnoticed until they reach some threshold value at which they suddenly become perceived and vehemently discussed: periods of clairvoyance, ‘moments of madness’ (see Zolberg 1972; Hirschman 1985: 90).
In order to measure such slow change, its trends, cycles, and more or less accidental variations, we need reliable instruments, indicators of societal change. In principle, there are four main types of such societal indicators: economic indicators (measuring phenomena related to wealth), objective social indicators (measuring welfare), subjective social indicators (measuring well-being) and cultural indicators (measuring the development of basic values and other central ideas). Although the terms used here to designate them may be relatively new, economic indicators have been around for centuries or even millennia; social indicators, for at least a century; and cultural indicators for at least half a century (Rosengren 1989b, 1992a; see also, for instance, Bauer 1966; Hart 1933; Sorokin 1937–41; Gerbner 1969; Klingemann et al. 1982; Namenwirth and Weber 1987; Rosengren 1984; Stimson 1991).
Changes in the basic value system of Sweden, its ‘climate of culture’ as it developed during the period 1945–1975, were studied in a research programme called CISSS (Cultural Indicators: The Swedish Symbol System, 1945–1975). Figure 1.7, featuring the development of the extent to which the basic values of freedom and equality were upheld in editorials in a representative sample of Swedish newspapers during the period 1945–1975, offers a graphic example of the way such societal change tends to proceed (see Block 1984).
Figure 1.7 The values of ‘Freedom’ and ‘Equality’ as upheld in Swedish editorials, 1945–1975 (Source: Block (1984))
As shown by Rokeach (1973: 170), the two values of freedom and equality in combination may be regarded as defining characteristics of four basic societal ideologies:
1Socialism puts a high value on both freedom and equality.
2Fascism puts a low value on both freedom and equality.
3Communism puts equality above freedom.
4Liberal capitalism puts freedom above equality.
What Figure 1.7 tells us, then, is that during the first two decades after the Second World War, Sweden changed from being a society ideologically characterized by liberal capitalism to one ideologically characterized by socialism. This period of ideological socialism was twenty years in coming, but it lasted for only a few years. Contrary to what at the time many people believed, the notorious year of 1968 did not mark a beginning, but an end. The ideological development then took another turn. Some years later, Sweden experienced an ideologically quite different period, this time of liberal capitalism, the heyday of which – the ‘moment of madness’, if you will (see above) - probably was not, or will not be, much longer than that of socialism. Although these specific developments have not yet been documented by quantitative and systematic measurements and related to data from other sectors of society, this is by no means an implausible hypothesis.
Results such as these show that basic changes in societal systems tend to take quite some time to come about. They also suggest that the results of such slow processes of change, when having reached maturity, may be rather shortlived. It is as if the innumerable processes of socialization tend to be so time-consuming as not to leave much scope for the overall outcome at the macro level to be very long-lived. It may actually be true that at the micro level the times are changing always, as so many of us believe. But at the macro level change tends to be so slow that – paradoxically – periods of stability have to become rather short, something which may contribute to the widespread but false impression that times are changing at a very quick pace.
One reason for this pattern of slow change is very probably the simple fact that some powerful agents of socialization seem to be conservative almost by definition. What socialization often means is that representatives of old generations – parents and grandparents – hand over the values and opinions of their generations to representatives of the upcoming generations, their children and grandchildren. In addition, priests, teachers and law agents are not exactly known for their high level of general innovativeness (let alone their political convictions). The most innovative agent of socialization is probably the peer group, especially peer groups composed of adolescents, leading for a short period an intermediate existence between childhood and adulthood. Two types of socialization agent tend to be rather variable with respect to their innovativeness: the work group and the mass media. In both cases, their innovative capacity is probably closely related to the culture of the surrounding society: both are more innovative in a modern society than in a traditional one.
In their capacity as socializing agents, the mass media as we know them today are unique in many ways. No other type of society has had anything comparable: an agent of socialization which takes on the following tasks:
•Acts for several hours each day of the year in virtually all homes of the society.
•Establishes the agenda of political, economic, cultural discussions.
•Offers endless flows of entertainment and information.
•In addition to indirect, ‘lived’ socialization provides also formal, educationally oriented socialization.
•Helps to conserve existing structures of power at the same time as preparing the ground for the ever-present processes of change so vital to any modern, industrial and post-industrial society (and presumably, to all postmodern ones as well – whatever may be meant by that rather elusive term of postmodernism; see Gibbins and Reimer forthcoming).
Mass media and mass communication, then, must be important to any book which discusses the interplay between culture and other societal systems in modern societies. In this volume, they are at the very focus of interest. Let's turn to a short introductory discussion of mass media structures, uses and effects.
MASS MEDIA: STRUCTURES, USES AND EFFECTS
In terms of the previous argumentation, mass media are involved in both horizontal and vertical relations between culture and other societal systems.
Part of their task is to help strike that delicate and precarious balance between change and continuity, innovation and conservation in society and its various subsystems as discussed above. While as a rule the role of the mass media is to evaluate, interpret, and disseminate innovations produced in other societal systems, some innovations are actually created within the mass media. To some extent, at least, the mass media are innovation-producing organizations.
Mass media as innovation-producing institutions
An important characteristic of innovation-producing institutions is their reward system. The reward systems may be organized according to different principles. In each system there are different types of reward: material and symbolic rewards. Both types may be granted in different, more or less institutionalized ways. It is commonplace to distinguish between reward systems based upon market standards and critical standards (Bourdieu 1971; DiMaggio and Hirsch 1976), but there is actually a whole set of such systems: patronage of different types, market, prizes, grants, subsidies, etc. (Clark and Clark 1977; Clark 1979). Crane (1976) presented and discussed a list of four different types of reward system. Rosengren (1983b) located the four different types within a typology which orders the distinctions so that they form a Guttman scale – which, incidentally, gave rise to a fifth type of reward system (see Rosengren 1988, 1990; Rosengren et al. 1991). The typology is presented in Figure 1.8.
The scale generates several interesting questions. Some such questions discussed by Crane (1976) concern, for instance, the following issues:
•The degree of continuity and variety in the innovations produced under different reward systems.
•The change from one system of reward to another.
•The relationship between type of reward system and amount of resources at the disposal of the system.
The scale might also be related to other theoretical arguments, for instance, theories of professionalization and de-professionalization in the media (Windahl and Rosengren 1978; Kepplinger and Kocher 1990). It may be related, say, to the prevalence of the four types of artist listed by Becker (1982): integrated professionals, mavericks, naive artists, and folk artists. It may be related, finally, to the type of ultimate source of money available to the system: patron, market, prizes, grants, subsidies (Clark and Clark 1977; Clark 1979). The scale may have its main value as a heuristic device for theoretical work. In empirical research it probably has to be modified in various ways. The values of the scale should be seen as ideal types, seldom or never met with in concreto. Each of the four items of the scale has to be operationalized on its own conditions and probably also conceptualized as having more than the two values of yes and no. Overall institutions such as
Figure 1.8 A Guttman scale for innovators’ reward systems (Source: Rosengren (1983b))
literature or science may well be composed of sub-institutions, the innovators of which have differential degrees of control over the reward system (see the examples given in Figure 1.8).
The dynamics in and between innovation-producing institutions is considerable. There are two main types of dynamics: changes in and of the systems. Single innovations may percolate between institutions, and such movements may go both ways. Gesunkenes Kulturgut was for a long time a key term in European ethnography. A striking and well-known example of percolation in the other direction, as it were, is Shakespeare, who – now the dramatist par excellence - originally worked in a heterocultural medium, the popular theatres of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century London. At the beginning of his career he was looked down upon by the ‘University Wits’. Regarding themselves as serving another system, semi-independent at the very least, and yet anxious not to be overshadowed by Shakespeare, they called him an ‘upstart crowe beautified with our feathers … that supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you’ (quoted from Legouis and Cazamian 1930/1957: 411).
It would not be too difficult to find parallels to this quarrel among present-day representatives of semi-independent and heterocultural reward systems such as elite art and popular culture. Far more thorough-going than such changes within the systems, of course, are the changes of the innovation-producing systems themselves. The rise and possible fall of the public service broadcasting systems is a good example of such structural change (see Chapter 2). With respect to mass media and mass communications, a basic distinction must be made between at least two pairs of different relationships between media and innovations:
1Innovations actually produced within the mass media system, vs. innovations disseminated by the media, and
2Innovations discussed and criticized by the media, vs. innovations only reported upon by the media.
Innovations produced within esoteric reward systems (such as basic science) tend to be neglected or, at best, only reported by the media. Innovations produced within independent reward systems (such as applied science) are sometimes both reported and discussed by the media, and this may be even more true for innovations produced within semi-independent systems (such as elite art and literature). Innovations produced within sub-cultural reward systems (such as jazz, or radical science) lead a precarious existence in the media: they may be completely neglected or overwhelmed by media attention. Innovations produced within heterocultural systems, finally, are the bread and butter of media organizations and media audiences.
It may be a matter of discussion, perhaps – and certainly a matter of definition – whether the media produce any innovations at all, rather than just variations of old innovations. But to the extent that they do produce innovations, their predominant type of reward system is heterocultural, characterized by the fact that people other than fellow innovators consume the innovations, allocate material rewards, allocate symbolic rewards, and set the norms for the innovations. It should be remembered, though, that traditionally the media have kept sometimes considerable portions of available space and time open to innovations produced within independent, semi-independent and sub-cultural reward systems. This is especially true for the public service mass media. It is less true, of course, for media operating on a commercial market. Actually, this may be where the typology's utility stands out most clearly.
In terms of the typology just presented, the widespread fears of imminent changes in the quality of broadcasting programming following the transition from a public service media system to a market-oriented system could be expressed as originating in a change from a media system in which programming itself (and especially some types of programmes) is being produced to a considerable extent within semi-independent or sub-cultural reward systems, to a system in which programming itself, as well as most types of its content, is produced almost exclusively within a heterocultural reward system. The standards actually used in the different reward systems show considerable variation, of course, and this variation must of necessity affect the horizontal relations between mass media and other societal institutions, and also the vertical relations in which mass media engage in their capacity as agents of socialization. In the following section we shall discuss some such relations.
Relations between mass media and other societal institutions
Horizontally, an ever-increasing portion of the relations between large societal institutions are enacted by means of mass communication. This is so not only in the sense that mass media report and reflect such relations: in many cases the relations themselves are enacted in, by and for the mass media. Although taking place at some sports stadium or other, sports events are increasingly staged primarily for the media. The Pope offers his blessings to the thousands gathering before St. Peter's in Rome, but more important may be the millions and millions around the globe who witness the event on TV. Political discussions and decisions are often presented in the media before they are given due treatment by the formal, political authorities. In some cases, negotiations having global political consequences have actually – but only partly, to be sure – been broadcast live on the screen. Such true ‘media events’ may still be few and far between, but they are probably increasing in number and importance (Dayan and Katz 1992). Their importance builds on the simple fact that what is involved is both horizontal (national or international) relations between societal institutions, and vertical relations between macro, meso and micro levels.
Vertical relations between societal institutions by means of mass communication presuppose individual media use, of course. The flow from the media into individual minds may be conceptualized in terms of time perspectives ranging from hours and days to decades and centuries. A number of well-known research traditions have focussed on different parts of this broad spectrum, as follows:
•News diffusion research: hours and days (Miller 1945; Rosengren 1987; Greenberg et al. 1993).
•Agenda setting research: weeks and months (McCombs and Shaw 1972; Shaw and Martin 1992; Rogers et al. 1993).
•Spiral of silence research: months and years (Noelle-Neumann 1980/1984, 1991; Scherer 1991).
•Cultivation research: years and decades (Gerbner 1969; Signorielli and Morgan 1990; Potter 1993).
•Research on the public sphere (Öffentlichkeit): decades and centuries (Habermas 1962/1989, 1981/1984).
Common to these five traditions is that they deal with the communicative relationship between societal structure and individual agency – more specifically a media structure (variable over time and space), and individuals (characterized by any number of attributes) interacting with that structure and with each other. Research within traditions applying a relatively long time perspective tends to stress structural characteristics; research applying a relatively short time perspective, individual characteristics.
Individual media use and the effects of that use (both types of phenomenon being affected, of course, by macro and micro conditions) represent a broad field of research having by now been systematically cultivated for at least three-quarters of a century, at an accelerating pace (Klapper 1960; Blumler and Katz 1974; Rosengren et al. 1985; Bryant and Zillman 1986; Korzenny and Ting-Toomey 1992; Swanson 1992; see also Chapter 7). We know that individual use of mass media covers a large and increasing portion of most people's daily lives, that it shows considerable variation in both quantitative and qualitative terms, and that the variation is systematically related to structural, positional and individual characteristics ranging from type of society to social position in terms of age, gender and class, to individually embraced values, opinions and attitudes. The effects of individual media use may not be especially strong, but since they are many, variegated, widespread and enduring, they must be considered important. Their importance is highlighted especially in the socialization of society's young generations.
The fact that when reaching adulthood the inhabitants of many industrial and post-industrial societies have spent more hours before the TV screen than at school has become a widely spread adage which does tell us something about the comparative strength of mass media's role in the socialization process of different societies (see, for instance, Bronfenbrenner 1970). More detailed and probing scrutiny, of course, is necessary fully to assess the role of the mass media as agents of socialization. Above all, research in the field has to be theory-driven rather than goaded by some variant of those moral panics which tend to appear at the introduction of every new mass medium or variant of mass medium (see Roe 1985).
Also, it is important not to extrapolate results gained within one society, characterized by its own variant of mass media structure, to societies with different media structures. Today, most mass communication research is located in the USA or carried out within a couple of a West European countries. Research carried out in other parts of the world – say, in Latin America and Asia, in Eastern, Northern and Southern Europe – is by no means non-existent but until fairly recently has been given less attention by the international community of scholarship and research in the field. Systematic efforts have recently been undertaken to remedy this structural deficiency, for instance by efforts to collect and systematize the incipient comparative communication research which is available (Blumler et al. 1992; Korzenny and Ting-Toomey 1992). Hopefully more will follow. In particular, comparisons between the role of mass media within different reward systems (see p. 18) should stand out as especially promising (not least with respect to the notion of diversity; see Rosengren et al. 1991; Litman 1992; Kambara 1992; Jshikawa 1994). In its way, this book tries to offer some material for future comparisons of patterns of media use in societies differentially located in geographic, socio-economical and cultural space.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
The book is divided into three parts. This introductory section has three chapters. Chapter 2 offers a bird's-eye view of Sweden and its media scene, while Chapter 3 presents the overall organization and main tenor of the research programme behind the book, the MPR
Part II of the book offers basic results about stability and change in the media use of children, adolescents and young adults during the period 1975–1990. Chapter 4, by Karl Erik Rosengren, offers some descriptive data, an overview of media use among a number of panels and cohorts of Swedish children, adolescents and young adults. In Chapter 5, Robert P. Hawkins and Suzanne Pingree offer a temporal comparison between structural patterns of media use and other activities in 1980 and 1989 among two different cohorts of children and adolescents. Drawing on longitudinal LISREL models, Ulla Johnsson-Smaragdi in Chapter 6 examines into stability and change in levels of television viewing within and between panels of children, adolescents and young adults.
Part III of the book centres on three different types of longitudinal effect of media use in childhood and adolescence. In Chapter 7, Karl Erik Rosengren, Ulla Johnsson-Smaragdi and Inga Sonesson summarize some long-term positive and negative effects of television viewing found in research carried out by different members of the MPP group and mostly published in Swedish sources not easily available to scholars outside the Swedish research community. In Chapter 8, Ulla Johnsson-Smaragdi and Annelis Jbnsson analyse the long-term effects on self-image and schooling of media use by children and adolescents raised in families living in different social surroundings and characterized by a differential pattern of communication. In Chapter 9, Keith Roe takes a long look at the relationship between media use and social mobility among children and young adults.
Part IV of the book offers three chapters on media use and lifestyle. In Chapter 10, Fredrik Miegel presents quantitative results from his studies of family communication patterns, lifestyle and media taste, while in Chapter 11 he summarizes a number of qualitative case studies representing individual variation within overarching patterns of lifestyles. In Chapter 12, Thomas (Lööv-) Johansson presents a partly new theoretical framework for understanding the lifestyle phenomenon in terms of modernity and consumer culture.
In the final part and chapter of the book, the editor looks to the future, and discusses what new tasks for research within the Media Panel Program may grow out of the rich and varied results offered in the previous chapters of the book.
Chapters 4–12 of this book may be read as independent, self-contained pieces of research about various aspects of individual media use by young people, its causes and consequences. All of them, however, build on empirical data collected within the Media Panel Program presented in Chapter 3, and all of them also presuppose some knowledge about Sweden and the Swedish media scene during the last two decades or so, which is what Chapter 2 tries to offer.
In first chapter an attempt has been made to present an overarching theoretical framework within which the results of the various chapters may be interpreted and understood.
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