Belaunaldien telebistarekiko aisiazko harremanakBizkaiko lau adin-talderen kasu azterketa

Abstract

ABSTRACT Television is an everyday reality for millions of people, and arguably one of the most important factors influencing media-related leisure at the beginning of the 21st century. Aware of its centrality in everyday life, the thesis titled ¿Televisual leisure relationships of generations: a case study of four age-groups in Biscay¿ provides a qualitative exploration of the relationship with television of nine focus groups and six in-depth interviews organised in four age groups (Youngs, Adults 1, Adults 2 and Elder) and a model for its interpretation from the humanist leisure perspective. Bridging the gap between Leisure Studies and Audience Research is fundamental and fertile in its possibilities, especially as media inserted in a changing media ecosystem become increasingly significant in defining leisure in contemporary societies, opening new challenges that can and must be addressed jointly. A qualitative approach is proposed to overcome the fact that Audience Studies of television have largely focused on the quantitative analysis of media consumption, while research practices traditionally associated with Leisure Studies such as time budgets have tended to measure observable activities overlooking the meanings given to and taken from those same practices. It is argued that adapting the concept of leisure experience to the field of TV audiences is key for a better understanding of the present and future forms of television, and a new model for audience analysis is hereby proposed that blends the polysemic status of leisure and television in a transforming media ecosystem. The detailed and systematic analysis and codification of the participants¿ discourse provides the ground for a conceptual comparison between age-groups and for building a general interpretative framework of televisual leisure relations with television. Significant differences are confirmed between the different age-groups, as well as important parallelism between people belonging to the same age-cohort. Based on these similarities and dissimilarities and on the account of generations received from the participants, a leisure ontology of television is proposed. It is concluded that television is an intergenerational leisure artefact, formed for and from leisure, and that generational belonging and differentiation play a significant part in framing the everyday reality of television. Key words: Television, Leisure Studies, Audience Research, experience, media ecosystem.