Transforming Audiences. Patterns of Individualization in Television Viewing

Abstract: TRANSFORMING AUDIENCES is an enquiry into Patterns of Individualization in Television Viewing. Central to the enquiry being performed is the linkage between television, as technological and cultural form, and television viewing behaviour as a social everyday practice. How does a raised abundance of specialized choice structures transform television viewing as a habitual, social and referential act? People Meter data 1999 to 2008 is employed to map out detailed viewing behaviours of a large panel of Swedish households on a minute-to-minute basis. This type of data is today of worldwide use as a currency on the television market for trade in advertising space. The methodological strategy is being developed to refine and induce increased social and cultural meaning to these data. This will achieve a more nuance delineation of the social, habitual and referential character of television viewing behaviour. This brings to blossom a world where individualization rules and where the common and social is shattered into increasingly unique, solitary and heterogeneous patterns of individual action and consumption.