Audience Ethnography. Commentary and observations on TV viewing Assignment

Audience Ethnography. Commentary and observations on TV viewing behaviour - Assignment Example The youngest child usually chose cartoons or adventure TV shows. Choice TV shows also differed for the males and females, with the males gravitating towards action movies and violent TV shows and the females opting for romantic movies, entertainment shows, and reality shows. The older adults were often observed watching documentaries. Common shows watched in the family included the early evening news. Watching TV news channels is generally considered a social activity for the family because most members of the family watch it even if the younger audiences sometimes may not understand it (Gauntlet and Hill, 1999). When watching the news, the parents often expressed their opinions about the news with their older children. The eight year old boy was usually not paying attention to the news and was often seen doing his homework or playing games on the tablet device. The older children sometimes shared opinions about the news, but in general, they simply agreed with their parents. At times, they expressed their sadness about the news, especially if the news involved accidents or young people like them. The watching of the news also coincided with family dinner times and the family usually watched the news while eating their dinner. After watching the news, the members of the family had different viewing preferences, but as a family, they already acknowledged that there were times when it was someone’s turn to watch something on the TV. After the news on a Monday evening, they knew that their father liked to watch Mythbusters and on a Tuesday evening, the family knew that the older children liked to watch their favourite TV series. On Saturday mornings, the family also allowed the youngest member of the family to watch cartoons. On Saturday afternoons, their father, grandfather, and middle child usually watched the replay of the Rugby match. On Saturdays at 8 pm, the family usually put on a movie from their DVD selection, one which all of them could watch. The TV viewing logs indicate that television means different things to different viewers. Some individuals value it for its entertainment value and others believe that it is an important source of information into the bigger world. As such, it is more than entertaining, and it is also informative and absorbing (Gillespie, 1998, in Gauntlett and Hill, 1998). The family enjoyed the time where they can watc h together as a family because it meant that they could interact and socialize with each other and were together even for only an hour or two in a day. They also enjoyed Saturday evenings when they could watch a movie on the DVD player because it also meant that they could share in the TV experience. The rest of the time, they knew that they all had different tastes in films and TV shows and would also be busy with their own personal concerns. Watching DVDs was a way of bringing them all together regardless of their preferences in TV shows and watch a film as a family (Wilson, 2004). It was noted that the DVD player was used regularly by the different members of the family. Some used it to fill in their free time, to entertain themselves, to watch pre-recorded shows, and to simply recall favourite shows and movies (Gauntlett and Hill, 1999). Technology has now allowed for the pre-recording of programs to watch at a