Strategies of media use - inner structure, measurement and social-structural distribution

• Applicants: Dr. Felix Frey; Professor Dr. Benjamin Krämer
• Subject Area: Communication Sciences
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 508280923

The way people use the media is both relevant in its own right and as a mediator and moderator of effects of media use. Existing theoretical concepts and empirical findings are, however, largely fragmented and shattered across different fields of research (e.g., reception research in media psychology, research on media appropriation in the tradition of cultural studies, praxeological perspectives etc.) and leave systematic gaps. The theoretical framework of strategies of media use describes media use broadly as strategic practice that is related to different spatiotemporal arrangements, outward regularities, and inner attitudes, that draws on different resources and that is thus connected to social structure. Thus, the approach combines and complements previous descriptions of the “how” of media use, i.e., the styles, modes or modalities, or repertoires, into a holistic and coherent analytical tool.The aim of this project is to conduct a theory-driven, systematic, and step-wise research program on strategies of media use that is, however, sufficiently open as to allow for additions to, and modifications of the theoretical framework.To this end, beginning with a study based on qualitative interviews and one based on qualitative diaries, differentiated introspective accounts of episodes of media use will be collected to openly capture elements of strategies of media use. On this basis, standardized instruments of data collection will be developed that will be validated in further studies by comparison with automated recordings, physiological measurements and mental chronometry. These studies will cover both (more) receptive types of media use (e.g., reception of news) and (more) active and productive types (e.g., writing online posts and comments), and different types of media reaching from printed and online news articles, audiovisual content and streaming platforms, to social media. Finally, the overall structure of strategies of media use and their distribution across different social groups and conditions of life as well as their selection in different specific situations of media use will be analyzed by means of standardized surveys.The results may then inform further research on the determinants and consequences of media—in all cases where it matters what resources people bring into media use, what critical and distanced or open and involved attitudes they take. This concerns analysis on the effects of, e.g., health, environmental, or political communication as a function of the selected strategies of use, or studies on the process and outcomes of online discussions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants