Media Habits, Media Generations
N&MRC Workshop
When: 10:00-16:00 Wednesday 21 November
Where: 11B56 University of Canberra
Overview
Habitual consumption plays a major role in people’s media use. Habits include regular or ritualised practices, ways of understanding the media and technology, and feelings that are attached to media. Habits are formed over time and are often understood to be different according to sociodemographic characteristics such as gender, class, region and age. This workshop problematises the concept of generational clusters determined by age and asks questions about the role of media technology.
Age has two basic dimensions – generational belonging and life stage – both of which influence the formation of habits in media use. There is a third dimension that affects both generational cohort and life stage. This extra dimension arises from the context of the media landscape and constant development of new technologies.
Each generation comes of age at a different moment in the mediatised historical process. As a result, each generation develops different media habits and makes sense of the world differently. Generations can become a social identity where people relate to others and society based on their media experiences. For example, adolescents interpret their world through the frames of Instagram, whereas their great-grandparents learned about the world listening to wireless radio. The concept of ‘generationalism’ is often used to easily explain these different social phenomena, but the phenomena themselves need to be further explained.
This workshop will identify and discuss the factors involved in the formation of media habits with a focus on news and information consumption. It will provide an opportunity to examine the significant role of the media in the formation of generational experiences and identities.
Workshop Goals
- Bring together researchers and practitioners who study and communicate to different cohorts of generations.
- Work towards a shared agenda for research and support collaborative activities.
- Identify future opportunities of collaboration, initiate and develop research themes into an edited volume of a book.
Schedule
| Time | Presentation title | Presenter/s |
|---|---|---|
| 9.00 - 9.30am | Morning Coffee | |
| 9.30 - 10.20am | PhD roundtable | |
| The nexus of audience segmentation, water conservation and millennials | Anji Perera, University of Canberra | |
| The Effects of using Snapchat on Family in Saudi Arabia | Fawzia Alosaimy, University of Canberra | |
| Parenting in the Digital Age: Anxieties, Experiences and the perceived ‘Knowledge Gap’ | Catherine Page Jeffery, University of Canberra | |
| 10.30am - 12.30pm | Industry | |
| Hard copy, credibility, and Keeping up with the Kowdashians—agricultural media insights | Annette Healy, Assistant Director, Biosecurity Plant Division, Department of Agriculture | |
| The role of exhibitions in disrupting media habits | Holly Williams and MJ Logan, Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House | |
| The evolving technology landscape and how our media consumption is changing | Bryden Campbell, Canberra Innovation Network | |
| 12.30 - 1.30pm | Lunch | |
| 1.30 - 3.30pm | Academic | |
| Generations, nostalgia and the art of keeping up with the kids | Lelia Green, Edith Cowan University | |
| Generations in Working Class Media Practices in Australia | Mark Gibson and Tony Moore, Monash University | |
| Media Habits and Boredom | Ian Buchanan, Univeristy of Wollongong | |
| Generational divide in news consumption habits | Glen Fuller, Sora Park, Caroline Fisher and Jee Young Lee, University of Canberra | |
| 3.30 - 4.00pm | Project discussion | |
Contact
Questions: glen.fuller@canberra.edu.au
Workshop Organisers
Sora Park
Glen Fuller
Caroline Fisher