Panel Report: Everyday Audiences

© Jakub Plíhal

Chair: Boguslava Dobek-Ostrowska, University of Wroclaw, Poland



Speakers
Kateřina Gillárová, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic
Juliana Doretto, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal, Universidade de Sã Paulo, Brazil
Tereza Slatkovská, František Kalvas, University of West Bohemia, Czech Republic
Uroš Piternič, Mirna Macur, School of Advanced Social Studies in Nova Gorica, Slovenia
Daniela Hartmann, Christian Schäfer, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz , Germany

Kateřina Gilliárová presented her thesis which deals with usage of information and communication technologies (ICT) by young people. She used two peer groups for her longitudinal study – one from Prague and the other from Liberec. What did she foung out?“They always find time to do what they want to do, regardless of what they should be doing.” Teenagers use ICT to communicate to each other, to spend free time and also whenever they are bored, of just feel like using it. “They can control what they do there, unlike when they watch TV with their family for example,” pointed out Gilliárová. 

© Jakub Plíhal

Juliana Doretto is PhD student who lives in Prague. Her PhD research is being done in Portugal, but originaly comes from Brazil. She asks: "How do we fit Internet into our lives?" Her concentration lies on children and internet usage. “Internet comes from Mars? No, our society made it, created it. Everything interact – Internet with society, politics and other facilities.” Children are very influenced by Internet nowadays – therefore are there new studies – new sociology of childhood. Children are now at home more than before. "They have their own computers, self phones – this changes everything. Children have more power? Yes and no." New sociology of childhood deals with this. Chidren are according to Doretto  important target for marketing, for companies – more than ever before. Children without Internet acess at home also want to participate – lack of technology doesn’t mean that it doesn’t play major role. "Regulation is important here – children’s power must be effectivated. Is it censonship? From adults point of view yes. But we must pay attention to what can cause harm to children – find out what causes damage and make further research how to deal with it," concluded Doretto. 

© Jakub Plíhal

Fear of crime among elderly people presented František Kalvas. He and his colleague made a research which had 76 respondents, both living in their own homes and homes for the elderly (which was importat distinction in their point of view). Other variables were frequency of watching tv news and crime series. "Results showed that biggest fear have elderly who live in their own home, frequently watch tv news and also watch crime series." Proposal of further rearch includes bigger sample and better data sets. 

Does Internet influences values of young Slovenians or vice versa? Is Internet value setter? Mirna Macur gave quick answer: "No correlation showed up. Or to be more precise, none of them were strong." But she gave us some conclusions - young people spend lot of time on the internet. Time spend there doesn't depend on age, sex or education - in depends only on status. Students spend more time on the Internet than those who have full time job. Those who live in big and smaller cities are also bigger users than those from villages and countryside. "Therefoe there seems to be the correlation of lack of free time and smaller amount of time spend online." 

© Jakub Plíhal

Interesting thing was introduced by Daniela Hartmann and Christian Schäfer. Book trailers are connection between books and movies. "Instead of just making book blurbs, you make a movie trailer for book. They exist from 2000, but not many people know about them," they introduced the topic. They made online experiment with 188 respondents. They saw cover of the book and then the trailer. The conclusion is that people who read books frequently haven’t seen more book trailers than people who read less. Also trailers caused different expectations than blurbs. More excitement, expectations. Trailer increased the interest in reading the book.