The aim of the present research is to evaluate the contextualization of the uses that young adults make of the television and the Internet with their daily lives, and the character of the complex mutual relations among them as well as the meanings ascribed to them.
Dr Mira Feuerstein
Key words: Media, Communication as Environment, Contextualization, Youth Culture and TV, Social Connections and Interactions.
Far-reaching conjectures have been heard both in the public and academic spheres regarding the end of childhood, traditional values, and authority in the era of the media. Underlying these conjectures is a lack of information about the use that youngsters make of television and the Internet, what they think about the texts they encounter, and what is the quality of the interactions and relationships that they hold with the means of communication.
Studies have shown that the media has expanded its influence on the lives of children in the wide range of behavior, the fostering of a world outlook, the idealization of youth culture in the fields of fashion, music preferences, leisure activities, styles of speech and writing, sexual prurience, and risk taking. All this in opposition to the outlook ascribed to the world of mature adulthood, life experience, accumulated knowledge and wisdom (Lamish, 2002).
In contemporary communication theory (Meyrowitz, 1993) the means of communication are perceived as environment and as a mediating culture interwoven with the daily life of the general public that plays a central role in the shaping of meaning and identity during the years of childhood and adolescence. Therefore, the aim of the present research is to evaluate the contextualization of the uses that young adults make of the television and the Internet[1] with their daily lives, and the character of the complex mutual relations among them as well as the meanings ascribed to them.
There are only a few studies that focus on the viewpoint of young adults and their use of the media (Livingstone, 2002), [2] which gives importance to this research study and its innovation in providing place for the views of youngsters in the contemporary, multi-cultural society in Israel through a broad contextual survey of the multi-media interpersonal networks in which they are involved (Ang, 1996). Therefore, from a theoretical point of view, a deepening knowledge and understanding will be given of the place occupied by the media in the processes of social change these youngsters are undergoing.
This research is based on a qualitative meta-analysis of the quality studies that were carried out by students of communication studies that focused on the viewpoints of adolescents (ages 12-18), according to the “audience research” approach. The students examined the various activities and interpretations through which youngsters from different sectors – secular, religious, Arab, Russian and Ethiopian immigrants – perceived TV and its stars and their interactions with friends on the web through programs for immediate messages (ICQ, Messenger). The data was gathered by means of personal and group interviews and a content analysis of the media texts was carried out. The supra-analysis was based on a comprehensive inductive analysis of the research data according to the ‘field-based theory’ approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990), through the presentation of the prominent patterns and themes in the world of young adults, and the ways in which they experience the media environment.
The data showed the importance of the social communication connections provided by television and the Internet, and the interpersonal networks in which youngsters are involved, in the construction of significance. Within the religious, Arab and Russian immigrant sectors, the television contents arouse intergenerational conflicts concerning traditional values and culture, thus empower the social influence of the media. In sensitive subjects (such as sex, love, and relations between friends) the television serves as a central connective agency that shapes the identity of young adults.
Immigrants from Ethiopia treat television networks with suspicion because they sharpen the gap between their cultural world and the “new” virtual world. The admiration and identification with celebrities, the use that most of the young adults make of the media, and are motivated the media stories of success that promote the values of outward appearance, publicity and materialism. The penetration of media messages into the cultural world of young adults in Israel raises questions about the regulative control over their leisure activities and the values that guide them in a changing media environment.
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[1] The research studies of Lamish & Rivik (2007) show that the Internet has become the dominant media among young adults, and Lamish (2002) grades Israeli children in a prominent position in the hours of TV viewing in comparison with other states in Europe.
[2] Studies that focus on the younger public and communication technology include: Sefto-Green (1998), Buckingham et al. (1999), Calvert (1999), van den Bergh and van den Bulk (2000), Singer and Singer (2001).