Media Consumption and Public Connection: Toward a Typology of the Dispersed Citizen

Abstract

This paper explores the nature and extent of citizens' connection to public space through media consumption. It reports on a study of data from two qualitative sources: panel responses and individual in-depth interviews. The authors' findings are, first, that people's media consumption and forms of public connection may be significantly constrained by limitations on their time-not just objectively, but also subjectively (their sense of lacking time to use media or pursue information). Second, such is the complexity of how people think about their public connection that research methodologies must be sensitive to the details of people's reflexivity, while enabling effective typologies of the positions people take up in thought and practice. Third, such research may reveal not a consensus, but instead a range of incompatible framings of whether public connection matters and how it can be achieved. Research should aim, therefore, not at a redefinition of something as unified as "civic culture," but rather at tracking the hetereogeneity ofthe "dispersed citizen."

Being a Young Citizen in Estonia: An Exploration of Young People’s Civic and Media Experiences

“…Besides this general reasoning, media criticism was raised in other, more concrete terms such as the over-or underrepresentation of certain groups, values and norms. These findings correspond with the results of Couldry and Langer's (2005) analysis. Their respondents also showed high degrees of dissatisfaction with the media.…”

Social Media and Local Governments

“…The communicative practices of local governments are therefore important spaces for democratic participation. Local government-run avenues for civic participation can capitalise on the fact that citizens perceive democratic involvement to primarily take place at the local level (Couldry and Langer 2005 ). The majority of everyday civic contact with government occurs locally, and citizens' increased sense of immediacy and familiarity with local issues drives political participation Shackleton 2010 ;Malina 1999 ).…”

Culture and citizenship

“…13. Couldry and Langer (2005) provide further background on the methodology of this pilot research and the context of this response.…”