Periods of upheaval and their effect on mediatized ways of life: Changes in media use in the wake of separation, new partnership, children leaving the parental home, and relocation

Abstract

Media use is always embedded in real everyday contexts, which would suggest that a profound change in everyday structure also brings about a change in the media repertoire. To explore the relationship between everyday structure and media use we present selected empirical findings from a qualitative panel study with couples on how they change their media repertoire in the wake of separation, new partnership, children leaving the parental home, and relocation. For analyzing the effects of these periods of upheaval we differentiate the mediatized ways of life into various dimensions: temporal, spatial, content-related, social, meaning-related, material, emotional, and physical. The findings tell us which changes in everyday structure bring about dynamics in the media repertoire, for example, more or less control over time (temporal), distance from family and friends (spatial), or emotional crises (emotional), and which factors are relevant for people when they renegotiate their media use within the new life situation.