Social and structural constraints on media use in incarceration

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship of social-contextual features of incarceration to inmates' uses of media resources. Previous research indicated that inmates' modal responses to the incentives and deprivations of institutional life were linked to certain types of media dependency. Analysis of the media regimens and other indexes of communicative behavior of an inmate sample at a medium-security prison provided evidence that both structural living conditions and inmates' motivational orientations to prison experience affected media use time allocations and gratifications.Although audience research has long focused on the consequences of media reception and use for families and children, other types of social collectivity where mass media may perform vital roles, such as total institutions, remain underinvestigated. This study investigated the uses of mass media by incarcerated persons with respect to their adaptations to life in a correctional institution. The uses and gratifications framework suggests that social-contextual features of incarceration are likely to affect patterns of inmate media use. These features can be conceptualized in the types of institutional career, or adaptive modes, that generally regulate inmates' behaviors over the course of institutionalization. The motives underlying media use in confinement may well arise from the needs associated with those self-selected adaptive modes. This study considered the relationships between mediated and interpersonal communication that might be expected in a total institution.

criminal involvement and media use

“…Most quantitative studies, however, conclude that there are no such (statistically signi cant) relationships: Violent perpetrators are not especially inclined towards violent media contents (Pfuhl 1977;Balon 1978;Lindlof 1986), and sexual delinquents do not display an abnormal interest in sexually explicit material (for an overview see Eysenck and Nias 1978). In-depth interviews, on the contrary, do sometimes reveal deviant interpretations of-and grati cations from-media texts: Pedophiles, for instance, apparently like to look at nonpornographic images of (nude) children (for example in children's clothing catalogues) (Howitt 1995).…”

“…By watching television, reading books, magazines, or newspapers, and listening to the radio or recorded music prisoners can soften their pains of imprisonment (e.g., feelings of boredom, monotony, isolation from society). (For an overview of speci c media functions or grati cations in prison, see Clemmer 1958;Galtung 1967;Auberson 1973;Lindlof 1986Lindlof , 1987Fabiani and Soldini 1996). Since the subjective criminal involvement can be imported as well as created or reinforced by the prison environment (where it functions as a defensive psychological reaction against stigmatization), studying its link with media use is interesting from both perspectives.…”

Uses and Gratifications Perspective of Media Effects

“…Dependency on a particular medium results from the motives we have to communicate, the strategies we use to obtain gratifications, and the restricted availability of functional alternatives. It mediates how we use the media and the potential impact of the media (e.g., Lindlof, 1986;Windahl et al, 1986).…”

Social Action Media Studies: Foundational Arguments and Common Premises

“…Behavior does not follow from content; it sets the terms for content. The conditions for any "effects" related to content will have been established long before content is ever encountered, and the ways audiences manage those conditions will reveal far more about media power than prior assumptions about content, those conditions, or audience practices (e.g., Lemish, 1985;Lindlof, 1986;Messaris & Sarett, 1981 ).…”