New publications from the MeCIn-project

This autumn Brita Ytre-Arne, Hallvard Moe and Torgeir Uberg Nærland have published two articles from the research project Media, Culture and Public Connection: Freedom of Information in “the Age of Big Data” (MeCIn).

Media use in periods of change

Associate professor Brita Ytre-Arne has studied how changing life situations affect media use. A key finding indicates that smartphone use appears to be intimately connected with the physical, cognitive and emotional processes of dealing with reorientations in the context of everyday life.

The article «Media use in changing everyday life: How biographical disruption could destabilize media repertoires and public connection» is published in European Journal of Communication. 

Read the article here.

Abstract

This article analyses how changing life situations affect media use, conceptualized as a question of how biographical disruption could destabilize media repertoires and public connection. To answer this question, the analysis draws on qualitative data from a comprehensive study of media use in Norway, with in-depth interviews and media diaries. The theoretical approach joins domestication and media repertoire theory with research on public connection, considering the ubiquity of digital media in contemporary society. Findings indicate that smartphone use is key to people’s reorientations in periods of change, and that intimate and emotional responses to mobile media warrant closer attention. The article contributes to debates on the transformation of media repertoires, a question of growing concern within research on cross-media use, and to long-standing interests in the role of media in everyday life and as central to public connection.

Trump’s election win: Sense-making processes of news audiences

Together with professor Hallvard Moe and postdoctoral fellow Torgeir Uberg Nærland, Brita Ytre-Arne has also written the article «Between ritual and information: Three phases of Norwegian news audiences’ sense-making of the election of Donald Trump».

News is an important way for citizens to learn about the social and political world, something that is typically highlighted during political events such as elections. How do people make sense of such events? In this article, Moe, Ytre-Arne and Nærland explore how news and journalism matter when news audiences are faced with destabilizing global events by studying Trump’s 2016 election win.

The article is published in Journalism. Read the full article here.

Abstract

This article investigates sense-making processes of news audiences when faced with destabilizing global events. The destabilizing event is Trump’s 2016 election win, which we study from the perspective of audiences far removed: in the Nordic region. Asking how we can understand shifts in the balance between the informational and ritual aspects of news over time, we study how journalism matters when ordinary practices are suddenly uprooted, and in the gradual return to everyday life. Based on the analysis of extensive qualitative material, we formulate three successive phases of Norwegian news audiences’ reactions to the election: annoying circus far away, world-shattering shock and regained stability. We underline not only shared experiences but also nuances which we link to differences in media use routines, levels of interests in news as well as resources for the sense-making of politics. Our findings contribute to the scrutiny of news use in everyday life and at times of political upheaval, and add an audience perspective to research on Trump and the media.