Play, pleasure and the value of newsreading

Abstract

Newsreading as play‐the pleasurable but disinterested state that an individual creates and fashions when reading a newspaper‐transcends the utility or usefulness of the newspaper. In contrast to empirical studies of audience uses and gratifications, the study of newsreading as play underscores the cultural and thus symbolic dimensions of mass communication. To fully appreciate the intrinsic value of newsreading — as opposed to the extrinsic value of the newspaper — requires a fundamental shift from a transmission view of communication to a view more compatible with ethnographic description.