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Abstract
Audience research on family television viewing flourished in the 1980s and 1990s. These studies highlighted watching television as a family as a valuable family routine, structuring the rhythm of daily life and generating family harmony. Ever since, we have witnessed changes in both family structures and media structures, which have affected the ways television is consumed within the household. This begs the question whether earlier findings considering family closeness still hold up. Therefore, this study conducted a cross-sectional survey among a sample of 691 Belgian individuals, nested in 288 families. Drawing upon insights from literature on family rituals and media generations, the results of this study indicate that despite a robust prevalence of family viewing, alternative social patterns emerge coinciding with the appropriation of screen technologies beyond living room television. Further analysis reveals that deviations from family viewing are associated with lower closeness between generations. However, younger generations watching together do report higher levels of closeness with their generational counterparts.
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Notes on contributors
Cédric Courtois
Cédric Courtois (Ph.D., Ghent University) is an assistant professor at the School for Mass Communication Research at KU Leuven, Belgium. His research interests include audience research in digital media contexts.
Sara Nelissen
Sara Nelissen (M.Sc., KU Leuven) is a Ph.D. student at the School for Mass Communication Research at KU Leuven, Belgium. Her research interests include parent–child relations in media and communication research, especially focusing on television.