Seebiooperite jälgimine: ajendid ja põhjendused
Date
2005
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Abstract
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The aim of this thesis - „Viewing soap operas: motives and justifications“ - was to
explain and to describe the relationship between the norms applying to media
consmption, their adoption and the actual media consumption, and their impact on
justifications and attitudes towards soap operas when speaking about one’s media
consumption practices; with regard to the information thus obtained, to bring out the
factors that have potential to inflict cognitive dissonance.
For the purpose of studying the impact of the norms mentioned above, I decided to
interview soap opera viewers. Thus, I conducted ten unstructured interviews. What is
important to note here, is the fact that unfortunately I only managed to interview only
female viewers.
As the result of analysing these ten interviews, I have come to the conclusion that the
context in which the consumption of soap operas takes place is either negative or
neutral, since in the interviewees‘ opinion only other people who watch soap operas
were showing positive attitude toward soap operas and soap opera viewing.
It is plausible that the normative context surrounding media consuption affects the way
people speak about their media consumption practices. At the same time, it is difficult
to determine whether this context is likely to affect the practices themselves, too.
Although the actual practices seem to be consonants with these norms, it is interesting
to note that, consciously or unconsciously, the soap opera viewers tend to make
difference between the soaps they are viewing (which are interesting, etc) and the soaps
the „others“ are viewing (which are, accordingly, boring, etc).
It is quite obvious that it is the case of cognitive dissonance, or, to be more precise, of
the way of coping with cognitive dissonance. The contadictory context of soap opera
viewing (the negative norms on one side and the actual practices on the other) is likely
to induce the necessity for justifying one’s media consumption practices, and that is
exactly what the interviewees do.
Keywords
H Social Sciences (General), bakalaureusetööd