Values of German Media Users (eBook)

Merja Mahrt is a research associate at the Department of Social Sciences at Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf. Her research interests include social settings, functions and effects of mass communication.

Acknowledgements 6
Summary Values of German media users, 1986-2007 8
Sammenfatting Waarden van Duitse mediagebruikers, 1986-2007 11
Contents 15
Figures 17
Tables 18
1 Introduction 19
2 What Are Values? 23
2.1 Values and Value Change in the Social Sciences 24
2.1.1 Definitions and Operationalizations 25
2.1.2 Factors Influencing Values and Their Change 29
2.1.3 Values as Products of Socialization 34
2.2 Values in Media Content 40
2.3 Values and Media Use 41
2.3.1 Values in TV Genres and Their Audiences 46
2.3.2 External Variables: Antecedents, Moderators, or Alternative Explanations? 47
2.4 A Model of Values and Media in Socialization 50
3 Aim and Scope of the Study 55
3.1 The Country under Study: Germany 57
3.1.1 Values in Germany 57
3.1.2 Media Offerings and Use in Germany 60
3.1.3 Values on German Media 64
3.2 Central Foci of the Current Study 72
3.3 Study Design 74
3.3.1 The Surveys 74
3.3.2 Measurement 75
Values 75
Media use 75
Demographics 76
3.4 Analytic Strategy 77
3.5 What this Study Explores 77
4 Audience Values and Media Use 80
4.1 Social Values and Media Use 82
4.2 Materialist Values and Media Use 85
4.3 Summary and Discussion 88
5 Values and Media Use among the Highly Educated 94
5.1 Method and Results 94
5.2 Summary and Discussion 95
6 Values and Genre Preferences 104
6.1 Method 106
6.2 Results 107
6.3 Summary and Discussion 112
7 Channel Loyalty and Genre Preferences 114
7.1 Method 117
7.2 Results 119
7.3 Summary and Discussion 121
8 Conclusion 124
References 129
Appendix A—Codebook for Values on Television (IFEM) 141
Appendix B—Path analysis of values, genre preferencesand channel use 143