The household is, perhaps, unusual in today's society in that they possess only one television set, and it does not play an important part in any member's life. The family consists of the parents (both 56 years of age), their young daughter (21-years-old), and also their grown-up son (30-years-old). Both children live away from home but were present when I carried out my direct observations over the four day period and to a lesser extent over the two years of general observations. As the children were growing up the mother made a conscious effort to restrict their use of the television and actually imposed a time-limit to their viewing. The mother has certainly been of influence upon the children in their programme choices and has made a concerted effort to 'restrict the flow of unwanted external information into the home' (Lull 1990: 42). When talking about this matter the mother explained that she wanted to encourage her children to play outside and considered television to be a 'low-status' activity for her children. Clearly, the mother holds the view that television can cause harm to the family in threatening the processes of domestic communication that occur in the home and she has made a conscious effort to avoid excessive use of the television, encouraging the family to participate in the playing of board-games and other group activities instead.
Much of the family viewing is centred upon their hobbies, and with the exception of the father there is little use of the television outside of these interests. The television is not be watched simply for the sake of it and therefore if no member of the family is specifically watching a programme then the television set will be switched off. Yet, even though the family will choose to play board-games, they do make use of the television as a means of social interaction, and much of their viewing is centred around family interests which enable all members to participate in discussion.
All members of the household have an active interest in gardening and cooking and, as a result, all the family will watch certain programmes concerned with these subjects. In the discussions every member mentioned that they watched the BBC programme Ready, Steady Cook. The programme enabled the family to come together and led to family discussion. All the household enjoyed good food and cooking and they discussed which contestant deserved to win. Although not a conventional game-show, the family, clearly, enjoyed discussing the programme in the context of a competition as well as it being a programme concerned with cookery.
The family also watch murder mysteries together. This genre has been seen to be a stereotypical male genre and as Easthope argues the detective story gives 'the masculine ego the pleasure of mastery, certainty, seeing it all clearly laid out in the end' (Easthope, !990, cited in Chandler, Television & Gender Roles). However, in this household the detective or crime drama is a genre which every family member enjoys and it has a similar role to a quiz show in that they will compete with one another in finding out who committed the crime. Whereas the 'murder mystery' has been seen to be a genre more popular with men, the household being studied do not conform to Easthope's views, and it is a genre which is enjoyed by all members of the family and, for them, performs a social function (Easthope, 1990, cited in Chandler, Television & Gender Roles). This point can be seen to illustrate Lull's ideas of 'concept-oriented' families, where children are encouraged to express ideas and a communicative environment is created when watching television programmes (Lull, 1990: 49).
The viewing of soap-operas within the household proved to be of particular interest. The daughter is an avid fan of the BBC soap Eastenders, and also watches the Australian soap operas Neighbours and Home and Away on a regular basis. Her interest in soap-operas substantiates the view that the genre is a typically female one and for her they are a means of social interaction with her friends yet her parents will not watch such programmes, seeing them to be low- status forms of entertainment. However, it is perhaps ironic that both parents when asked what they watch regularly, answered that they never missed the Welsh soap opera, Pobol y Cwm. Although in discussion they believed other soaps to be inferior viewing, both parents readily admitted to watching this soap opera. When reminded that this too was part of this supposed 'low-status' genre they both replied that they found Pobol y Cwm entertaining as it was performed through the medium of Welsh. The father, rather unstereotypically, readily admitted to enjoying the programme and said that whereas many soap operas were quite uninteresting he was able to identify with Pobol y Cwm as it was a Welsh production. The mother enjoyed the programme for its entertainment qualities, but also indicated that she watched it as a means of maintaining her use and understanding of the Welsh language. She explained that as a child she had been taught to speak Welsh but in the heavily anglicised area where they live she is denied the opportunity to speak the language and therefore the programme was an important means of maintaining it, serving an almost educational role.
The family's use of the television can be related to the issue of gender when applied to their viewing of comedies. As Morley indicates most mothers do not like to watch so called 'zany' comedies such as The Young Ones or Bottom, and this was certainly true of this household. Morley believes that mothers see this form of comedy as insulting as their main concern within the house is to maintain domestic responsibility. He argues that such comedies are in direct conflict with such maintenance and that they make domestic disorder appear amusing (Morley, 1993: 170). Certainly the mother of this household did not find such programmes amusing and openly disliked the fact that both her children hugely enjoyed this particular form of comedy. She explained that she was 'horrified' to find the complete collection of The Young Ones on video when visiting her son's house, and clearly she appeared to feel disappointed that despite her efforts as a mother to instil in her children certain moral perspectives through the restriction of television viewing, both offspring enjoyed this form of comedy.
The most notable relation to genre within the household was the father's use of the television. All the other members of the family viewed him as a dominant television viewer and saw his viewing of sport as a source of both amusement and irritation. The father regularly watches sport on television, and to the rest of the household this is seen to be watching the television for 'the sake of it'. Yet, although this is a stereotypical male programme genre the father has always been interested in all sports and as a young man played and participated in many of the sporting activities he now watches on television. For him watching sport is no different to watching gardening or cookery programmes because it is of genuine interest to him. He does substantiate the view that sport is a male genre, however, for him sports programmes do not really 'define men in relation to competition, strength and discipline'( Chandler, Television & Gender Roles).
The idea of the home being essentially a place of leisure for men, whilst remaining a 'sphere of work' for many women can be seen to be true within this household (Morley, 1993: 146). Although both parents are retired and, therefore, spend equal amounts of time at home the father does watch more television and does relax on his own to watch programmes whilst his wife believes there are better things to do. This may be due to the fact that whilst the mother occupies much of her time in the house cooking and carrying out domestic chores the father works in the garden growing vegetables or attending to their chickens and ducks. When he finishes such outdoor work he likes to 'put his feet up and watch television'. However, as the mother's chores are essentially within the house she does not feel obliged to do the same and, as she points out, 'there is always something to do around the house'. This does, perhaps, support Gray's view that 'women do not really consider themselves as having any specific leisure time at all in the home and would feel too uncomfortably guilty to 'just' sit and watch television when there always are domestic tasks to be attended to' (Morley, 1993: 147).
The family's use of television can be related to gender in that the father dominates much of the viewing and, like in many households, keeps possession of the remote control. The father unconsciously keeps possession of the device at all times when watching television even taking it with him if the telephone rings or he is called away from the television for a period of time. As Morley points out the remote control is a 'symbolic possession of the father'(Morley, 1993: 148). The daughter of the family was, however, the only member to feel any form of resentment towards the father's control of the device stating that he will often simply switch channels even if she had been watching a programme. The mother did not raise the issue of the remote control probably because the only time she watches television is with her husband. The son also failed to mention the issue perhaps because his interests in viewing were generally closer to his father's than his sister's and therefore he supported the actions of his father. The daughter found it particularly annoying when her father used the teletext service in the middle of her viewing stating: 'he will just come into the room and check the football scores or cricket without even asking, when he knows full well I'm watching something'. The daughter clearly failed to understand her father's use of the teletext service for sports updates and was confused as to why someone who spends so much time watching it then has to gain up-to- the minute reports through another medium.
The use of teletext is, however, not confined to the father's interest in sport and is used by all members of the family to some extent. Both parents are keen walkers and since their retirement they have joined a local walking club going on several excursions each week. They use the teletext service regularly to find the weather forecast in preparation for their walks and also for planning their week in general. By finding out when the weather will be fine they can plan their week in advance setting out particular days in which to go for walks or work in the garden. Teletext is also used by the family in relation to their viewing of Ready, Steady Cook as all members of the household will regularly obtain recipes from the programme which are found on the service. The daughter makes use of teletext in order to 'catch up on what has happened in the latest episodes of soap operas', and also uses it to find out the latest music charts on occasions.
The use of the video recorder with in the home is, clearly related to gender in many respects. Neither parent uses the video to watch brought or rented videos and the machine is only used to tape programmes which they may miss when they are out of the house. The daughter and son do buy videos occasionally but neither rented them and no member of the family is a member of a video rental shop. The use of the video-recorder when there are two programmes on television which clash can be seen to conform to Morley's findings. Morley found that whilst in most households the male would get to watch the programme of his choice whilst taping the other, this tradition was often relaxed when the male was unemployed whilst the woman worked, due to the fact that such men have more time to watch television (Morley, 1993: 149). It could be argued that although both parents are retired these findings can be seen to support Morley's ideas as the mother is occupied in the house whilst the father works in the garden and has more leisure time within the home. The father does have more opportunity to watch television, and this is reflected in his willingness to record the programmes he wishes to watch whilst letting other members watch the programme they wish to see.
Morley's research found that many women do not know how to use the video recorder. As he indicates this is 'an effect of their cultural formation as "ignorant" and "disinterested" in relation to machinery in general' (Morley, 1993: 158). Morley points out that like the remote control videos are the possessions of fathers, sons and to some extent young girls who have grown up with such technology, and this is certainly true regarding the family in this case-study where the use of the video would appear to relate specifically to a stereotypical belief that 'men are good at these sort of things'. Yet it must be noted that the mother has little if any use for the video and only needs to record programmes which she will watch with her husband. The daughter's use of the video was found to be particularly interesting in that she admitted to 'having to learn how to use the recorder' in order to watch the programmes which her parents saw to be 'low-status' entertainment. She felt uncomfortable watching many programmes which her parents would not enjoy and so by taping them she is able to watch them alone without receiving criticism or comment. This point can be related to Sean Cubitt's idea of 'the politics of the living room' where those we live with disrupt and influence our communication with the medium (Morley, 1993: 15).
The daughter's use of television in this respect can be related to the issue of 'solo viewing', where the most powerful members of the family clearly define what is regarded as worthwhile viewing. Her parent's views and opinions on certain television programmes obviously affect her viewing habits and they clearly have the ability to downgrade her pleasure with the medium. She says that 'by taping certain programmes I am able to watch them in peace without my parents saying they are rubbish or a waste of time'. In some respects this may be linked to the idea that women are unable to watch television attentively unless they are alone. Ang points out that 'Men... can watch television in a concentrated manner because they control the conditions to do so' (Ang, 1985, cited in Chandler, Television & Gender Roles). Certainly this would appear to be true in that the daughter feels unable to watch some programmes, but I would argue that in this household the daughter is consciously altering the conditions of her viewing so that she, like her father, may watch in such an attentive manner.
The household use of television would appear to contradict the view that men plan their viewing more than women and that they check the paper in order to schedule their viewing time. In this study the mother's limited use of the television means she has a very planned use of the medium and, most interestingly, it is only the daughter who will in fact check the paper in order to see what is on television. As a result of my discussion with the daughter of the family I found that she actually highlighted the programmes she wanted to watch in the television guide in order to establish some form of control over her father's dominance of the medium. In this respect her actions can be seen to be one of defence as she says, 'by marking in advance programmes which I intend to watch it is more difficult for my dad to justifiably come into the room and just switch channels'. Clearly, this action can be related to gender and the use of television in that she has been forced to result to what could be called 'Television tactics', in order to counteract her father's hierarchical dominance of the television set.
My findings concerning the family's watching of news programmes clearly relate to previous findings concerning gender in that the mother was more interested in local news. Whilst, like her husband, she did take an interest in the national news, she was far more concerned than her husband with local events. Morley believes that the main national news has 'no experential bearing' on the lives of women and that they have more interest in local news as they feel they need to know about it for the families sake, being of 'practical value to them in terms of domestic responsibilities'(Morley, 1993: 169). Although in this example it is unclear as to whether the mother's interest in local news is connected to this issue her interest does substantiate the general view that women are less interested in national events than local ones.
As argued the family's use of television is, perhaps, unusual for they only own one television and have been actively discouraged to watch programmes by the mother of the household. The majority of the viewing centres around the family's hobbies such as cooking and gardening, and with the exception of the father no member of the household watches television 'excessively'. However, despite the mother's concerns that her children should not watch too much television, the family's viewing of 'murder mysteries' illustrates the use of the television set as a means of social interaction and can be related to Lull's ideas of 'concept-oriented' families.
The family's use of the television can in some ways be related to gender, particularly concerning the father's viewing habits and the watching of news programmes. The father was clearly the dominant viewer in the household and conformed to the stereotypical view that men watch sport on television. My observations also supported Morley's findings regarding the male dominance of the remote control and the video-recorder, and I would argue that despite the fact that both parents are retired, the father's actions concerning the recording of programmes when two members of the household wish to watch different programmes can be related to Morley's ideas concerning unemployed men. The father, clearly, felt he had more time to watch television than any other member of the household, and was therefore willing to let the other members watch a programme whilst he recorded what he wanted to watch.
The mother clearly felt uncomfortable watching television, and regarded the home as a 'sphere of work', whilst it could be said that because the father worked in his garden he regarded the home as a place of leisure.
The mother of the family can also be stereotypical of her gender in her dislike of so called 'zany' comedies, and again these findings support Morley's ideas concerning gender and the use of television.
However, the daughter's extreme measures in planning her viewing contradict Morley's findings, and do not conform to the belief that men plan their viewing more than women. Her actions were the most interesting of all the findings in this case-study and can clearly be related to gender as her actions were a means of preventing her father from dominating the television set.
April 1997
