Media in the Lives of Contemporary Families

Abstract

The chapter on media in family life highlights the aspects of lifestyle of contemporary families in the context of the saturation of households with modern means of communication, their usage and attitudes towards them. Considerable attention was paid to the issue of family-related media in current research, as evidenced by a wide range of studies and research surveys. This chapter is devoted to several partial aspects of this attention and is based on the data of two surveys. The first research is the European representative survey Eurobarometer 88 (Eurobarometer 2017), and the other one is our research on the Lifestyle of the Contemporary Family (further LSCF, 2012–2015). These data shows an extension of selected media facilities in families, their usage and media leisure time activities and attitudes towards media. The studied countries are in some respects very similar to each other (relatively strong media saturation of households, most common daily use of television and computers, positive perception of media as a way to facilitate communication and negotiation). In other respects (joint media activities, strength of perception of negative aspects of media, usage of media by parents and by children), the countries differ.