When audience segmentation is twofold: differences in media consumption along race and socio-economic background at a South African University

Schieferdecker, David

doi:10.1080/23743670.2017.1291442

Cited by 7 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…But there is a more hopeful outlook, too. From the combined look on attitudes, contact, and consumption patterns, it appeared that those segments of students who were more integrated showed not only less selection bias but also a greater overlap with the average preferences of their respective outgroup (see also Schieferdecker, ; Schenk, ; Strelitz, ). This clearly warrants further attention.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bridging Segregation Via Media Exposure? Ingroup Identification, Outgroup Distance, and Low Direct Contact Reduce Outgroup Appearance in Media Repertoires

Schieferdecker

Weßler

2017

J Commun

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Researchers have started to demonstrate that media exposure to outgroups can reduce prejudice. However, in contexts of segregation a bias to select ingroup-rich media might hinder exposure and prevent those positive effects. We conducted a survey study (n = 1,095) in South Africa, a context with a notorious history of racial separation and persisting informal segregation. In accordance with the social identity gratification approach and social cognitive theory, respondents showed group-related selection biases. Respondents who identified more strongly with their ingroup, who perceived more distance towards outgroups, and who had less direct contact showed stronger biases. The findings remind us that those who would potentially benefit the most from outgroup exposure might also be those who are least likely to be exposed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bridging Segregation Via Media Exposure? Ingroup Identification, Outgroup Distance, and Low Direct Contact Reduce Outgroup Appearance in Media Repertoires

Schieferdecker

Weßler

2017

J Commun

Self Cite

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“…Journalists experience racism in newsrooms (Ndlovu, 2015) and media institutions rely on various strategies to negate these experiences (Durrheim et al, 2005). The media landscape targets specific economic, language and racial groups, and class and race mediate whether audiences access international or local media (Schieferdecker, 2017). Tabloids speak primarily to a Black working-class audience that has been neglected by the mainstream press (Steenveld and Strelitz, 2010) and has 'remained on the margins of the post-apartheid mediated public sphere' (Wasserman, 2008: 788).…”

Section: The South African Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To address these gaps, this article explores lifestyle journalists and audiences in South Africa, where inequality is high and the media target specific economic, language, and racial groups (Schieferdecker, 2017). Drawing on interviews with 22 lifestyle journalists and focus groups with 25 audience members from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, we focus on these actors' role conceptions and expectations, respectively.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aspirational lifestyle journalism: The impact of social class on producers’ and audiences’ views in the context of socio-economic inequality

Banjac

Hanusch

2020

Journalism

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A growing amount of scholarship on lifestyle journalism and role conceptions has shown its relevance in the context of consumption cultures and societal changes. However, the existing literature has tended to focus on countries with relatively prosperous economies, neglecting to explore those with greater socio-economic inequality. Likewise, scholarship has offered some insight into what audiences expect of political journalists, but we know little about expectations of lifestyle journalism. Exploring role conceptions and expectations in socio-economically unequal societies gives rise to the question: How may social class shape these? To examine this, our study draws on 22 in-depth interviews with lifestyle journalists and three focus groups with audiences from different class backgrounds in South Africa. Findings suggest that lifestyle journalists’ awareness of class disparity and the country’s history of racial segregation and oppression shapes their roles in three ways. First, journalists expressed strong support for roles typically associated with political journalism, albeit interconnected with lifestyle roles. Second, journalists acted as ‘ responsible’ cultural intermediaries, mediating the worlds of luxury and inequality. Third, journalists expressed a strong role orientation toward providing aspiration, as did audience expectations, indicating a level of congruence. Applying a Bourdieusian framework, we argue that lifestyle journalism allows audiences who live under ‘conditions of scarcity’ and who have been conceptualized as having a ‘taste of necessity’, to perform a ‘ taste of aspiration’. We suggest a need to reconceptualize scholarship’s approach to studying journalistic roles by moving beyond a politics-lifestyle binary, and to more closely examine the role of aspiration in lifestyle journalism.

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“…Audiences also mobilize their perceptions of news consumptions to symbolically distance themselves from other classes; middle-class audiences 'other' working-class audiences whom they perceive as lacking motivation, intellectual capability, and interest in news, characterizing them as news avoiders (Lindell 2020: 6). In South Africa, class impacts whether audiences access international or local media content (Schieferdecker 2017) and use consumption as a "marker of social distinction" (Bosch 2014: 908). Class can be understood as a position within the classed social space as determined by access to resources or various forms of capital (economic, cultural, symbolic, social) that affect a person's opportunities in life (Bourdieu 1984).…”

Section: How Class Race and Gender Shape Audience Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Intersectional Approach to Exploring Audience Expectations of Journalism

Banjac

2021

Digital Journalism

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Audience expectations of journalism reveal how well journalism is performing its role in society in the minds of its consumers. In an increasingly fragmented media and audience landscape, it has become more important to consider how social identity shapes audience expectations. However, scholarship has tended to examine expectations based on single identity categories (e.g., class or gender), revealing a crucial but disassembled understanding of how audiences perceive the journalism they consume. This study relies on an intersectional framework and eight focus groups to examine how class, race, and gender, as intersecting and mutually constitutive modes of power/oppression, shape audiences' expectations of journalism in South Africa. It identifies intersectional differences in audiences' expectations of solutions journalism, perceptions of journalism's unaffordability and inaccessibility, and normative evaluations of quality and popular journalism that reveal classist and racist discourses of distinction and stereotyping. The study demonstrates the importance of intersectionality as a critical framework for studying audience expectations and the extent to which they are in/excluded and rendered (in)visible to journalism's dominant ideology.

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When audience segmentation is twofold: differences in media consumption along race and socio-economic background at a South African University

Cited by 7 publications

References 19 publications

Bridging Segregation Via Media Exposure? Ingroup Identification, Outgroup Distance, and Low Direct Contact Reduce Outgroup Appearance in Media Repertoires

Bridging Segregation Via Media Exposure? Ingroup Identification, Outgroup Distance, and Low Direct Contact Reduce Outgroup Appearance in Media Repertoires

Aspirational lifestyle journalism: The impact of social class on producers’ and audiences’ views in the context of socio-economic inequality

An Intersectional Approach to Exploring Audience Expectations of Journalism

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