Understanding television practices in a digital home ecology

Television is still in the middle of a digitisation process, leading to new affordances and possible new viewing practices. The digitalisation of the TV-signal does not only offer better quality of sound and picture, but also enables different new services such as on-demand viewing, interactivity and e-mail services via television. At the same time, we are experiencing a convergence in which other screens in the home (e.g. computer screen, mobile screen) are used to watch video content as well. The Internet provides us with different options to stream or download short as well as long clips (series, movies) and the production of video content is no longer the sole terrain of professionals, as user generated content is becoming more and more popular (Oppenheimer, 2007). Tablet PCs such as the ipad are recently being used to create a "second screen experience", in which viewers can interact with the offered television content and with other viewers.

Since long, television had a central place in the living room, and viewing practices and habits were considered rather stable. Television was used merely for entertainment purposes, viewers liked to lean-back and relax and watching television was also a social activity, enjoyed by family members together. The computer on the other hand was used mainly for information purposes and in a typical lean-forward manner. In this research, we investigate TV practices in a digital home ecology. Our aim is to understand the practices and experiences as well as the motivations and sense making of TV viewers regarding their video usage in-the-home .

In concrete we will focus on the following research questions:
- What is the meaning of TV, PC and mobile devices as platforms to watch video content?
o Which devices are used to watch what types of content? Why?
o Is there a clear preference for one screen?
- Which viewing practices can we identify concerning video-in-the-home?
o Is there indeed a shift from social to individual viewing?
o Is tv-usage evolving from passive to interactive?

This paper is based on a PhD research on the domestication of interactive digital television (Van den Broeck, W., 2010). The theoretical part of this paper is largely based on the domestication theory and more in concrete in the consumption process as described by Silverstone and Haddon (1996). We also focus on the concrete practices of households in everyday life, following Hand, Shove and Southerton (2005) vision about practices as recognisable entities that at the same time require constant and active reproduction. The empirical part of this paper discusses longitudinal qualitative research with 38 households on their TV-viewing and video-usage practices.