As much as I managed to create a survey that will hopefully deliver good indicators for the use of media in convergent media surroundings, I am still fighting some technical problems. Once, I had my form working fairly nice. But after adding another question that makes use of arrays in PHP, it got a bit messed up.

So I am generally undergoing a shift from the objective of collecting and evaluating data to learning more about the technical points of creating an online survey with XHTML and PHP. I will therefore have to focus more on the well-structured conception of the survey, that proposes how to research media use in convergent media surroundings. The execution of the survey and the evaluation and analysis of the data will have a more exemplary character, showing how to deal with data under the aspect of media repertoires.

When I took a look at the remaining chapters of the XHTML/CSS handbook I study for another class, I found a chapter on forms. (Unfortunately, I did not have an encounter with this chapter earlier.) I read it and found myself pretty confident in working on the descriptions. I have already developed the concept of the survey and so I could try to figure out how to create forms with XHTML.

Good thing: I learned how to write a XHTML form on my own. And I am really happy I did, as it gives me much more possibilities to create surveys the way I want and I am not restricted to the options of particular programs.

Bad thing: I have some new problems with a PHP script that is indicated in the book and should send the responses to the survey back to my email account. As I have no idea of databanks and do need the data on an individual level anyway, this would be a smart thing to do. But I could not yet figure out how to make the PHP script work in my XHTML document. (The script works with the example in the book, though. Must be some little failure I made.)

Solution (hopefully): I emailed a friend of mine who has his own homepage and has a contact form implemented in it and he is willing to take a look at my problem. Because anyway, as I am running out of time, I will probably not be able to learn PHP for this survey. Even though I tend to get interested.

On the one hand, WinSurvey and GrafStat work out quite good in creating the survey itself, but I am facing some problems in uploading the created survey files to a homepage. So I posted a request for help on an online technology forum, including a call for other software if anyone knows.

On the other hand, my research approach will probably face towards an evaluation of the collected data on an individual level. Therefore, I need to make sure whether the applications I am trying to use provide this feature, i.e. whether I will be able to seperate the collected data on the component of the individual participants of the survey. Therefore, I asked for further advice on this feature on the discussion board, too.

I am looking forward to responses and will work on the more precise structure of the survey questions to serve approach of a user centered evaluation of media use.

I think that the user centered perspective in the concepts of media repertoires and communication modes are really important for future reasearch. Due to technical convergence of communication devices, there will be no way to tell what people do when they use media. The only way to get information on this seems to ask the users themselves and have them doing a description of their perception of their interactions with different kinds of media, i.e. how they combine particular media products and what they use them for.

In my opinion, this might best be done by taking a look at the media repertoires of several people and analyze each composition of media products on itself rather than on an aggregated level. Therefore, I did some research on online survey software. After reading several technical online forums, I decided to try Grafstat (that’s free for use for students) and WinSurvey (that offers a 30 days free trial version). There are still some complications in working my way through the software and uploading a created survey, but I am just at the beginning of learning how to develop online surveys. I might have to ask for help in a couple of online help boards if I do not get along with the softwares in the next days. It will also be important to see, whether the softwares provide data that is not yet aggregated, for most of the software I found included an analysis of the survey data — and in my current state of research I would favor an analysis that is based on the individual casea of each single media user.

When I talked to Chris last week, depicting my approach to him, he suggested me to work with a survey based on pdf-files that anonymous participants may fill in online and will automatically be sent to my email. I might think about this option if I am not successful with survey softwares, as it seems to offer an easier way to collect data. Nevertheless, I want to try my best in working on the survey softwares first, as learning how to operate them is really interesting to me and might also be an advantage for my future studies.

What are Media Repertoires?

According to Hasebrink (see the web page of the Hans Bredow Institute)…

• Media Repertoires are results of a large number of precise situations in which a media users make choices
• they are a compositions of many contacts with media offers
• these contacts can be made with several different kinds of media and content

What are Communication Modes?

“[I]t will become increasingly difficult to recognise from the fact that a particular technical gadget is being used just what its users are actually doing. As they use gadgets, which – to put it simply – can “do it all”, only the users themselves know, in the last analysis, what they are doing in concrete terms, that is, in what communication mode they are operating at any time.” (See the web page of the Hans Bredow Institute)

• by functional differentiation: What kind of media are seen to fulfill what kind of function best?

o Is television used for entertainment?
o Are newspapers used for information?
o Is the internet used to play games?

• by the potential for parallel use: What kind of media can be used at the same time?

o Do people watch television when they are using the internet?
o Are newspapers read while the readers listen to their radio?
o Do people read books while they have their television turned on?

• by the cross-medial conception of media products: Do people use specific media products as part of a cross-medial conception?

o Do television users search for additional information on the web page of the television broadcaster?
o Do people find relevant radio broadcasting they will use while they are on the internet?
o Are users more interested in broadcasting programmes when they may interact with the producers online?

• by the use of “old” media on new technical platforms: Do “old” media get integrated in “new” media and are distributed on new platforms?

o Do users listen to music files on the internet?
o Do people watch live-streamed television programmes on the internet?
o Do useres listen to radio programmes distributed via the internet?

• by the concurrence of time: Do the “new” media take over parts of the time the “old” media used to have in users’ media time budget?

o Do people use less television when they use more online applications?
o Are frequent online users more likely to listen to radio broadcasting for a long time?
o Do people read less newspapers as their time online increases?

During my review of literature I found that there are two terms originating in economic sciences that name the interactions between these two generations of media:

Substitution…

…is the economically motivated exchange of one commodity by another that is processed to maximize the use for the user. Substitution may be found when a new commodity has all the features of an old one and further new features, or it can be a result of two effects:

• The income effect describes the fact that the substitution of one commodity by another does not mean that the two commodities fulfill similar needs for the user, but that the user cannot purchase both commodities as long as he has only a fixed income and the prices of the commodities stay stable.
• The time effect explains that the the increasing use of one commodity has to lead to a decline in the use of the another commodity — even though the two do not necessarily have to award the same gratifications to the user — if there is only a limited time budget the user is able to spend for media use.

Complementarity…

1. …in a strict sense means that two commodities have to be used in combination to offer a specific gratification for the user. Therefore, the increasing use of one commodity has by technical necessity to lead to an increasing use of the complimentary commodity (e.g. the use of digital television broadcasting and the use of set-top-boxes are complimentary).
2. …in a broader sense can describe the phenomenon that the use of one commodity creates a need for another commodity, but the two do not necessarily have to be used in combination (e.g. the use of television creates a need for program guides but users do not necessarily need to use the two in combination).

Complementarity is sometimes also used to describe the process of differentiation in the development of two media, in that each medium on its own concentrates on its particular strengths and thereby the two media complement each other (e.g. radio and television broadcasting).

I will start with the report on Technological Development for the NRW-Medienrat, a German media control authority, that was created by Uwe Hasebrink and Bernd Beckert in 2005. When this paper comes to the use of media in changing media surroundings, it is emphasized that due to the technical convergence and increasing diversity of media devices the used device itself can no longer be a basis to define media use. Therefore, we can no longer say a person is watching television when it is in a room with a turned on television device (this is the current definition of a television user to operate TV use for quota and marketing statistics), for this person might also be able to access the internet on its television device. The same way, a person operating a computer might as well play a game, do online banking or watch a television programme online. And those are not the only possibilities that converging media can be used for, combining “traditional” media (such as television or radio broadcast) and “new” hypermedia (such as the internet infrastructure and world wide web apllications) and hence enabling people with more and more diversive kinds of media use.

That is why Hasebrink/Beckert argue for a systematic differentiation of particular communication modes, i.e. particular functions and ways of media use, to determine what users do when they use the media. They come up with three basic modes:

• reception of given contents
• interaction with a person or with groups
• transaction

These modes are thought as being not the only categories media use can be divided into, but rather offer some kind of principle distinction in media use between which there can be smooth transition.

The concept of communication modes is focused on the way that users experience their use of media — for they are the only ones that can tell about what kind of communication mode they are in using a certain media content on a certain device.

Taking a look at the role of “traditional” and “new” media Hasebrink/Beckert come to the conclusion that the first will have important functions as factors of public communication, especially as — due to their programme structure — they offer orientation and help users with selections, whereas in the online spheres there is a huge dynamic of differentiation and change. Therefore, traditional media are able to constitute cultural forums where the seperating electronic societies may assemble and discuss their social setting.

Watch a clip developed by XPLANE in partnership with The Economist that will introduce you to the changing media landscape of our time.