Introduction:
The Media platform is a changing landscape. It has continuously evolved over the last few decades from print media to online platforms. Online media viewership has increased many-fold since the advent of easier access to the Internet and faster Internet speeds. People prefer accessing their favorite media content on the Internet since it gives them the option of watching their shows at their own choice of time. This rise in Internet usage for streaming video and audio content must have brought down the usage of one of the most frequently and widely used media platform in the past two decades: The Television. Or has it? This is the main focus of study. The Internet has played a startling role in the lifestyle of the users and according to a study, almost 60% of the people between the age of 18 and 24, watches television shows using a broadband connection (Jason Deign, 2013).
This paper aims to study the behavior of students towards watching TV. This study considers five students from America and China, and based on their preference; the study is carried. So, this study aims to decipher the television watching habits of the students group from two different countries. Because of the limitation in the number of subjects, the results of the study cannot be generalized, and it truly applies to the subjects of the study only. Our aim is to understand how much time a subject watches Television and how the other factors such as their country and other media platforms affect their television watching habits. People all around the world and especially students are adapting to the change, and it remains to be seen whether the television is still the favorite medium for accessing the media for the subjects.
The country of residence undoubtedly also affects the Television watching habits since each country’s people have their own unique habits and culture, and it would extend to Television as well. The channel which the people watch changes from one country to another as a country’s regional channels would attract more viewership in that country than the International channels. International channels such as HBO, MTV, ESPN and so on also have loyal followers among
various countries. This research also aims to find out which channel has more viewers and how it varies according to the country.
Literature Review
The article by Jason Deign highlights the way the Internet-connected devices is changing our lifestyle. In his article, he points out the fact that about 49% of the population in UK and US now watch their TV shows using their handheld devices or computers with a net connection. This figure is almost 60% when the people aged between 18 and 24 years old are considered. This fact must be taken into consideration while the players of the television industry make the decision. When most of the people start watching the shows on their handheld mobile devices, then it is very unlikely that people will wait until the show is broadcasted on the TV. The players in the television can now schedule the flexible program timing because their huge audience will be using a mobile device to access the shows at their convenience. Ferguson and Perse, researched television viewing patterns and Channel Repertoire. Channel Repertoire is the number of television channels which people choose to watch with respect to the total number of channels available. Their research was helpful in determining the reasons for which the television viewers change channels. The study was conducted through the random digit dialing where the participants were the adults living off-campus. His findings proved the fact that if, for example, there are 40 different channels which a user can receive, the television viewer views only a very small subset of the channels (Ferguson & Perse, 1993).
Rubin's research (1981) was also based on the television viewing patterns of the viewers whereas Wenner's research paper was about the influence of remote controls on the viewers watching television. Few important variables were taken from their research paper and included in the research paper of Ferguson and Perse and which in turn is included in this research also since the two variables play an important role in the research. The study of Rubin concluded that there were nine different motivations of watching TV which included time pass, companionship, arousal, and social viewing and Wenner’s study concluded that there was some degree of influence of remote control on the behavior of TV viewers.
Operational Definitions
Many researchers have conducted surveys and research in the field of TV viewership and the habit of TV viewers and they have come up with several variables to help in determining the outcome their study on the behavior of TV viewers and for better understanding. Some of these variables from the previous studies are incorporated in this research, and some of the variables related to our study were identified and build to incorporate on the study. Content Orientation, Nationality Influence, and Timing are the variables which were created by us whereas the variable like affinity and intentionality used by Ferguson and Perse in finding the results of this study.
Nationality Influenced
The nationality of the subject affects the TV viewing pattern. The subjects come from different countries and location, and their TV viewing attitude, and behavior differs. Nationality influenced habits is the part of the user activity where it is influenced by the people or the society in which they live in. It reflects the amount of people who are influenced without their knowledge to watch the regional channels and shows without being exposed to International Channels. People who are influenced by their nationality have the following characteristics - They tend to watch regional shows and channels, they watch shows in the language of their Nation for better understanding & they have little or no exposure to English shows and channels.
Timing
This variable is introduced to identify the timing zone which the people prefer to watch television. Using this variable one can identify the different times which is popular among a set of people of a region. This variable is related to another variable mentioned above which is Content Orientation. People who watch specific television shows can be seen to have the same timing patterns repeated over a period of several days or weeks or maybe even months. But the people who watch television only for the sole purpose of entertainment generally do not focus much on content. They generally watch any show which entertains them during their leisure time and hence their timing patterns may vary over a period of several days. Hence, this variable is introduced to study the time patterns in which they watch television. This is an important variable since using this we may predict the state of other variables as well.
Research Questions
The primary aim of this research was to find out how the variable nationality plays a vital role in affecting other factors like preferred channels, preferred content, and preferred timing and so on. Hence, three research questions were framed to focus on the study. For the purpose of this research the questions which were framed are:
RQ1: What is the ratio of students from one country to the students from another country who prefer watching television shows using their Internet-connected devices rather than using the television? This question is framed to understand how far the Internet era has cemented its roots in the current generation watching the TV shows around the world. The amount of people who watch the television shows on their personal computers won’t be the same in all nations and hence, a ratio is taken to compare the data from any two particular countries.
RQ2: What are the number of shows in each genre that is watched by a person? This question is framed to know more about the station preference of the students in each country. This data can be vital for advertising purposes as the advertisers can focus on the channels or stations which get more viewership among the people of the country.
RQ3: Are Content Oriented television watching habits high among the students? Again this question is framed to understand about the personal preference of the people of a country and how it varies from country to country. This data gives valuable insight into finding out the personal habits of the current generation of a country and how well they use their leisure time. This data can also be used for airing important shows during which the audience of a country are having their leisure time and are free to watch.
Method
A Survey was conducted among five students of two different nationalities. Two of the five are Chinese, and the rest are from America. The interview was conducted to understand the opinions about watching TV shows with three of the five people through telephone and for the remaining two subjects, the interview was conducted face to face. All the subjects of the survey were the students studying at YOUR UNIVERSITY NAME. The two Chinese students are a couple. The couples were approached one-to-one and asked several questions about their behavior of watching TV like the type of show, time, device, etc. The questions were a structure in the form, and the response was recorded.
The survey used two ordinal scales. To quantify the data on the type of device used, the ordinal scale was used with the scale ranging from 1 to 4 where 1 indicated Watched everything on a computer, 2- Majority on a computer, 3- Majority on a Television, 4- Everything on television). The another scale was also the ordinal scale to quantify the data on content orientation which was measured at the point of 1 to 3 (1- Wide Variation, 2- Slight Variation, 3- No Variation). The data thus collected through the interview was then analyzed. The data was collected from the same subjects for seven days, and the comparative analysis of data was done. The data in each day was compared to other days of the week to find out if there is a variation in the content, timing or device and a verdict was decided for a participant about their characteristics. Finally, the final verdicts of each participant were compared with each other to find how their nationality affects the television show viewership.
Result:
Addressing the first Research Question (RQ1), the students from China were found to have changed their TV viewing behavior. They used their mobile device for watching their favorite TV shows rather than television whereas two students from America were found to watch the shows using television as well as other devices and the final subject used only the television. The data is given below:
Figure 1: Device Measurement Scale Graph.
Depending upon the data collected on device measurement scale from five subjects, 2 of them (Subject 1 and 2) used a computer to watch most of the shows while subject 5 watched everything on TV. Subject 3 and 4 used both TV and internet device for watching the show. Above graph reflects the data from ordinal scale used for device measurement where 1 indicated Watched everything on a computer, 2- Majority on a computer, 3- Majority on a Television, 4- Everything on a television
As for the second research question (RQ2), both of the countries had almost equal followers for the sports, movies, and TV drama genre. From the data collected, it was found that the American subjects preferred to watch news and movies more as compared to that of Chinese subjects.
Figure 2: Shows watched by each viewer.
As for the third research question (RQ3), one Chinese and one American preferred content oriented show i.e. the show that is watched for purpose because the content of the show is something interesting or related to the subject or have some specific purpose of watching. While point 1 shows the wide variation in the content of the show or no content, point 3 indicates no variations in the show or the show is watched for the content in the show. So, the graph below shows that two of the subjects watched the show for the content purpose while two subjects watched the show for no specific purpose.
Figure 3: Content Orientation scale graph.
Discussion
Each survey participant was asked the questions, and the form was filled to record their response to the basic questions like ‘What time you watched a television show?’, ‘What station you watched and what program?’, ‘Which device you used to watched the show and where did you watch it?’. The answers to these questions and the observations made from these answers are given below.
The time of preference for the person was judged by the time in which they watched the show. On an average, Subject 1 watched the Television show primarily during midday at around 12 PM and during the night at around 8 PM. Subject 1 generally watched the content oriented shows as he was a regular watcher of the ESPN news noon and night editions. In addition, it was found that all of his viewings took place using a computer. He did not use television for any viewing during this study. During the weekend, Subject watched movies on YouTube. He did not watch any news programs.
Conclusion
References
Douglas A. Ferguson & Elizabeth M. Perse (1993). Media and audience influences on channel repertoire. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 37:1, 31-47, DOI:10.1080/08838159309364202
Ferguson, D. A., & Perse, E. M. (1993). Media and audience influences on channel repertoire.Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 37(1), 31-47. doi:10.1080/08838159309364202
Jason Deign (2013). How the Internet is Changing the Way We Watch Television. Retrieved from https://newsroom.cisco.com/feature-content?articleId=1119737
Rubin, A. M. (1981). An Examination of Television Viewing Motivations. Communication Research, 8(2), 141-65.
