Conferences

It is examined whether preferences of persons and public control of the media determine informational rather than entertainment media use in European countries. Informational rather than entertainment media use is conceived of as two choices: newspapers rather than television, and political rather than other contents. Five dependent variables are constructed: (1) time devoted to television as percentage of the time devoted to television and newspapers; (2) time devoted to television; (3) time devoted to political contents as percentage of the time devoted to television; (4) time devoted to newspapers; (5) time devoted to political contents as percentage of the time devoted to newspapers. Of these, (1) and (2) indicate an entertainment media use; (3), (4), and (5) indicate an informational media use. On the person level, the hypotheses that preferences for information increase, and preferences for entertainment decrease, informational media use, if resources are controlled for, are tested. On the country level, the hypotheses that public control increases informational media use, even if media supply and wealth are controlled for, and that public control increases the effects of preferences for information as well as for entertainment on media use, are tested. Data are 69 samples from 29 countries of the European Social Survey 2002, 2004, and 2006.

On the person level, preferences for information increase, but preferences for entertainment do not decrease, informational media use. On the country level, the times devoted to political contents in each medium, (3) and (5), differ only marginally between countries. Therefore, only the (1) television time as a percentage of the time devoted to both media and the absolute times devoted to each of the two media, (2) and (4), are analyzed. A stronger public control does increase the informational media use in many tests, and strengthen the positive impact of preferences for information on the informational media use in even more tests. But the supply of newspaper increases informational, and decreases entertainment, media use as well.