Co-Orientation of Media Use: Studying Selection and Influence Processes in Social Networks to Link Micro Behavior of TV and YouTube Use to Meso-Level Structures

Abstract

ABSTRACT Social interactions regarding media content are omnipresent and highlight that media use is closely linked to social life. However, surprisingly little is known about the related social dynamics and their consequences for media use and social relations. This study addresses this topic based on co-orientation theory and investigates the social dynamics of TV and YouTube use among adolescents. A three-wave panel survey among 336 pupils enables us to disentangle which effect the friendship network has on individual media use (RQ1) and which effect media use has on the development and maintenance of friendship ties (RQ2). Based on a multi-level approach of dynamic social network analysis and applying stochastic actor-oriented modeling, we find empirical evidence for processes of social influence regarding TV programs and YouTube channels. No support is found for the hypothesized social selection processes. Along with these empirical insights, the research design demonstrates how the micro-level of individual behavior can be linked with the meso-level of social groups. Furthermore, the insights can be used as a basis to understand larger-scale phenomena emerging on the macro-level of societies and media markets such as audience fragmentation and long-tail audience distributions across media contents.