?I like to watch?: Analyzing a participation-and-denial phenomenon

Abstract

Perhaps no activity in contemporary culture is more marked by the co presence of high participation and high denial than is television watching. Furthermore, anecdotal evidence suggests that people with years of ad? vanced education e.g., academics engaged in human science research are more intent on denial than are less formally-educated members of the population. My colleagues invariably preface remarks on recent television programs by reminding their audience that they "rarely get to watch television, but..." In responding to others' (similarly prefaced) comments, they are apt to say "I just happened to see that too, when I flipped on the set to catch the evening news": or, "I caught part of that because the kids (or: my husband/wife, mother/father, housemates) were watching as I went through the living room"; or "You know, I almost never watch television but I thought that would be worth catching so that [one or more appropriate justifications can be inserted here]." This curious downplaying of participation stands in contrast to activities which people claim to do often, although participation studies do not substantiate those claims: engaging in active (in contrast to spectator) sports; going to church, concerts, and the theater; reading academic jour? nals, scholarly books, "serious" literature, and poetry. Readiness to "own up to" (and even over-estimate) engagement in these activities suggests a mundane consensus on their worthwhile nature, in contrast to television watching. In this paper, I use a hermeneutic phenomenological method of analysis in order to discern which aspects of the experience of watching television may be responsible for this widespread participation-and-denial phenomenon. I begin with discussion of that method, since a variety of beliefs about phenomenology and hermeneutic could interfere with under? standing the analysis I undertake here. If the "hermeneutic" part of the term is given primary attention, this method often is associated with determining meaning in written texts. If the "phenomenology" is emphasized, this