Patterns of Old and New Media Use among Young People in Flanders, Germany and Sweden

Abstract

How do children and adolescents integrate the so-called `new' media, i.e computer-based media and services, as a part of their media environment? Will they displace other media? This question is analysed for three countries, Flanders, Germany and Sweden. The focus of the comparative analyses is to identify general trends in how young people deal with new media offers, rather than to describe and explain intercultural differences. First we report general findings on media availability and use of young people in the three countries. Television undoubtedly still occupies a dominant position in the lives of children and teenagers in all the countries involved. With regard to PC and television console games, availability and amount of use differ considerably, with Swedish young people being ahead of those in Flanders and Germany. Second, correlational and factor analyses lead to remarkably similar factor structures for the three factors, indicating that these correlations represent more general trends in how young people combine different media. Third, we define different patterns of media use in clustering the respondents according to their amount of use for different media. Finally, the results are discussed with regard to societal processes like individualization, globalization and economization.