European Sociological Review

VOLUME 22

NUMBER 4

SEPTEMBER 2006

397411

397

DOI:10.1093/esr/jcl004, available online at www.esr.oxfordjournals.org

Online publication 28 April 2006

Jordi Lpez-Sintas and Ercilia Garca-lvarez

The heterogeneous behaviour of Spanish audio-visual audiences could be encapsulated
into five classes: (1) television fans, (2) occasional film-goers, (3) light film-goers, (4) film
fans, and (5) audio-visual fans. When the five clusters of audio-visual consumers were
analysed according to a set of sociocultural indicators, they appeared ordered as listed
above, from downscale to upscale audiences, giving support to Bourdieus homology
thesis. Accordingly, the media orientations of each type of audience also differed: upscale
audiences used the media for tension release (entertainment) and for integrative-status
purposes and downscale audiences, for integrative-social and cognitive reasons (education
and information). All in all, the results suggest that the five clusters of audio-visual
consumption found reflected the objective divisions in the class structure that the
sociology of culture proposes.

Introduction
In the late 1950s, Katz (1959) suggested a move towards
viewing mass communication as something sought by
people (active audience) instead of the usual focus on
the consumption of media and the production of effects
(passive audience). Although many media studies have
been conducted following this research strategy, most
pieces of research have focused their attention on only
one communication channel (one audio-visual medium
or device): childrens use of video cassette recorder
(VCR) (Cohen et al., 1988), CD-ROM ownership and
Internet capability in providing gratifications (Perse and
Dunn, 1998), changing patterns of television consumption (Robinson, 1981), gratifications sought through
television consumption (Becker, 1979; Lee and Lee,

1995), television consumption as a psychological escapism (Henning and Vorderer, 2001), clusters of media
that explain the gratification sought by audiences (van
Rees and van Eijck, 2003), types of readers and television-viewing behaviour (van Eijck and van Rees, 2000),
the role of newspapers in the mass media system
(Weibull, 1992). The main drawback of using the gratifications strategy for audience research is that it is a
research approach rather than a theoretical framework
(Elliot, 1974). Consequently, the results are difficult to
interpret and correlate for the purpose of advancing our
understanding of the subject.
In contrast with earlier research, our analysis also
includes audio-visual research by looking at consumers
audio-visual use (cinema, VCR userentals and purchases, television-viewing behaviour), degree of use

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Patterns of Audio-Visual
Consumption: The Reflection
of Objective Divisions in Class
Structure

398

LPEZ-SINTAS AND GARCA-LVAREZ

Literature Review
Audio-Visual Audience Research and the
Sociology of Culture
Central to the uses and gratifications research strategy in
audience research is the concept of an active audience.
The concept of an active audience suggests (1) differential patterns of audio-visual exposure (Katz, 1959) and
(2) that audience appropriate the content of audiovisual communication by actively organizing and interpreting meaning while in the process of perception
(Swanson, 1979). This research strategy views people as
active communicators who are aware of their communication goals, evaluate different communication channels, and select the channels they believe will gratify their

needs (Katz et al., 1974; Katz, 1979). Owing to the fact

that the findings about the gratifications sought and the
types of television program viewing suggest that audiences are selective and ritualistic as well, many researchers have criticized the concept of selective audience
(Greenberg, 1974; Lee and Lee, 1995). This fact, according to Bradley (2002), may be the most controversial
aspect of the uses and gratifications approach.
In fact, in his review of the problems scholars faced
conducting empirical research on the gratifications that
audiences seek from the media, Becker (1979) revised a
set of findings about the gratifications sought by looking
for a pattern of similarities. He researched different
media (television and newspapers) and diverse content
(political and general focus content), finding that
although gratifications are not entirely consistent across
studies (see also the findings of Greenberg, 1974; Katz,
1979; Rubin, 1984; Cohen et al., 1988; Finn and Gorr,
1988; Swanson, 1992; Lee and Lee, 1995), they do not
seem to be media-specific. In fact, the evidence that
Becker presents suggests that people seeking a specific
gratification from one medium will seek it from another
as well, if they perceive that both media can provide it,
although probably to differing degrees.
Because of these apparently shocking findings, several
authors (Elliot, 1974; Becker, 1979; Swanson, 1979) have
proposed that if the measurement of gratifications
causes so many research problems, and they are the result of social and psychological factors, then it would be
wise to declare needs redundant and to go back to social
and psychological factors as direct explanations of
behavior (Elliot, 1974: 255). Even Swanson (1979) also
sees a contradiction between the study of meanings and
the proposition that social roles and psychological dispositions constrain individuals to attribute certain
classes of meaning to certain kinds of mediated messages
(Katz, 1979). Nevertheless, because media use can be
considered a cultural practice, we propose that all these
contradictions could be solved by grounding media
research on the theoretical developments of the sociology of culture, especially on the theory of habitus.
According to this theoretical framework, media use
and orientation is not objectively determined, nor is it
the outcome of free will, but rather the result of the
dialectical relationship between action and structure
(Bourdieu, 1989: 3; Ritzer, 1992: 437), between the way
people construct social reality and the social structure
that constrains them. The outcome of this dialectical
discourse is the habitus: the mental or cognitive structures through which people deal with the social world.
In fact, we can think of habitus as internalized,

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(from low to high frequency), sociocultural indicators,

and media orientation (the gratifications sought by
consumers) and anchors our analysis in the sociology of
culture. That is, we not only focus our interest on audiences patterns of media use but also analyse the indicators of audiences position in the social structure
associated with those patterns of consumption and the
indicators of consumers media orientation as welli.e.
the media-related schemes in the mind of media users
that explain why audiences prefer to be exposed to a particular kind of television program or video cassette when
renting or purchasing.
Our findings suggest that the five clusters of audiovisual consumption found reflected the objective divisions
in class structure that the sociology of culture proposes,
i.e. Bourdieus homology thesis. Nevertheless, instead of
finding a contrasting and univorous patterns of behaviour, the results suggested that upscale consumers are
omnivorous, and the younger the more omnivorous
they are. This suggests that there could be a generational
path in consumption: older upscale consumers were
more exposed to cinema than younger upscale consumers, and vice versa as far as the use of video and television
sets. Even though we cannot say to what extent the distinction and omnivorous effects were working simultaneously, we can infer that social standing was being
symbolized through a high frequency of consumption of
classical audio-visual channels (cinema) and the most
popular television and VCR sets as well. The theoretical
background of these findings is offered in the next section, followed by a description of the methodological
aspects, presentation of the results, and discussion of the
main findings and implications. We close the article
with our main conclusions.

PATTERNS OF AUDIO-VISUAL CONSUMPTION 399

and, another, different one for downscale audiences),

then media uses are structured in a similar way to society
(the homology thesis), i.e. consumption symbolizes
status (the distinction effect) through different but
univorous patterns of consumption. Nevertheless, the
distinction effect has been challenged in research conducted in diverse symbolic spaces (see Peterson, 2005,
for a review of findings about the omnivorous effect in a
comparative framework).
According to Bourdieu, social hierarchy is translated
into, and misrecognized as, cultural symbols and lifestyles inherent in individuals through the mediating
structure of habitus (1984). Nevertheless, DiMaggio
(1987: 444) and Douglas and Isherwood (1996: 5256)
have proposed that the variety of cultural products is a
function of his or her socioeconomic status (SES).
Therefore, although the upper class clearly has more
knowledge of, and participates more frequently in, high
culture, research has too consistently shown that its
members participate in the popular culture as well, and
often at levels equivalent to or higher than the lower
classes (Peterson and Simkus, 1992; Peterson and Kern,
1996). Social class status, then, is gained not only by
consuming prestigious forms of art, DiMaggio proposes,
but also by showing off ones cultural knowledge in a
wide variety of genres. Contrary to the distinction effect,
the omnivorous effect proposes that all consumers (or at
least one group of consumers) consume everything but
at different levels (higher for upscale consumers).

Media Uses and Their Association to Social

Class and Social Position
Most pieces of research have focused their attention on
television use or the relationship between television
usage and other cultural practices. Attempts to explain
television-viewing levels have led to several conclusions.
It seems that the main relationship found so far is
between viewing level and social class indicators: formal
education and income (the less the formal education
and income, the higher the total viewing amount; see
Robinson, 1981). However, in a study done by Robinson
(1981) of the 1975 survey, the relationship between education and television-viewing levels was not linear: middle education and income brackets showed heavier
viewing habits than downscale audiences. Age, a generational indicator, is also related to television-viewing levels (the older, the higher the total viewing amount; see
Henning and Vorderer, 2001).
Temporal comparisons have reported that married
people had a greater increase in television-viewing

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embodied social structures (Bourdieu, 1984: 468).

They reflect objective divisions in the class structure,
such as age group, gender, and social classes (Ritzer,
1992: 438).
The habitus is acquired as a result of long-term occupation of a position within the social world: it is an
internalized structure that constrains thought and
choice of action, but it does not determine action. Thus,
habitus varies depending on the nature of ones position
in the class structure, and this throws light on the confusion about whether the gratifications sought were a psychological construct of a structural one (Elliot, 1974:
255; Swanson, 1979: 41). Or as Katz (1979: 7677) puts
it, although the social and psychological situation may
be externally constrained, the resultant web of roles and
orientations, and the motives arising there from, is the
individual (emphasis in the original). If an individual
striving for mobility finds the culture of the upper middle class helpful in climbing in the social ladder, then
Katz says that shall we say that he is externally compelled to listen? (see also the findings of DiMaggio and
Useem, 1978; DiMaggio, 1982).
As a consequence, the principal cause of variation in
habitus (dispositions, taste) is the position in social
space: cultural practices are related to the position in
social space through habitus, taste (Bourdieu, 1989: 19).
Social space is presented itself in the form of agents
endowed with different properties that are systematically
linked among themselves. When properly perceived,
these properties function as signs: differences function as
distinctive signs and signs of distinction, positive or negative, and this happens outside of any intention of distinction (emphasis in the original; Bourdieu, 1989: 20).
In this research, we make the distinction between
audiences social class and audiences position in the
social structure. The former is indicated by the levels and
types of capital, as suggested by the sociology of culture
(DiMaggio and Useem, 1978; Bourdieu, 1984), whereas
the latter includes other audiences cultural categories as
well. To judge the symbolic properties of media uses, we
ought to search for audiences patterns of media consumption and see how they relate to consumers social
class and position (van Rees et al., 1999). Only then will
we be able to evaluate how consumers use the symbolic
properties of media uses.
From the literature already reviewed, we can infer that
media audiences will make a different use (a set of
homogeneous clusters) of audio-visual channels according to their position in social space. When clusters of
users (homogeneity thesis) are associated with the audiences social class (one pattern of use for upscale audiences

400

LPEZ-SINTAS AND GARCA-LVAREZ

(omnivores almost as educated as information readers);

(4) information readers were the class least televisionminded; and (5) omnivores in 1975 resemble Bourdieus
autodidacts (1984), whereas in 1995 they are highly educated readers with a broad orientation towards their
media consumption (van Eijck and van Rees, 2000: 605).

Media Gratifications and Audiences Social

Class and Position
Cohen et al. (1988) analysed the gratifications associated
with home VCR use among Israeli school children, finding that although VCR use was high (jointly with television, cinema, books, papers, radio, and records), it had
not achieved any special priority in its perceived utility
to gratify various needs. Furthermore, these authors
found that the space of audio-visual channels could be
divided into four groups: (1) books, (2) newspapers,
(3) radio and television, and (4) cinema, records, tapes,
and VCRs, suggesting that the VCR had a high degree of
interchangeability with the other three media, supporting Beckers (1979) findings.
In a study applied to the perspective on the uses and
gratifications of home computers, especially to explore
how CD-ROM ownership and Internet capability were
linked to computer utility, Perse and Dunn (1998) discovered that users found modest utility in home computers for entertainment, for escape, for habit, and to
pass the time. In particular, CD-ROM ownership was
linked to learning and escape utility. Higher levels of
connectivity were reflected in using computers for entertainment and to pass the time. Unfortunately, these
authors did not relate media uses and gratifications to
the audiences position in the social structure.
van Rees and van Eijck (2003) have recently
researched the latent factors that relate different media
devices (specifically 19 kinds of media) in the Dutch
population. They found eight factors that accounted for
52 per cent of the sample variation: (1) regional and
local information, (2) serious information, (3) popular
national information, (4) womens magazines, (5) commercial radio and television, (6) hobbies and serious use
of Internet, (7) recreational use of Internet, and (8) fiction readers and viewers. After relating this findings to a
set of cultural indicators, they found that social class
indicators were almost never related to the eight factors,
casting doubts on the distinction effect (only cultural
status was negatively related to commercial radio and
television; economic status, positively related to hobbies
and serious use of Internet; and education, positively
related to fiction readers and viewers and serious

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amount than unmarried people, particularly when individuals were divorced, although parents showed smaller
viewing increases than people without children. Some
of the increased time devoted to television viewing
observed between 1965 and 1975 in the United States
(43 minutes) appears to have come from time previously
spent in obligatory activities (Robinson, 1981: 126).
Interestingly, as time goes by, television viewing shows a
weaker negative relationship with social class indicators
and highbrow cultural activities.
Henning and Vorderer (2001) tried to explain the
amount of television viewing through the concept of
dislike of thinking. They gathered a sample of homogeneous viewers (students) and tested a causal model. To
their surprise, only 22 per cent of the individual differences are explained with only six variables: need for cognition (negative relationship with total amount of
viewing hours), gender (men show a greater amount of
viewing, with almost the larger predictive power), socialization (parental viewing amount, positive relationship),
opportunities to see (work quota, negative relationship),
sharing an apartment (negative relationship), and personal television set (positive relationship).
van Eijck and van Rees (2000) analysed the changing
patterns of reading among the Dutch population and
how these patterns were related to television-viewing
behaviour and to a set of sociodemographic indicators.
They classified a group of newspapers and magazines
according to their content (serious information, light
entertainment, or a mixture of both) and then looked
for types of readers according to their reading behaviour. They found five patterns of reading in 1975 and
1995 as well: (1) entertainment readers, (2) information
readers, (3) regional readers, (4) non-readers, and
(5) omnivorous readers. Although their data show a
great deal of stability in structure, size of reader types
and reading probability did differ. The most outstanding
difference was the sizeable decrease in entertainment
readers and the increase observed in omnivorous readers
(Weibull, 1992, suggests that audiences need for orientation and information is one of the causes of Swedes
regular newspaper reading habit). When classes of readers were related to sociodemographic indicators and
television-viewing behaviour, they brought to light some
interesting findings for this research: (1) fewer differences were observed between the reading behaviour of
men and women; (2) information readers and omnivores were older, and the remaining reader classes were
younger; (3) information readers were less educated (in
comparison with 1975, although still the most educated
group), but the remaining classes were more educated

PATTERNS OF AUDIO-VISUAL CONSUMPTION 401

information and negatively to popular national

information and commercial radio and television). The
greatest association, however, was again shown to be age.

Research Design
Nearly all research conducted until now that claim support for or cast doubts on the distinction effect has used
binary indicators of consumption and then either clustered a set of media or clustered audiences patterns of
media use. Both uses are inaccurate as the former has
forgotten that the distinction effect was formulated as
patterns of consumption and the latter has blurred the
fact that the omnivorous effect states that all consumers
consume everything but at different levels, a phenomenon that cannot be captured by binary indicators. To
solve these shortcomings, we took into account not only
the breadth of audio-visual use but also the level of use
and proposed to answer the following questions:
1. Are there homogeneous patterns of media use
among Spanish audiences?
2. If the answer to the previous questions is affirmative, then are they structured in the same way that
society is ordered? That is, do data give support to
the homology thesis?
3. If there are homogeneous patterns of media use,
then do they differ according to the media content
they are exposed to?

Sample
Data were obtained from the Habits of Cultural Consumption survey requested by the Sociedad General de
Autores Espaoles (SGAE) in 1998. The survey conducted home interviews of over 9,000 individuals of
either sex, 14 years of age or older, living in Spain. The
survey launched three waves of about 3,000 interviewees
each, comprising a representative random sample, stratified by autonomous regions and municipalities according to size. Further technical characteristics are
described in SGAE (2000).

Indicators of Audio-Visual Media

Consumption
Five ordered categorical audio-visual media use indicators were analysed (listed as factor name, short level label,
level description): (1) going to the cinema, with six levels
of frequency during the last 12 months: 1, never go to

Indicators of Audiences Social Position:

Sociocultural Categories
To describe audio-visual media audiences social class,
we selected a set of indicators. First, we used three indicators of Spaniards social, cultural, and economic capital: SES, educational level, and income level (for economy
of space, sample descriptive statistics are displayed in
Table 3 along with their association with the patterns of
consumption in the section of results). SES was estimated using the EriksonGoldthorpe procedure (Erikson
and Goldthorpe, 1992), as it is being used to analyse the
relation between social class and cultural consumption
and is considered the most influential conceptualization
and operationalization of social class in European sociology (Evans, 1992). We codified the SES indicator with
five categories: employees with a high position in the
hierarchy of large firms or government agencies (two
service categories: service 1, the highest position and service 2, the second in the social hierarchy); a third designated

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Research Question

the films; 2, less than five or six times a year; 3, five or six
times a year; 4, once a month; 5, two or three times a
month; and 6, once a week; (2) whether the consumer
had rented video cassettes, with seven levels: 1, never;
2, less than five or six times a year; 3, five or six times a
year; 4, once a month; 5, two or three times a month;
6, once a week; and 7, several times a week; (3) whether
the consumer had bought video cassettes, with seven
levels: 1, never; 2, less than one a year; 3, once a year; 4,
two or three times a year; 5, four or five times a year; 6,
sixnine times a year; and 7, ten or more times a year;
(4) the amount of daily amount of television viewing,
with five levels: 1, one or less; 2, two; 3, three; 4, four;
and 5, five or more; and (5) the amount of weekly television viewing, with two levels: 1, less frequently than
every day; and 2, every day.
To evaluate the content of video cassettes bought or
rented by consumers, interviewees were asked the content of the last video cassette bought (childrens,
entertainmentfeature film, educational, musicals) or
rented (action, mystery, adventures, comedy, drama,
romantic, psychological, and childrens). Finally, interviewees were also asked to grade the following television
programs on a scale from one (not interested) to three
(very interested): highbrow arts programs, films, plays,
sitcoms, drama, romantic, childrens, competitions
(contests), magazines, reality shows, books, documentaries, modern music, flamenco, football, other sports,
bullfighting, television news, weekly report, debate, society, news on films.

402

LPEZ-SINTAS AND GARCA-LVAREZ

Analytical Procedure
We used an exploratory latent class (LC) model (Lazarsfeld and Henry, 1968) to look for support for the
hypothesis that people show different patterns of audiovisual consumption and can, therefore, be classified
according to their behaviour. The LC model assumes
that the association between the indicators of audiovisual media use is because of unobserved heterogeneity
in the population. To account for consumers heterogeneity in responses, the LC model splits the original sample into T clusters or classes of audio-visual consumers,
and then the association between the indicators of audiovisual consumption is completely explained by probabilistic class membership.
An important difference between standard cluster
analysis techniques (e.g. those reported in Kaufman and
Rousseeuw, 1990) and LC models for clustering purposes is that the latter is model-based; i.e. a statistical
model that assumes that the data are generated by a
mixture of underlying probability distributions. In
comparison with traditional cluster analysis techniques
instead of minimizing the within-cluster variation and/
or maximizing the between-cluster variation, the LC
model implies maximizing a log-likelihood function.
Nevertheless, under very restrictive conditions, both
procedures produce similar results (Vermunt and
Magidson, 2002). As a result, LC models for clustering
turn out to be a more general technique that also solves
additional classical problems of traditional cluster analysis (Magidson and Vermunt, 2002). For this reason,
LC models for clustering have been proposed as the
proper way of uncovering consumption patterns (Wedel
and Kamakura, 1998).

Exploratory factor analysis was used to classify the set

of indicators of interest in television programs. We
expect that the observed set of indicators could be
described as a function of a small number of underlying
common factors (k factors Fi, i = 1,...,k) and a set of specific factors (di), z i = ai1F 1 +  + aik F k + d i. Those k factors will help us understand what the consumers basic
underlying interests are and how they are achieved by
consuming individual programs. Later, the consumers
factor scores were used to find out whether the clusters
of audio-visual consumption differed in the gratifications sought.

Findings
Patterns of Audio-Visual Consumption
The model
Lets allow y1, y2,..., y5 to denote the five indicators of
audio-visual consumption, and the bold symbol y for
the entire set of indicators. The LC model estimates a set
of parameters that characterize the audio-visual patterns
of consumption, f(y): in particular, it will estimate
the number of clusters, T, every cluster size, p(t), and
the indicators probabilities conditioned to cluster
membership as well, f(yi| t) under the local independence hypothesis, i.e.
T

f (y) =

f ( y t ).

(t )

i =1

t =1

As mentioned before, we assumed that the data were

generated by a mixture of underlying distributions, in
particular from a multinomial distribution parameterized by means of a logistic regression model (for further
details, see Magidson and Vermunt, 2001). These
parameters were transformed into cluster probabilities
or cluster size as follows,

(t ) =

exp ( t )
T

exp ( t )

and the indicators probabilities conditioned to cluster

membership were modelled as follows,

f ( yi t ) = ( yi t ) =

( )
exp ( )
exp y

yi t

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routine and non-manual workers (non-manual); a

fourth that included employers and self-employed
workers (entrepreneurs); and, finally, a fifth category for
skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled employees with a
labour contract (manual workers). Two additional SES
categories were also included: unemployed and not in
labour market (householders, retired persons, and other
unclassified individuals), and a seventh category for students. The remaining audiences social position indicators are explained in the same table. Some indicators
measure the opportunities to use audio-visual media
(children less than 14 years old or people 14 years or over
living at home, marital status), quality and quantity of
market offer (municipality), linguistic resources (French,
English), cultural (gender), and a generational indicator
(age).

PATTERNS OF AUDIO-VISUAL CONSUMPTION 403

f (y t )

(t )

( )

t yj =

ij

f (y t )
(t )

ij

Model selection
In Table 1, we report the statistics used to select the
number of latent clusters (LatentGold3 program was
used to estimate the model). The measures of goodness
of fit used were as follows: the chi-squared (c2) likelihood-ratio statistic (L2), the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) and Consistent Akaikes Information
Criterion (CAIC), both based on L2 (Raftery, 1986; Fraley and Raftery, 1998). Table 1 summarizes that the
addition of successive LCs reduces the likelihood-ratio
statistic until five classes were added but that further
classes had a marginal effect. Unfortunately, because of
the discrepancy between c2 and likelihood-ratio statistics, the likelihood-ratio statistic (L2) should not be

trusted for model selection (Dayton, 1998: 16). Therefore, we used the BIC and CAIC statistics that both indicated that model five was the best one (the lower the
statistic, the better the model), as it is the one providing
the most information with the fewest number of parameters. (To know whether a standard LC model would fit
the data better, we estimated the same model but now
treated the five indicators as nominal variables. This
ordinary LC model suggested that three clusters were
needed to explain the heterogeneity in the data; nevertheless, the fitted measures were not as good as the ones
for the restricted model.)
Model parameters
Table 2 summarizes the estimates of the parameters of the
five-cluster model. The first row presents how many individuals have been classified in each cluster, P(t), its relative size [to differentiate the model from the estimated
models parameters, we use the previous symbol instead
of p(t)], and the following rows indicate the probability of
behaviour given ones classification in that cluster, P(yi| t),
with all values expressed as percentages. For instance, if an
interviewee has been assigned to cluster one, then he or
she has a probability of 44.57 per cent of never going to
the cinema and a probability of 18.83 per cent of going
less than five or six times a year, and so on, for every level
of the indicator going to the cinema. On the contrary, if
the interviewee has been allocated to cluster four, then his
or her probability of never going to the films is expected
to be 22.12 per cent and so on. As the indicators are
ordered, we also report the mean value for each cluster.
On the basis of these conditional probabilities and mean
values, we can characterize the probabilistic behaviour of
the Spaniards regarding their audio-visual consumption.
The model estimated suggests that there were three
almost equal segments (cluster 1, 27 per cent; cluster 2,
26 per cent; and cluster 3, 26 per cent) and two smaller
segments (cluster 4, 15 per cent; and cluster 5, 6 per

Table 1 Goodness-of-fit statistics for the restricted model with measurement homogeneity
Cluster models

c2

L2

DL2 (M1) (per cent)

BIC (L2)

CAIC (L2)

df

Npar

Independence
Cluster 2
Cluster 3
Cluster 4
Cluster 5
Cluster 6
Cluster 7
Cluster 8

8547.3
3470.9
3499.3
3314.5
3251.2
3148.5
3055.2
3019.7

5098.8
2748.9
2512.8
2405.4
2322.9
2297.3
2280.9
2244.1

46.1
4.6
2.1
1.6
0.5
0.3
0.7

-21429.5
-23724.8
-23906.4
-23959.2
-23987.1
-23958.2
-23920.0
-23902.2

-24346.5
-26635.8
-26811.3
-26829.9
-26880.2
-26848.3
-26810.1
-26778.9

2917
2911
2905
2899
2893
2887
2881
2875

22
28
34
40
46
52
58
64

Underlined values are highly correlated with factors (correlations greater than 0.4).

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Nevertheless, contrasting with ordinary LC models,

we treated our five audio-visual indicators as ordinal
categorical variables instead of nominal variables.
Because of this difference, the ordinary parameters of the
standard logistic regression model, yi t = 0yi + ty1 i , had
to be restricted using fixed scores, yi , for each indicator, resulting in yi t = 0yi + ty1 i . yi (see Vermunt and
Magidson, 2000, for technical appendix). These constraints reduced the number of parameters required for
the estimation and assured that results would have a
form consistent with the known ordering of response
levels.
Once the model parameters were obtained, individuals were classified into clusters. This task was performed
using the posterior class membership probabilities
(Magidson and Vermunt, 2001) for each individual and
cluster:

404

LPEZ-SINTAS AND GARCA-LVAREZ

Table 2 Parameters of the model: probabilistic patterns of audio-visual consumption (probabilities are in per cent)
Cluster 1

Daily amount of television viewing

One or less
Two
Three
Four
Five or more
Mean, yi
Weekly amount of television viewing
Less frequently than every day
Every day
Mean, yi

Cluster 3

Cluster 4

Cluster 5

27

26

26

15

45
19
16
12
6
3
2.24

17
12
17
21
19
14
3.56

94
5
1
0
0
0
1.06

22
14
18
20
16
10
3.24

60
19
12
6
3
1
1.75

71
3
6
11
4
1
3
1.89

72
3
6
11
4
1
3
1.88

100
0
0
0
0
0
0
1.00

55
3
7
16
8
3
8
2.62

98
1
1
0
0
0
0
1.03

58
9
11
11
8
4
1
2.17

39
7
12
15
14
9
3
2.96

100
0
0
0
0
0
0
1.00

2
1
4
11
23
35
24
5.52

99
1
0
0
0
0
0
1.01

14
35
23
14
13
2.77

32
44
16
5
3
2.02

10
30
24
17
20
3.07

12
33
24
15
16
2.89

51
39
8
1
0
1.61

0
100
2.00

17
83
1.83

2
98
1.98

3
97
1.97

28
72
1.72

cent). They have been named: light film-goers (cluster 1),

film fans (cluster 2), television addicts (cluster 3), audiovisual fans (cluster 4), and occasional film-goers (cluster 5),
according to their behaviour. Light film-goers (cluster 1)
have a profile similar to the mean profile, consumers classified in this segments have a frequency of going to the
films that is not as high as film or audio-visual fans but
greater than the frequency of television addicts or televi-

sion fans; and the same happens for the rest of indicators,
except for television-viewing behaviour where the latter
two clusters had the highest frequency of viewing.
Film fans (cluster 2) have the highest frequency of
attendance to the films as well as a high frequency of
renting and buying videos. This type of audio-visual
consumer, however, is not a television fan: it is associated with the lowest levels of watching frequency. In

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Cluster size, P(t)

Indicators, P(yi| t)
Going to the cinema
Never
Less than 56 times a year
56 times a year
Once a month
23 times a month
Once a week
Mean, yi
Video cassettes bought
Never
Less than once a year
Once a year
23 times a year
45 times a year
69 times a year
10 or more times a year
Mean, yi
Video cassettes rented
Never
Less than 5 or 6 times a year
5 or 6 times a year
Once a month
2 or 3 times a month
Once a week
Several times a week
Mean, yi

Cluster 2

PATTERNS OF AUDIO-VISUAL CONSUMPTION 405

Who are the Consumers Classified in Each

Pattern of Audio-Visual Consumption?
Here, we characterize the five clusters found according
to a set of sociocultural indicators. Table 3 is equivalent
to estimating the row profiles in a correspondence analysis when there is no restriction in the estimated LC cluster model (Magidson and Vermunt, 2001). In Table 3, for
each class of audio-visual consumers, we have underlined
probabilities greater than their mean profile (cluster size).
The social class indicatorsSES, level of education,
and incomeare clear in the construction of a social hierarchy related to the patterns of audio-visual consumers.
All indicators of the lower social classes (low levels of
income and education and low prestige occupations) are
over-represented in the occasional (cluster 5) and light
film-goers (cluster 1). The indicators of a middle class
(service 2 and non-manual occupations, high levels of
income, and middle level of education) are associated
with the audio-visual class of consumers (cluster 4).
Finally, the segment of film fans (cluster 2) is the one
most associated with the higher social class indicators
(services 1 and 2, non-manual and entrepreneur occupations, and highest educational and income levels).
As far as the other indicators of consumers social
position were concerned, we can infer that film (cluster
2) and audio-visual fans (cluster 4) are younger than
other consumers (till middle age), have children living
with them, are married (film fans) or single (audiovisual fans) and according to their privileged social position, have a good command of the French and English
languages, and live in large cities (over 100,000 inhabitants) with a higher percentage of men. On the contrary,
light film-goers (cluster 1), occasional film-goers (cluster 5), and television fans (cluster 3) are older, with this
trend more obvious as we move in the order of the clusters listed, do not have children living at home (except
light film-goers), do not have a good command of foreign

languages, live in smaller cities (except light film-goers),

and have a higher percentage of women.
In fact, the indicators of audiences social position classify the five patterns of audio-visual consumption into a
hierarchy that is ordered as follows: television addicts,
occasional audiences, light film-goers, film fans, and
audio-visual fans. A correspondence analysis of the five
types of audio-visual media users and the set of sociocultural indicators (not reported here) gave support to our
interpretation: audio-visual fans have the capital (high
social class: high earnings, education, and SES), have the
linguistic resources, live in big cities, and are younger; film
fans are quite similar to audio-visual fans but a little bit
older and relatively less wealthy; light film-goers have less
resources than the two clusters mentioned above and
both the occasional film-goers (cluster 5) and the television addicts (cluster 3), who are older and less affluent.

Media Orientations: Gratifications Sought

by Video Consumption
In the bottom left panel of Figure 1, we show the profiles
of the type of video cassette last rented across segments
of audiences in the plane defined by the triangle that
joins the space of audiences. The vertices are the points
of the triangle that coincide with the extreme profiles
[(1,0,0), (0,1,0), and (0,0,1)]. To make it easy to interpret the profiles, only the shaded area of the full triangle
is plotted (we used the ADE-4 package to display the triangles; Thioulouse et al., 1997). Light film-goers rented
almost 17 per cent of the total amount of videos, followed by film fans, 38 per cent, and audio-visual fans,
45 per cent. Light film-goers mainly rented childrens,
adventure, drama, action, and comedy videos. Film fans
rented chiefly psychological videos and audio-visual
fans, romantic, comedies, drama, and mystery videos. As
far as video purchases are concerned, light film-goers
bought documentary, childrens, and entertainment videos; film fans is a group not characterized by any type of
video cassette; and audio-visual fans are characterized by
educational, entertainment, and musical videos.

Media Orientations: Gratifications Sought

in Television Programs
We factor-analysed the 22 22 correlation matrix using
the principal components procedure and Kaisers varimax rotation (Barletts test rejects the null hypothesis of
sphericity: c2 = 37097.84; df = 231; P < 0.0001). A fivefactor solution resulted on the basis of the following
criteria: (1) a significant dip in the screen plot followed

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contrast, audio-visual fans (cluster 4) have a high frequency of cinema attendance, but the highest when it
comes to renting or buying a video cassette, in particular,
they have an extremely high frequency of renting videos.
Unlike film fans, they have a relatively high frequency of
watching television programs. Television addicts (cluster
3) clearly have a univorous taste, as their main cultural
practice is watching television programs. Finally, audiences classified as occasional film-goers (cluster 5) have a
very peculiar behaviour, as they go to the cinema only
occasionally but do not compensate for light film attendance by spending more time watching television.

406

LPEZ-SINTAS AND GARCA-LVAREZ

Table 3 Patterns of consumption and sociocultural categories (row profiles in per cent)
Indicators

Cluster 2

Cluster 3

Cluster 4

Cluster 5

Sample

25
28
28
28
29
27
26

46
41
34
29
28
14
42

8
9
10
20
18
43
3

14
16
21
13
18
9
26

7
6
6
10
7
7
3

5
6
7
6
15
46
15

21
29
27
26
25

7
21
39
42
47

60
28
8
9
8

4
15
20
16
15

8
6
5
6
6

15
50
22
7
6

22
29
29
28
26

10
22
31
37
41

56
28
16
11
9

5
14
18
20
18

7
7
6
5
5

19
30
30
16
5

25
32

25
30

31
13

12
21

7
5

69
31

27
28
27

21
30
32

34
19
14

11
17
22

7
6
5

50
40
10

25
29
22
29

39
20
8
29

9
32
60
24

22
12
2
11

5
7
8
7

35
54
9
3

27
26
28
28

23
31
27
28

32
23
22
23

12
14
18
16

7
6
6
6

36
11
15
38

27
28

25
38

28
10

14
19

6
6

90
10

28
25

21
44

32
5

13
22

7
4

80
20

27
28

28
24

23
28

16
13

6
6

46
54
continued

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Socioeconomic status
Service 1
Service 2
Non-manual
Entrepreneurs
Manual
No in labour market
Students
Educational level
Primary or less
Low secondary
High secondary
College
University
Income level
<600 a month
600900
9001200
12001800
>1800
Children at home
None
Yes
People 14 years or over living at home
2 or less persons
34 people
More than 4 people
Marital status
Single
Married
Widowed
Divorced
Municipality (in thousands)
<100
100200
Other metropolis
First metropolis
Level of French
Some
Good
Level of English
Some
Good
Gender
Male
Female

Cluster 1

PATTERNS OF AUDIO-VISUAL CONSUMPTION 407

Table 3 (continued)

26
28
33
31
23
27

4
7
15
28
57
26

40
37
31
22
8
26

28
22
15
9
3
15

3
5
6
10
8
6

22
19
16
12
31
100

Underlined values are highly correlated with factors (correlations greater than 0.4).

Audio-visual bought

Audio-visual rented
0

0.8

0.1

0.7

Musicals

0.167

0.321
Enterainment

L_movies

V_fan

L_movies

Romantic
Adventures

Educational
V_fan

0.368

Action
Mystery
Drama
Comedy

Children's

0.452

Children's

Documentaries

Psychologic
0.5
0.2

0.382 M_fan

0.3
0.7

0.7
0.2

0.311

M_fan

0.1
0.8

Figure 1 Chart of the cluster association with the type of video rented or bought.

the five factors; (2) the first five factors were the most
meaningful, rich, and interpretable, loading each indicator high in only one factor; (3) the five-factor solution
explained a high proportion of the indicators variance
(49 per cent), given the number of indicators.
Kaisers varimax rotation suggested the following
interpretations of the latent gratifications sought by
audiences (see Table 3 and Discussion): Factor 1, companionship, is mainly correlated with interest in sitcom
programs, romantic series, and soap operas, contests,
magazines, reality shows, flamenco, and society news;
Factor 2, integrative-status, with interest in classic music,
opera, ballet, light opera, and interest in plays, book
information, interest in modern music and contemporary dance programs, and news about the films; Factor 3,
cognitive, with interest in documentary programs, television news bulletin, the weekly report, and debate programs; Factor 4, integrative-social, with interest in

football, other sports, and bullfighting; Factor 5, tension

release, with interest in television films and dramatic
series. The five-factor solution accounted for more than
40 per cent of the variation in each of the 22 indicators,
but interest in films, childrens programs, and documentaries (version 13 of the SPSS statistical program) was
used to estimate the model parameters and factor scores.
After describing the five factors of interest in television programs, we analysed whether the factor score
means differed among the five patterns of audio-visual
consumers. The means are displayed in the lower part of
Table 4 and the analysis of variance in the last line. The
results show that light film-goers are interested mainly
in television programs that provide easy tension release
(through broadcast films, television films, or series) but
have a medium interest in other programs. Film fans, on
the contrary, are largely interested, firstly, in television
programs that provide integrative-status gratifications

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Age
Less 25
2534
3544
4554
Over 54
Cluster size

0.63
0.00
0.47
0.09
0.06
-0.02
0.24
-0.04
0.06
0.02
0.74
0.30
0.52
0.28
-0.06
0.09
0.01
-0.09
0.15
0.23
-0.02
0.70
0.000
0.248
-0.256
0.182
0.036
90.375 (<0.000001)

0.21
-0.01
0.38
0.44
0.26
0.58
0.16
0.58
0.53
0.69
-0.11
-0.07
0.17
0.65
-0.14
-0.15
0.38
0.10
0.18
0.11
0.61
-0.14
0.012
-0.496
0.458
-0.238
-0.205
334.382 (<0.000001)

0.0291
-0.0309
0.0716
-0.1523
-0.0267
11.688 (<0.000001)

0.15
0.14
0.23
0.01
0.03
-0.11
-0.10
0.05
0.25
0.13
0.22
0.48
-0.16
0.05
0.03
0.13
0.07
0.71
0.76
0.64
0.12
0.14

Factor 3
(cognitive)

0.027
-0.086
0.036
0.027
-0.114
5.879 (0.0001)

0.07
0.01
-0.01
0.14
0.08
-0.21
0.06
0.06
-0.10
-0.01
-0.05
0.11
0.08
0.19
0.83
0.79
0.50
0.03
0.06
0.03
-0.25
-0.05

Factor 4
(integrative-social)

Underlying factors of interest

Factor 2
(integrative-status)

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Underlined values are highly correlated with factors (correlations greater than 0.4).

Factor loadings: interest in

Highbrow arts
Television films
Plays
Sitcoms
Dramatic and action series
Romantic series, soap operas
Childrens programs
Contests
Magazines
Reality shows
Book information
Documentaries
Modern music and ballet
Flamenco
Football
Other sports
Bullfighting
Television news bulletin
Weekly report
Debates
Society news
News about films
Factor score means within patterns
Light film-goers
Film fans
Television addicts
Audio-visual fans
Occasional film-goers
Analysis of variance: F-value and (P)

Factor 1
(companionship)

Table 4 Factor loadings for the rotated solution and factor score means within the types of consumers

0.166
0.180
-0.422
0.533
-0.638
303.209 (<0.000001)

-0.23
0.56
-0.10
0.43
0.60
0.14
0.39
0.27
0.25
-0.04
0.15
0.18
0.38
-0.11
0.14
0.22
-0.26
-0.18
0.06
0.12
0.20
0.33

Factor 5
(tension release)

408
LPEZ-SINTAS AND GARCA-LVAREZ

PATTERNS OF AUDIO-VISUAL CONSUMPTION 409

Discussion
We found support for the thesis of homogeneous clusters
of behaviour. The exploratory latent cluster model fitted
suggests that the Spanish audio-visual consumption heterogeneity could be synthesized into five types of audiences: (1) occasional film-goers, (2) light film-goers,
(3) film fans, (4) audio-visual fans, and (5) television
addicts. Film fans seem to be the snobs of other studies
(van Rees et al., 1999; van Eijck and van Rees, 2000), the
ones who like the seventh art in its original form, and
audio-visual fans seem to be the cultural omnivores
found in different places and symbolic spaces over the last
15 years (see Peterson, 2005, for a review).
When the five types of audiences were analysed
according to their indicators of social status, they were
ordered as follows, from the lowest to the highest status:
television addicts, occasional film-goers, light film-goers,
film fans, and audio-visual fans. The social hierarchy
indicators are clearly saying that the objective divisions
in class structure were reflected in the use of audiovisual media: downscale indicators were associated with
television addicts, occasional and light film-goer patterns of media consumption; upscale indicators, with
film and audio-visual fans, lending support for the proposition that audio-visual uses function as distinctive
signs and signs of distinction, i.e. that audiences make a
distinctive use of audio-visual media according to their
position in social space: downscale audiences showed a
univorous but intensive use of the media, whereas
upscale audiences had an omnivorous and intensive use
as well. The generational indicators followed the same
pattern, as older audiences were associated with lowstatus audiences and younger ones to upscale audiences.
Freedom from caregiver responsibilities was not associated with heavy users of the media, contrary to what was
expected (Robinson, 1981; van Eijck and van Rees, 2000;
Henning and Vorderer, 2001).

On the contrary, DiMaggo (1987) and Douglas and

Isherwood (1996) have proposed that social standing is
symbolized by consuming prestigious forms of art and
showing off consumers cultural knowledge in a wide
variety of genres. Here, we generalize their proposition to
the media use research. In this line, our findings suggest
that upscale audiences symbolize their social standing
through the consumption of a wide variety channels of
media and a high frequency of use as well, from original
media channels (cinema) to the most popular (television)
without forgetting the video format (a new way to deliver
films). With their use of audio-visual media, upscale audiences communicate their social position by showing off
that they have the knowledge and the material means to
have the proper resources for consuming a great variety of
media. Nevertheless, the fact that audio-visual fans and
film fans are so close in the social hierarchy but audiovisual fans are comparatively younger and single suggests
that there could be a generational technology of consumption that is difficult to change even for upscale consumers. Our findings suggest that we should expect
differences in media use according to social class, but
within social classes, generational differences should also
be found. This interpretation matches the findings of
Peterson and Kern (1996), in that younger, more omnivorous consumers are replacing the older upscale snobs.
Rubins (1981, 1984) results support our interpretations of the five latent gratifications found, named:
(1) companionship, (2) integration-status, (3) cognitive,
(4) integration-social, and (5) tension release. Even
though Rubin did not research the relationship between
patterns of audio-visual consumption and gratifications,
Rubin analysed the association between a set of gratifications and a set of preferences for television programs providing a framework for interpreting our results. Like
Rubin, we found a positive association between cognitive
gratifications and age (here television addict audiences
were older and more interested in cognitive, companionship, and integrative-social gratifications) but a negative
relationship between age and entertainment [here the
younger audio-visual fans were more interested in tension
release (entertainment) than older consumers of the
media]. In fact, upscale audiences (audio-visual and film
fans) were most interested in tension release/entertainment and integrative-status gratifications from the television programs and types of video cassettes bought or
rented, a finding that also agrees with the conclusions of
Palmgreen et al. (1988).
It is difficult to compare our findings with all other previous results because research thus far has focused attention directly on motivations (Greenberg, 1974; Finn and

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and, secondly, in tension release. In contrast, television

addicts have a greater interest in companionship, cognitive, and integrative-social gratifications but are less
interested than the average consumer as far as integrativestatus and tension release are concerned. Audio-visual
fans have a pattern similar to film fans but with the
highest interest in programs that offer tension release
gratification and in those that offer integrative-status
enjoyment. Finally, occasional film-goers have almost an
average profile but with a clear disinterest in tension
release and companionship gratifications.

410

LPEZ-SINTAS AND GARCA-LVAREZ

Conclusions
By grounding our research on audio-visual uses and orientations on the sociology of culture, we were able to
focus our interest on patterns of media consumption and
their symbolic role. The five patterns of audiences found
were ordered in the same way as the society was structured. The analysis of the symbolic role of patterns of
media uses proposes that upscale individuals use audiovisual consumption to communicate their social position
by showing off that they have the knowledge and the
material means to consume a great variety of media and
to do that more often than downscale consumers. Nevertheless, the fact that audio-visual fans and film fans were
so close in the social hierarchy even though audio-visual
fans were comparatively younger and more likely to be
single suggests that there could be a generational technology of consumption that is difficult to change even for
upscale consumers and could be masking the distinction
versus omnivorous currently under discussion. Accordingly, the media orientations of each type of audience suggest that each one has a different preference: upscale
audiences looked for mood management instruments,
whereas downscale audiences sought companionship,
cognitive, and integrative-social gratifications.

Acknowledgements
This research was supported by Grant BEC2003-04462
from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology,
Technical Department of the Humanities and Social Sciences. We are grateful to Rubn Gutirrez del Castillo

(SGAEs Research Department) for providing the database and to several anonymous reviewers who kindly
commented on previous versions of this manuscript,
one of which was presented at the European Advances
in Consumer Research conference held in Gteborg,
Sweden, June 1418, 2005.

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Gorr, 1988) or on a large array of media channels (van

Rees and van Eijck, 2003) but not on types of television
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those of Finn and Gorr (1988) that summarize the motivations for viewing television programs into two general
motivations: social compensation and mood management. Thus, we see that downscale audio-visual media
users seem to look for television programs and videos that
offer them a social compensation for their meagre social
resources (lack of companionship and social resources;
they only bought and rented videos for their children and
documentaries), whereas upscale audiences were interested in mood management programs (through popular
and highbrow entertainment delivered by the television
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PATTERNS OF AUDIO-VISUAL CONSUMPTION 411

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Authors Address
Jordi Lpez Sintas, Department dEconomia de
lEmpresa, Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona, Edificio B, 08193-Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain. Tel.: +34
93 5812270, Fax: +34 93 5812555; email:
jordi.lopez@uab.es
Ercilia Garca-lvarez, Universitat Rovira i Virgili,
Department of Management, School of Turisim and
Leisure, C/ de Sant Pere, 25, 43480 Vila-Seca I Salou
(Tarragona), Spain; email: mariaercilia.garcia@urv.net
Manuscript received: August 2005

Downloaded from http://esr.oxfordjournals.org/ at Aarhus Universitets Biblioteker / Aarhus University Libraries on October 18, 2012

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