Gender, generation and reception of Spanish television fiction in the digital age

Abstract

Media convergence has considerably modified television-viewing practices. The interaction of the television with second screens has generated new ways of communicating between viewers, which they do while simultaneously watching television. This study combines focus groups and questionnaires to examine, from a generational perspective, the relationship between female viewers and Spanish television fiction and the resulting interactions conducted both face-to-face and through new technologies. The results question the view that female members of the digital generation interviewed watch media products in isolation and demonstrate that the social aspect of television viewing is one of its greatest pleasures. In general terms, our contribution confirms the influence of the generation gap on viewers’ preferences and their different ways of watching television. Therefore, the solidarity established between women to maintain and prolong viewing pleasure helps to mitigate the digital gap between older and younger female participants.

Full text

www.intellectbooks.com 217
International Journal of Digital Television
Volume 7 Number 2
© 2016 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/jdtv.7.2.217_1
JDTV 7 (2) pp. 217–231 Intellect Limited 2016
CHARO LACALLE AND CRISTINA PUJOL
Autonomous University of Barcelona
Gender, generation and
reception of Spanish
television fiction in the
digital age
ABSTRACT
Media convergence has considerably modified television-viewing practices. The
interaction of the television with second screens has generated new ways of commu-
nicating between viewers, which they do while simultaneously watching television.
This study combines focus groups and questionnaires to examine, from a genera-
tional perspective, the relationship between female viewers and Spanish television
fiction and the resulting interactions conducted both face-to-face and through new
technologies. The results question the view that female members of the digital gener-
ation interviewed watch media products in isolation and demonstrate that the social
aspect of television viewing is one of its greatest pleasures. In general terms, our
contribution confirms the influence of the generation gap on viewers’ preferences
and their different ways of watching television. Therefore, the solidarity established
between women to maintain and prolong viewing pleasure helps to mitigate the digi-
tal gap between older and younger female participants.
KEYWORDS
reception
TV fiction
Internet
gender
generation
digital technologies
JDTV_7.2.indb 217JDTV_7.2.indb 217 03/08/16 9:51 AM03/08/16 9:51 AM

Charo Lacalle | Cristina Pujol
218 International Journal of Digital Television
INTRODUCTION
The Internet, media convergence and new media forms have changed the
way in which television is viewed, with audiences watching while simulta-
neously carrying out other daily activities such as ‘reading, shopping, voting,
playing, researching, writing, chatting’ (Livingstone 2004: 2). This represents
an important challenge for studies on reception, which focused in the past
on the relationship between the audience and media texts, the deconstruc-
tion of meanings and the role of new technologies in home information (Ang
1985; Fiske 1986; Hall 1997; Gillespie 1995; Morley 1980; Walkerdine 1986).
Researchers defend the notion of a sophisticated, aware, active audience
made up of viewers and consumers who are critical of the media (Buckingham
and Bragg 2004; Jackson and Vares 2011) and who are ‘involved in produsage –
the collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in
pursuit of further improvement’ (Bruns 2007, emphasis added).
This article forms part of a broader project on the construction of female
identity in television and new technologies. This study combines focus groups
and questionnaires with the aim of exploring, from the perspective of genera-
tions, the relationship between female viewers and Spanish television fiction
and their interactions, both face-to-face and through new technologies.
GENDER AND TELEVISION: EMOTIONS ARE AT THE CENTRE
Gender identity is a determining factor in the consumption of television
fiction. Early studies on the subject focused on housewives, a social collec-
tive highly sought after by television networks and advertisers but generally
ignored by media communication studies until the end of the 1970s. It is,
therefore important to point out that the legitimization of television studies –
the process of analysing and giving rigorous thought to television products
and consumption – occurred in parallel with the legitimization of its audience,
especially women (Brunsdon 2000; Hollows 2000). From a gender perspec-
tive, viewers’ opinions of television fiction not only provides information
about their cultural tastes but also about their interactions, their trans-media
relationship with programmes, the integration of new technologies into their
lives and the communication networks and unity existing between women of
different generations and social classes.
The ethnographic studies carried out at the end of the 1970s began to listen
to female viewers, generally housewives, without pre-established prejudices
or axioms. Thus, Modlesky (1982) states that soap opera viewers look for a
‘fantasy community’ that helps them alleviate their worries and the loneliness
of being at home. Hobson (1982) concludes that women’s enjoyment of such
programmes went beyond simple entertainment or distraction: watching tele-
vision allowed them to relax, rest and eliminate the stresses of daily life while
familiarity with the characters helped mitigate feelings of isolation and relieve
the boredom of doing household chores. Ang (1985) observed that female
viewers activated a process termed ‘emotional realism’ in their interpretations
of what they saw on television through a comparison of their personal experi-
ences with those of the television characters, which allowed them to identify
with their actions and values independently of their contextual and cultural
differences. Geraghty (1991) observed that women valued the conversation
and dialogue of the characters over actions, demonstrating their emotional
and personal relationship with the programmes.
JDTV_7.2.indb 218JDTV_7.2.indb 218 03/08/16 9:51 AM03/08/16 9:51 AM

Gender, generation and reception of Spanish television fi ction in the digital age
www.intellectbooks.com 219
1. http://www.
pewinternet.
org/2015/10/08/
social-networking-
usage-2005-2015/.
Accessed 20 November
2015.
2. A total of 47 per cent
of television view-
ing in Spain is done
individually (http://
www.barloventocomu-
nicacion.es/images/
publicaciones/analisis-
televisivo-2015-a%20
da28dic-Barlovento.
pdf, accessed 3 January
2016).
The characteristics of the new media ecosystem favour a cross-media,
mobile, flexible, shared consumption and reveal the generational differences
in viewing preferences and the uses of technology (boyd 2008; Livingstone
2008, 2009). Consequently, the paradigm of a participative culture prevails:
a communication model that allows the audience to interact with television
content (Jenkins 2006). Today’s programmes are perfectly adapted to the
Internet 2.0 such that networks and producers favour, in terms of the creative
process itself, the uses of media content with social networks and new tech-
nologies (Scolari 2010).
Pioneering studies on online ethnography (Turkle 1997; Baym 1998)
revealed the existence of virtual communities in which the participants
shared identities, resources, ideas and practices and lent each other constant
technological support. Madill and Goldmeier (2003) demonstrated that
the use of the Internet by fans of the series Eastenders (1985–present) to
comment on the plots increased viewing experience. More recent investiga-
tions on communication practices in social networks similarly reveal the role
played by intergenerational communication and the strengthening of family
ties (Gonçalves and Patrício 2010; Siibak and Tamme 2013). It is also worth
pointing out the role of the relationship between modern technologies and
generational identities in users’ sense of belonging and generational cohe-
sion (Aroldi 2011; Napoli 2014).
In general, audiences opt for viewing practices and Internet uses that are
the ‘most friendly for them’ (Simons 2013: 189) and prefer contents that ‘they
find relevant, appealing, and easily understood’ (Tehone et al. 2015: 352).
Women use the Internet more than men to communicate and interact with
each other, although in North America this gap had decreased by 2014.1 They
tend to share their experiences more socially (Doyle 2009) and create a greater
amount of online content (Lenhart et al. 2007). Nevertheless, the sexism that
exists in the real world also exists in its virtual counterpart, since women
expressing unpopular points of view are usually criticized for being women,
while men are attacked for defending these ideas (Baym 2010: 67). Kehily and
Nayak (2008) point out the role of the relationship between young women
and television and ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) in
the construction of new gender roles and definitions.
Television fiction, gender and generation
The increasing use of mobile technologies in audio-visual consumption is
an important feature of the social changes experienced by western societies
in recent decades. Multi-platform viewing, content tagging, downloading,
streaming and binge-watching represent different forms of a ‘social television’
that no longer requires physical proximity to watch contents in company.
In addition to popular social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, other
television 2.0 applications, including Tuitele, Tockit and Shazam, allow live
commenting on programmes, interaction on Twitter, access to television
guides and the creation of programme-dedicated groups, not to mention
the numerous forums hosted both on the networks’ official pages and sites
created by the fans themselves (Deery 2003; Siapera 2004; Williams 2015).
Television fiction consumption is increasingly individualized and nomadic,2
and mobile phones are personalized screens through which viewers create
their own viewing schedules (Barkhuus 2009; Álvarez Monzoncillo 2011).
However, these technological, sociocultural global changes are conditioned
JDTV_7.2.indb 219JDTV_7.2.indb 219 03/08/16 9:51 AM03/08/16 9:51 AM

Charo Lacalle | Cristina Pujol
220 International Journal of Digital Television
3. http://www.barloven-
tocomunicacion.es/
images/publicaciones/
analisis-televisivo-
2015-a%20da28dic-Bar-
lovento.pdf. Accessed
3 January 2016.
4. Report number 9 of
the Emancipation
Observatory (Youth
Council of Spain)
reveals that the aver-
age age of eman-
cipation of young
Spaniards is 28.9, while
the European average
is 26.1 (http://politica.
elpais.com/polit-
ica/2015/12/29/actuali-
dad/1451382467_
288187.html, accessed
30 December 2015).
by two important sociological variables. First, Spanish women watch
27 minutes more television per day than Spanish men3 and second, most
Spanish households are multigenerational. In fact, two-thirds of Spanish
households consist of two or more generations (children, parents and even
grandparents), a traditional characteristic of the Mediterranean area that has
been accentuated in recent years by the economic crisis (Moreno Minguez
2012). Thus, one in two young Spanish people between the ages of 25 and
29 (48.5 per cent) and one in five adults aged 30 to 34 (20.5 per cent) still live
with their parents (INE 20144). This ‘forced cohabitation’ accentuates the fact
that the break-up of the traditional central location of the television set within
the living room also implies a change in family hierarchy in terms of televi-
sion viewing and demonstrates existing generation gaps (Álvarez Monzoncillo
2011). Thus, increasing numbers of young people are used to free copying, the
lack of a central node in the media structure, almost unlimited content availa-
bility, multitasking and social television. The possibility of watching television
simultaneously with their peers through a mobile phone from the same sofa
they share with their parents – who monopolize the television remote control –
allows them to see power relationships in a very different way, thereby
increasing their feeling of empowerment they get from ‘a la carte’ viewing
(Barkhuus 2009).
Gender and generation are, therefore, two important parameters that
need to be taken into account when considering the different relationships
between viewers and television fiction. While gender determines preferences
and viewing modes of both women and men (Lacalle 2012), generation is a
crucial factor in viewing practices (Livingstone et al. 2001). A good example of
this would be ‘binge-watching’:
Two-thirds of viewers ‘binge-watch’ TV, watching three or more
episodes of TV in one sitting. Millennials overwhelmingly engage in
binge-watching behaviors […]. There are some gender differences
among binge-watchers, with women being more likely to binge on
dramas and men being more likely than women to binge on comedies.
(Deloitte 2015: 11)
Siibak et al. claim that individuals’ identity construction and their sense of
belonging to a generation are intimately tied to technologies and the media.
Following Aroldi (2011) and Aroldi and Colombo (2013), the authors consider
that this process takes place on two levels: on the one hand, media expe-
riences during an individual’s period of education determine the definition
of generations and cultures of media consumption and on the other, media
representations, choices and technologies contribute to identity construction
and the sense of belonging to a generation (Siibak et al. 2014: 101).
A number of European studies, carried out through focus groups, demon-
strate the importance of generation-oriented questions in relation to leisure
time and the use of technologies. Bolin (2014) analysed the differences
between the ‘objective’ media panorama and viewers’ ‘subjective’ percep-
tions and experiences and observed a twofold feeling of nostalgia. On the one
hand, this nostalgia is related to infancy and refers to the memories and expe-
riences of each of the participants during this important phase of their lives.
Second, nostalgia is associated with an individual’s period in education and is
more closely associated with a feeling of belonging to a particular generation.
The study carried out by Landabidea (2014) relates viewing with leisure time
JDTV_7.2.indb 220JDTV_7.2.indb 220 03/08/16 9:51 AM03/08/16 9:51 AM

Gender, generation and reception of Spanish television fi ction in the digital age
www.intellectbooks.com 221
5. This theory, formulated
by the German political
scientist Elisabeth Noelle-
Neumann (1974), claims
that individuals tend to
adapt their behaviour to
the attitudes they per-
ceive in their environment.
experiences among peer groups and the way these individuals perceive and
experience television. Napoli demonstrates that younger generations identify
the Internet as a microcosm, the result of the work of and interactions with
their peers, while baby boomers and the generation X see social networks
as a space populated by individuals of different ages and generations (2014:
202). This same author’s analysis of television viewing similarly reveals that
collective memory is not shared on the Internet but, rather, the opposite:
‘each generation is limited to a transferral process of the same tensions onto
the social web and the same mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion that are
implemented offline’ (Napoli 2014: 203).
METHODS
Focus groups were chosen to analyse television viewing since they are ideal
for gathering objective data aimed at better understanding the real involve-
ment and effects of television fiction consumption in the construction of
cultural identities – in this case, generation and gender identities. Focus
groups also facilitate the analysis of data in a more dynamic and flexible
manner than other methods such as surveys, ‘drawing on their [partici-
pants] pre-existing knowledge, attitudes and beliefs’ (Holliman 2005: 11).
Questionnaires, which are anonymous and individual, help us to identify
the general television viewing practices and to determine the possible effects
of the spiral of silence5 observed sometimes in group interviews. They also
allow us to make more precise extrapolations on the range of the practices
observed, with the necessary precaution that should be taken in any qualita-
tive research (Alasuutari 1995).
The perceived limits of this study are associated with certain ethical
considerations that should be taken into account in the use and treatment
of both group interviews and individual, anonymous questionnaires. As
Holliman states, audience research deals with the collecting private data, not
public, and with the experiences related to meaning and not open practices
(2005: 11), data that ultimately form part of the intimate experiences, feel-
ings and emotional connections of people with the imaginaries and repre-
sentations offered by television fictions. Therefore, the data extracted from an
SPSS-coded questionnaire and which was aimed at complementing the anal-
ysis of group interviews has allowed us to make a more precise identification
of the various practices observed in the investigation.
The study was carried out between November 2013 and February 2014, in
twelve autonomous regions in Spain (Asturias, Andalusia, Aragon, the Canary
Islands, Castile and León, Catalonia, the Community of Valencia, Extremadura,
Galicia, the Balearic Islands, Madrid and the Basque Country). With the aim
of facilitating interactions, we chose samples consisting of groups of women
who knew each other beforehand and who met up regularly: friends, study
mates or members of women’s associations (‘Housewives Association’, ‘My
Women Association’ and ‘New Times Women’s Association’). Moreover, in
order to avoid the break-up of the organic structure of pre-existing groups,
their spontaneous configuration was maintained, with between eight and
twelve women making up each group. The sample consisted of a total of
124 women, divided into fourteen focus groups covering the following ages
ranges: 10–14 (N = 18), 15–17 (N = 12), 18–21 (N = 21), 22–29 (N = 20),
30–45 (N = 16), 46–65 (N = 18) and over-65 (N = 19). All of the partici-
pants in the 10–14 and 15–17 age groups were school pupils. A total of 65%
JDTV_7.2.indb 221JDTV_7.2.indb 221 03/08/16 9:51 AM03/08/16 9:51 AM

Charo Lacalle | Cristina Pujol
222 International Journal of Digital Television
(N = 13) of the young people in the 22–29 age range were finishing their studies,
while 30% (N = 6) of the same group were working and only one (0.5%) was
unemployed. In total, 62.5% (N = 10) of the women aged between 30 and
45 worked, while 37.5% (N = 6) of the women from this group were unem-
ployed. The women (22.2% [N = 4]) in the 46–65 age group worked, while
50.0% (N = 9) were unemployed and 22.2% (N = 4) were retired. Finally,
89.5% (N = 17) of the over-65s were retired.
The interactions between the various pre-existing groups were guided by
a female moderator, who used a semi-structured guide of the questions of
a questionnaire compiled at the start of the session. This guide, that aimed
to maintain the women’s usual television fiction discussion groups, nota-
bly facilitated the subsequent data treatment. The group interviews were
recorded into audio files and transcribed, respecting anonymity and the
language used by each participant. The resulting interactions of the various
issues addressed in the group interview were then classified using a template
organized into themes. After coding the questionnaires using the statistical
analysis programme SPSS, the data obtained allowed us to contextualize the
qualitative analysis and to validate the participants’ opinions, thereby detect-
ing any possible contradictions between the individual replies to the question-
naire and the opinions expressed in the group discussion. The SPSS database
includes 124 coded cases, which were used in a structured analysis using 54
variables closely linked to the proposed themes in the group interview, which
were based on the following areas:
• Viewing: Reasons and frequency; most successful advertising strategies
(trailers, the press, the Internet, personal recommendation etc.); viewing
modes (in isolation/social, through the television set/on the Internet, inter-
rupted/uninterrupted, unfocused attention/multitasking); consumption/
production of related products and the extension of the television fiction
to the Internet (creation of Internet resources, participation in forums or
social networks, etc.).
• Preferences: Programmes, actors/actresses and favourite characters (gender,
the role they play etc.); processes of identification/projection, etc.
• Interpretation: Themes; credibility/realism; extrapolation of the fiction into
daily life; viewers’ narrative skills.
RESULTS
With up to three sets in some of the households of the women interviewed for
this study, the television is still the main device for watching television fiction
(91.1 per cent, N = 113), with watching on the Internet lying a considerable
distance behind (8.9 per cent, N = 11). Female viewers from the latter group
were distributed throughout the age ranges with the exception of 15 to 17
year olds and over-65s, none of whom watched Spanish fiction programmes
through the Internet.
Age is a determining factor in the social aspect of the participants’ televi-
sion viewing. Thus, the 10–14-year-old (61.1%, N = 11) and the 15–17-year-
old (75%, N = 9) girls interviewed usually watched television with the rest of
the family, while individual watching was concentrated in the 22–29 (45%,
N = 9), 46–65 (44.4%, N = 8) and over-65 age ranges (84.2%, N = 16), some
of whom chose to watch on their own so as to give the programme their full
attention. A total of 74.2% (N = 92) of the female participants assured that
JDTV_7.2.indb 222JDTV_7.2.indb 222 03/08/16 9:51 AM03/08/16 9:51 AM

Gender, generation and reception of Spanish television fi ction in the digital age
www.intellectbooks.com 223
6. Deferred television
consumption repre-
sented in Spain, in
2015, 1 per cent of total
viewing, equivalent
to three minutes per
viewer per day (http://
www.barloventocomu-
nicacion.es/images/
publicaciones/analisis-
televisivo-2015-a%20
da28dic-Barlovento.
pdf, accessed 3 January
2016).
they chose the programmes they watched. Watching with the rest of the
family created tension, when mothers and daughters’ preferences differed.
Often, the remote control was the object of negotiation between adults and
the 10–17-year-old girls interviewed in the study, who pointed out how much
they had to insist in order to impose their preference.
The reality of multi-screen households is made evident when intergenera-
tional preferences clash. In general, control of the main television, in agree-
ment with their partner and children, by women aged 30 years and over has
the following profile: 30–45 (43.8%, N = 7), 46–65 (61.1%, N = 11) and over-
65s (84.2%, N = 16), although the husband tends to control the main televi-
sion during football matches. Some of the interviewed women pointed out
that each household member has their own main television:
E. (Vilagarcía de Arousa, 18–21 age range): In fact, in my house, every-
one as their own main television. My mum’s main TV is no longer the
same as my dad’s…
Generally, disagreements are resolved by using other devices or by strength-
ening habits that have developed over a period of time:
LS. (Alicante, 22–29 age range): Well, if my mum is watching something
that I don’t like, then I go to another telly.
Online viewing is the usual way to catch up on missed episodes, especially
among the young girls and women aged 10–29 years old (54.71%, N = 29),
a habit that decreases progressively in women over 30 (22.64%, N = 12).6
Multitasking is common practise while watching on the computer and is quite
popular among girls aged 10–14 years old (44.4%, N = 8) and young women
aged 22–29 (45%, N = 9), while girls in the intervening age ranges (15–17
and 18–21) associate watching television with the use of mobiles and utilize
second screens to recommend the programme they are watching.
Commercials are used mainly by young women aged 22–29 years old
(45%, N = 9) to carry out other activities such as chatting or making telephone
calls and even use their mobile phones to warn their female friends that the
adverts have finished:
SO. (Vilagarcía de Arousa, 22–29 age range): Hey, the ads are over!
Women over 65 years of age, on the other hand, do not usually skip adverts
(84.2%, N = 16) and even claim that they act as a distraction. These data are
consistent with the solitary nature of the viewing practices of female partici-
pants from this age group (73.7%, N = 14), most of whom (82.4%, N = 16) do
not watch the programmes in the company of others generally because they
live on their own. Hence, for nearly all of them, television programmes help
schedule their day while at the same time keeping them company.
Despite the boom in technologies and the democratization of mobile
phones, 94.4% (N = 117) of the women interviewed discuss fiction
programmes mainly during their face-to-face interactions. In total, 10.5%
(N = 13) of those interviewed use these interactions to catch up on missed
episodes, with their female friends filling them in on the details of the programme’s
events. Nevertheless, 30.6% (N = 38), mainly young girls in the 10–14 (66.7%,
N = 12) and 15–17 (75%, N = 9) age ranges, use the Internet to look for
JDTV_7.2.indb 223JDTV_7.2.indb 223 03/08/16 9:51 AM03/08/16 9:51 AM

Charo Lacalle | Cristina Pujol
224 International Journal of Digital Television
additional information about the programmes, although participation in
forums and social networks is low (11.3%, N = 14) and only one female partic-
ipant had created resources related to the programmes that she followed.
Occasionally, some of the young girls interviewed helped older female
members of their family to bridge the digital gap, keeping them up to date
with the latest news on a particular series, which they obtained through social
networks or official web pages:
G. (Palma, 15–17 age range): My parents don’t have Facebook but have
been following the series since the first episode. They love it and have
asked me to thank the Migjorn team for them.
(Migjorn, IB3)
B. (Barcelona, 65+ age range): Well, I don’t know anything about the
Internet, but my granddaughter, who watches the series with me, told
me that the other day she logged on to one of those things on the
computer and said that she also watched it and that she watched it with
her gran, in other words, me […].
The help offered by young girls to older women in accessing technologies is
reciprocated by the updates the latter give the former, who have difficulties
following their favourite programmes due to family commitments:
M. B. (Valencia, 46–65 age range): I fill my daughter-in-law in with
what’s been going on [in the series] because when I go to see the
grandchildren in the afternoon, she, since she’s such an early bird, tells
me ‘I fell asleep’. So I tell her what happened.
The preference for soap operas creates a feeling of unity between women of
different ages:
A. (Jerez de la Frontera, 30–45 age range): I watch [the series] with my
daughter. The men go off and the women get together […] In my case,
it’s me and my daughter. She loves the series just as much as I do.
Preferences and interpretation
Comedies and period dramas are the most popular programmes among the
female participants, the most popular being La que se avecina (2007–present),
Aída (2005–2014) and Isabel (2012–2014). The first two are sitcoms, starring a
community of lower-middle-class neighbours and a working-class multigen-
erational family living on the outskirts of a big city, respectively, while Isabel is a
period drama about the reign of Isabel I of Castile. Although there appeared to
be no particular a priori theme of interest among the majority of women inter-
viewed, romances tended to be the favourite among those aged 65 and over
(42.1%, N = 8) and those in the 15–17 age range (58.3%, N = 7). The latter also
admitted that young, good-looking male stars were a decisive factor in their
choice of Spanish series (50%, N = 6), something that also occurs in the 10–14
age group (66.6%, N = 12).
In total, 66.7% of women aged 46–65 (N = 12) and 84.2% (N = 16) of
over-65s believe that, in general, the plots are realistic, which is in contrast
to the opinion of girls aged 10–14 (61.1%, N = 11) and 22–29 (55%, N = 11).
JDTV_7.2.indb 224JDTV_7.2.indb 224 03/08/16 9:51 AM03/08/16 9:51 AM

Gender, generation and reception of Spanish television fi ction in the digital age
www.intellectbooks.com 225
However, identification with the characters and the desire to imitate and look
like them is mainly observed among girls aged 10–14 years old (50%, N = 9)
and 18–21 (19%, N = 4).
Finally, 74.1% (N = 92) of the female participants perceive television fiction
as an appealing leisure occupation, especially the youngest girls (94.4%, N = 17
of the 10–14 year olds; 91.7%, N = 11 of the 15–17 year olds) and older women
(89.5%, N = 17 of over-65s), a finding that is in line with the fact that female
participants who watch Spanish fiction primarily to avoid their daily problems
and obligations are aged between 24 and 65. In other words, they belong to
those age groups that most frequently have problems resulting from juggling
work with family life: 45.0% (N = 9) women aged 24–29; 31.3% (N =30) aged
30–45 and 33.3% (N = 6) aged 46–64.
DISCUSSION
The results obtained call into question the notion of individual, independ-
ent television watching behaviours of members of the ‘digital generation’ as
proposed by another Spanish study (Fedele and García Muñoz 2010). This is
partly due to the fact that, as young women tend to live with their families,
they watch certain programmes that they may not have chosen by themselves
(Morales 2015). However, these results can also be partly explained by the fact
that female participants try not to complicate their lives too much in order to
watch the programmes that interest them (Simons 2013). The preference for
comedies and for the ‘freaky’ or good-looking characters is consistent with
the general conviction that television series are an attractive leisure activ-
ity and that female viewers have no particular expectations of them (Cooper
2003; Grandío 2007). This resonates with the escapism role attributed to them
by female participants (Lacalle 2012), which is an important aspect in the
emotional connection of viewers of both genders with programmes (Gatfield
and Millwood Hargrave 2003).
Despite the fact that solitary viewing gives audiences greater autonomy
than watching with other household members, the social aspect of televi-
sion consumption is one of the pleasures associated with watching television
fiction. It can be concluded, therefore, that female participants see television
as a social technology and, as such, although much of their viewing is done
in isolation, their desire to share comments and emotional experiences with
female friends and members of the family in the following days is undoubt-
edly related to the pleasure of watching (Kackman et al. 2011; Simons 2013).
Moreover, television fiction provides them with ‘topics to talk about and
examples from which we can reflect on our lives and values’ (Alasuutari 1992).
The tendency to talk about the programmes face-to-face distances them, at
least for the moment, from the spectre of ‘dehumanizing isolation’ brought
about by the increasing role of modern technology in interpersonal relation-
ships (Turkle 2015) and confirms the social nature of television fiction (Van
den Bulck 2013). Our study also indicates that the communication established
between women through television series (by discussing them, asking about
episodes they have missed, etc.) nurtures emotional ties between female
friends and intergenerational family relationships (Gonçalves and Patrício
2010; Siibak and Tamme 2013).
The digital gap is patent among the generations of Spanish people who
share living spaces with multiple devices (Álvarez Monzoncillo 2011) and
manifests itself in the way in which conflicts resulting from differences in
JDTV_7.2.indb 225JDTV_7.2.indb 225 03/08/16 9:51 AM03/08/16 9:51 AM

Charo Lacalle | Cristina Pujol
226 International Journal of Digital Television
viewing preferences are resolved. The relationship between the use of digital
technologies and generational cohesion (Aroldi 2011; Napoli 2014) is evident
in the case of the young girls and women who took part in our study, who
interact with each other through the Internet more than the rest of the partici-
pants. Many of them multitask while watching their favourite programmes,
‘typically surfing the web, e-mailing, texting, or social networking’ (Deloitte
2015: 13). Programme recommendation is another common use for second
screens while watching (Van Cauwenberge et al. 2014; Han and Lee 2014).
The practically non-existent creation of resources and information that
complement the programme by the women interviewed confirms the scarce
participation of most young people in uploading content onto the Internet
(Courtois et al. 2009; Simons 2014). Consequently, although an intergen-
erational digital gap was also evident in this example (Dewan et al. 2005),
there were no clear indications of the ‘digital differentiation’ claimed by other
European studies carried out in the 2000s (Peter and Valkenburg 2006).
Finally, the analysis carried out here indicates that there is a more obvi-
ous relationship between the use of technologies and the social relation-
ships established on the one hand by the baby boomers and generation X
and, on the other, generation Y and generation Z (Napoli 2014). Our study
also confirms the results of studies carried out by Landabidea (2014), and
Landabidea and Loos (2015), which relate fiction consumption with leisure
experiences among groups of the same age and the way in which these indi-
viduals see and experience television.
This study is in agreement with research that demonstrated the role of
television fiction in the strengthening and transformation of the values of
a particular community or social group. In general terms, our contribution
confirms the influence of the generation gap on viewers’ preferences and their
different ways of watching television, although the similarity of female view-
ers’ emotional relationship with television fiction calls into question the extent
generally attributed to the generation gap in the area under investigation.
Therefore, the solidarity established between women to maintain and prolong
viewing pleasure helps to mitigate the digital gap between older and younger
female participants.
LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
This study has certain inherent limitations in terms of the qualitative meth-
ods due to the difficulties in extrapolating the results obtained from small
sample sizes, in addition to other contextual factors. For example, the limited
number of women interviewed who watch Spanish television only through
mobile devices could have been due both to the sample size and the prime
time schedule of most television series, which is the most popular time for
family viewing. However, the small number of studies that address television
viewing from the perspective of generation hinders the comparison of most
of the results obtained here and highlights the need to study the long-term
impact of television series on culture and socializing (Van den Bulck 2013).
The need to explore ‘the complexity of interrelated online and offline prac-
tices in specific global circumstances’ (Bird 2011: 512) is, likewise, another
emerging area of investigation into television fiction consumption in the
digital age, which has only been considered tangentially in this study, as has
the specific analysis of the ‘relationships of mutuality between technologies
(texts) and users (readers)’ (Das 2011: 344). Consequently, long-term research
JDTV_7.2.indb 226JDTV_7.2.indb 226 03/08/16 9:51 AM03/08/16 9:51 AM

Gender, generation and reception of Spanish television fi ction in the digital age
www.intellectbooks.com 227
is required that allows us to understand and qualify the practices observed
by numerous researchers who approach this subject from a generational
and business perspective, such as the report by the prestigious multinational
consultancy firm Deloitte, referred to previously.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This article is part of a larger investigation project entitled ‘Social Construction
of Women in the Television Fiction and Web 2.0: Stereotypes, Reception and
Feedback’ (FEM2012-33411), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and
Competitivity (Government of Spain). This part of the research was developed
by the authors and Deborah Castro, Beatriz Gómez (researchers); Meritxell
Esquirol, Belén Granda, Rosa Ferrer, Raúl Rodríguez, Carlos Sanandrés,
Karina Tiznado, Victoria Tur (contributors).
REFERENCES
Aída (2005–2014, Spain: Tele5).
Alasuutari, P. (1992), ‘“I’m ashamed to admit it but I have watched Dallas”:
The moral hierarchy of television programmes’, Media Culture Society,
14: 4, pp. 561–82, http://mcs.sagepub.com. Accessed 1 December 2015.
—— (1995), Researching Culture: Qualitative Method and Cultural Studies,
London: Sage.
Álvarez Monzoncillo, José María (2011), La televisión etiquetada. Nuevas
audiencias, Nuevos negocios/‘The labelled television. New audiences, new
business’, Madrid: Ariel y Fundación Telefónica.
Ang, I. (1985), Watching Dallas. Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination,
London: Menthuen.
Aroldi, P. (2011), ‘Generational belonging between media audiences and
ICT users’, in F. Colombo and L. Fortunati (eds), Broadband Society and
Generational Changes, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, pp. 51–68.
Aroldi, P. & Colombo, F. (2013), ‘Questioning “digital global generations”.
A critical approach’, Northern Lights, 11, 175-190.
Barkhuus, L. (2009), ‘Television on the Internet: New practices, new viewers’,
CHI, 4:9, pp. 2479–88.
Baym, N. K. (1998), The emergence of on-line community, in S. G. Jones
(ed.), Cybersociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-Mediated Communication and
Community, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp. 35–68.
—— (2010), Personal Connections in the Digital Age, Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Bird, E. (2011), ‘Are we all produsers now?’, Cultural Studies, 25: 4–5,
pp. 502–16, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2011.600532. Accessed 13
December 2015.
Bolin, G. (2014), ‘Media generations: Objective and subjective media lands-
capes and nostalgia among generations of media users’, Participations.
Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, 11: 2, pp. 108–31.
boyd, d. m. (2008), ‘Taken out of context: American teen sociality in networ-
ked publics’, Ph.D. dissertation, Berkeley: University of California, School
of Information, http://www.danah.org/papers/TakenOutOfContext.
pdfBruns. Accessed 10 December 2015.
Bruns, A. (2007), ‘Produsage: Towards a broader framework for user-led
content creation, Proceedings Creativity & Cognition, 6, http://eprints.qut.
edu.au/6623/1/6623.pdf. Accessed 13 December 2015.
JDTV_7.2.indb 227JDTV_7.2.indb 227 03/08/16 9:51 AM03/08/16 9:51 AM

Charo Lacalle | Cristina Pujol
228 International Journal of Digital Television
Brunsdon, C. (2000), The Feminist, the Housewife and the Soap Opera, Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Buckingham, D. and Bragg, S. (2004), Young People, Sex and the Media. Facts of
Life?, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cooper, E. (2003), ‘Decoding Will and Grace: Mass audience reception of
a popular network situation comedy’, Sociological Perspectives, 46: 4,
pp. 513–33.
Courtois, C., Mechant, P., De Marez, L. and Verleye, G. (2009), ‘Gratifications
and seeding behavior of online adolescents’, Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communication, 15: 1, pp. 109–37.
Das, R. (2011), ‘Converging perspectives in audience studies and digital lite-
racies: Youthful interpretations of an online genre’, European Journal of
Communication, 26:4, pp. 343–60.
Deery, J. (2003), ‘TV.com: Participatory viewing on the web’, The Journal of
Popular Culture, 37: 2, pp. 161–83.
Deloitte (2015), ‘Digital democracy survey. A multi-generational view of
consumer technology, media and telecom trends’, Deloitte Development
LLC, http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/
technology-media-telecommunications/us-tmt-DDS_Executive_
Summary_Report_Final_2015-04-20.pdf. Accessed 13 December 2015.
Dewan, S., Ganley, S. and Kraemer, K. (2005), ‘Across the digital divide:
A cross-country multi-technology analysis of the determinants of IT pene-
tration’, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 6: 12, pp. 409–32.
Doyle, S. (2009), ‘Girls just wanna have fangs. The unwarranted backlash
against fans of the world’s most popular vampire-romance series’, The
American Prospect, 20: 9, http://prospect.org/article/girls-just-wanna-have-
fangs-0. Accessed 20 February 2015.
Eastenders (1985–present, UK: BBC1).
Fedele, M. and García Muñoz, N. (2010), ‘El consumo adolescente de la
ficción seriada’/‘The adolescent consumption of serialized fiction’, Vivat
Academia, 111, http://pendientedemigracion.ucm.es/info/vivataca/nume-
ros/n111/PDFs/Maddcop.pdf. Accessed 13 December 2015.
Fiske, J. (1986), ‘Television: Polysemy and popularity’, Critical Studies in
Communication, 3: 4, pp. 391–408.
Gatfield, L. and Millwood Hargrave, A. (2003), Dramatic Licence. Fact or
Fiction?, London: Broadcasting Standards Commission.
Geraghty, C. (1991), Women and Soap Opera: A Study of Prime Time Soaps,
Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Gillespie, M. (1995), Television, Ethnicity and Popular Culture, London:
Routledge.
Gonçalves, V. and Patrício, M. (2010), ‘Information technology for grandpa-
rents and grandchildren’, in Proceedings of ICERI2010 Conference, Madrid,
Spain, 15–17 November, IATED: Valencia.
Grandío, M. (2007), ‘Recepción de la ficción televisiva norteamericana en
España. El caso de Friends’/’Reception of North-American TV fiction in
Spain. The case of Friends’, E-compós. Revista da Associaçao Nacional dos
Programas de Pós-Graduaçao em Comunicaçao, 10, http://compos.org.br/
seer/index.php/e-compos/article/viewFile/186/187. Accessed 13 December
2015.
Hall, S. (1997), Representation. Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices,
London: Sage.
JDTV_7.2.indb 228JDTV_7.2.indb 228 03/08/16 9:51 AM03/08/16 9:51 AM

Gender, generation and reception of Spanish television fi ction in the digital age
www.intellectbooks.com 229
Han, E. and Lee, S. W. (2014), ‘Motivations for the complementary use of text-
based media during linear TV viewing: An exploratory study’, Computers in
Human Behavior, 32, pp. 235–43.
Hobson, D. (1982), Crossroads. The Drama of a Soap Opera, London: Methuen
Publishing.
Holliman, R. (2005), ‘Reception analyses of science news: Evaluating focus
groups as a method’, Sociologia e Ricerca Sociale, 26: 76–77, pp. 254–64.
Hollows, J. (2000), Feminism, Femininity and Popular Culture, Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) (2014), ‘Informe anual 2014’/‘Annual
Report 2014’, http://www.ine.es/ine/planine/informe_anual_2014.pdf.
Accessed 1 December 2015.
Isabel (2012–2014, Spain: La1).
Jackson, S. and Vares, T. (2011), ‘Media “Sluts”: Tween girls’ negotiation
of postfeminist sexual subjectivities in popular culture’, in R. Gill and C.
Scharff (eds), New Femininities: Postfeminism, Neoliberalism and Subjectivity,
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 134–46.
Jenkins, H. (2006), Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide,
New York and London: New York University Press.
Kackman, M., Binfield, M. and Payne, M. T. (2011), Flow TV: Television in the
Age of Media Convergence, New York: Routledge.
Kehily, M. J. and Nayak, A. (2008), ‘Global femininities: Consumption, culture
and the significance of place’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of
Education, 29: 3, pp. 325–42.
Lacalle, C. (2010), ‘Joves i ficció televisiva: representació i efectes’/‘Young and
TV fiction: Representation and effects’, Anàlisi, 40, pp. 29–45.
—— (2012), ‘Genre and age in the reception of television fiction’, Revista
Comunicar, 39: 2, pp. 111–18, http://www.revistacomunicar.com/index.
php?contenido=detalles&numero=39&articulo=39-2012-13. Accessed
2 November 2015.
Landabidea, X. (2014), ‘Television as an intergenerational leisure artefact: An
interdisciplinary dialogue’, Participations, 11: 2, pp. 132–55.
Landabidea, X. and Loos, E. (2015), ‘Contemporary meanings and experien-
ces of television in the digital age’, International Journal of Digital Television,
6: 1, pp. 43–60.
La que se avecina (2007–present, Spain: Tele5).
Lenhart, A., Madden, M., Smith, A. and MacGill, A. (2007), ‘Teens and social
media’, Pew Internet & American Life Project: Teen Content Creators,
http://www.pewinternet.org/2007/12/19/teens-and-social-media/.
Accessed 20 November 2015.
Livingstone, S. (2004), ‘The challenge of changing audiences: Or what is the
researcher to do in the age of Internet?’, European Journal of Communication,
19: 1, pp. 75–86.
—— (2008), ‘Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation:
Teenagers’ use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy, and self-
expression’, New Media and Society, 10: 3, pp. 393–411.
—— (2009), Children and the Internet: Great Expectations, Challenging Realities,
Oxford: Polity Press.
Livingstone, S., Allen, J. and Reiner, R. (2001), ‘The audience for crime media
1946–91: A historical approach to reception studies’, Communication
Review, 4: 2, pp. 165–92.
JDTV_7.2.indb 229JDTV_7.2.indb 229 03/08/16 9:51 AM03/08/16 9:51 AM

Charo Lacalle | Cristina Pujol
230 International Journal of Digital Television
Madill, A. and Goldmeier, R. (2003), ‘East enders. Texts of female desire and
of community’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 6: 4, pp. 471–94.
Modlesky, T. (1982), Loving with a Vengeance. Mass Produced Fantasies for
Women, New York: Routledge.
Morales, S. (2015), ‘La construcción de la identidad narrativa a través de las
“historias de vida mediáticas”. Un análisis generacional’/‘The construction
of narrative identity through “media life stories”: A generational analy-
sis’, Cultura, Lenguaje y Representación, 14, pp. 201–202, http://dx.doi.
org/10.6035/clr.2015.14.8. Accessed 29 November 2015.
Moreno Minguez, A. (ed.) (2012), La transición de los jóvenes a la vida adulta.
Crisis económica y emancipación tardía/‘The transition from youth to
adulthood. Economic crisis and late emancipation’. Colección Estudios
Sociales, vol. 34, Barcelona: Obra Social La Caixa.
Morley, D. (1980), The Nationwide Audience, London: British Film Institute.
Napoli, A. (2014), ‘Social media use and generational identity: Issues and
consequences on peer-to-peer and cross-generational relationships – an
empirical study’, Participations. Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, 11:
2, pp. 182–206.
Nicolás, M. T., Padilla, M. A., Quintanilla, C. and Varegas, P. P. (2015),
‘A woman of the 60s caught in a contemporary TV series: Claire Dunphy
a housewife in a “Modern Family”’, Communication & Social Change, 3: 1,
pp. 19–47, http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/csc.2015.1174. Accessed 30
November 2015.
Noelle-Neumann, E. (1974), ‘The spiral of silence. A theory of public opinion’,
Journal of Communication, 24: 2, pp. 43–51.
Peter, J. and Valkenburg, P. M. (2006), ‘Adolescents’ Internet use: Testing
the “disappearing digital divide” versus the “emerging digital differentia-
tion”’, Poetics, 34: 4–5, pp. 293–305.
Scolari, C. A. (2010), ‘Media ecology. Map of a theoretical niche’, Quaderns del
CAC, 34(1), 17-25. http://www.cac.cat/pfw_files/cma/recerca/quaderns_
cac/Q34_Scolari_EN.pdf. Accessed 10 October 2015.
Siapera, E. (2004), ‘From couch potatoes to cybernauts? The expanding notion
of the audience on TV channels’ websites’, New Media & Society, 6: 2,
pp. 155–72.
Siibak, A. and Tamme, V. (2013), ‘Who introduced granny to Facebook? An
exploration of everyday family interaction in web-based communication
environments’, Northern Lights, 11: 1, pp. 71–89.
Siibak, A., Vittadini, N. and Nimrod, G. (2014), ‘Generations as media audien-
ces: An introduction’, Participations. Journal of Audience & Reception Studies,
11: 2, pp. 100–07.
Simons, N. (2013), ‘Watching TV fiction in the age of digitization: A study into
the viewing practices of engaged TV fiction viewers’, International Journal
of Digital Television, 4: 2, pp. 177–91.
—— (2014), ‘Audience reception of cross- and transmedia TV drama in the
age of convergence’, International Journal of Communication, 8, pp. 2220–39.
http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/2598/1207. Accessed 20 October
2015.
Tehone, A. B., Zo, H. and Ciganek, A. P. (2015), ‘Why do people use
social computing? An experiential perspective’, Internet Research, 25: 3,
pp. 338–57, http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IntR-11-2013-0235. Accessed 10
December 2015.
JDTV_7.2.indb 230JDTV_7.2.indb 230 03/08/16 9:51 AM03/08/16 9:51 AM

Gender, generation and reception of Spanish television fi ction in the digital age
www.intellectbooks.com 231
Turkle, S. (1995), Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, New York:
Simon & Schuster.
—— (2015), Reclaiming Conversation. The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, New
York: Penguin Books.
Van Cauwenberge, A., Schaap, G. and van Roy, R. (2014), ‘TV no longer
commands our full attention: Effects of second-screen viewing and task
relevance on cognitive load and learning from news’, Computers in Human
Behavior, 38, pp. 100–09, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.05.021.
Accessed 23 November 2015.
Van den Bulck, J. (2013), ‘Cultivation theory: Television fiction as a vector
of socialization’, in A. N. Valdivia (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of
Media Studies, vol. 5, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 63–88.
Walkerdine, V. (1986), ‘Video replay: Families, films and fantasy’, in
V. Burgin, J. Donald and C. Kaplan (eds), Formations of Fantasy, New York:
Routledge, pp. 167–99.
Williams, R. (2015), Post-Object Fandom. Television, Identity and Self-narrative,
New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
SUGGESTED CITATION
Lacalle, C. and Pujol, C. (2016), ‘Gender, generation and reception of Spanish
television fiction in the digital age’, International Journal of Digital Television,
7: 2, pp. 217–231, doi: 10.1386/jdtv.7.2.217_1
CONTRIBUTOR DETAILS
Charo Lacalle is Full Professor at the Journalism Department at the
Autonomous University of Barcelona. She has directed several research
projects on TV fiction and Internet, granted by Spanish and International
institutions and agencies.
E-mail: Rosario.lacalle@uab.es
Cristina Pujol is Lecturer at the Journalism Department at the Autonomous
University of Barcelona. She has written several articles on the topics of femi-
nism, cultural identities and media representation and reception.
E-mail: Cristina.Pujol@uab.cat
Charo Lacalle and Cristina Pujol have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors of this work in
the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.
JDTV_7.2.indb 231JDTV_7.2.indb 231 03/08/16 9:51 AM03/08/16 9:51 AM