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Ethnolinguistic Identification, Vitality, and Gratifications for Television Use in a Bilingual Media Environment
Author(s) -
Harwood Jake,
Vincze Laszlo
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.618
H-Index - 122
eISSN - 1540-4560
pISSN - 0022-4537
DOI - 10.1111/josi.12097
Subject(s) - vitality , psychology , social psychology , ingroups and outgroups , context (archaeology) , entertainment , identification (biology) , identity (music) , geography , art , philosophy , botany , physics , theology , archaeology , acoustics , visual arts , biology
This article tests a model predicting minority language television consumption. We examine how four media gratifications (diversion, ethnolinguistic identity, surveillance, parasocial companionship) mediate the relationship between ethnolinguistic identification and choice of ingroup language television viewing. The study is performed among (minority) Hungarian speakers in Transylvania, Romania. Self‐report questionnaire data from 401 Hungarian‐speaking high school students in Csíkszereda/Miercurea Ciuc (a majority Hungarian locale) and Brassó/Brașov (a minority Hungarian locale) allowed us to compare high and low local vitality conditions. Analysis indicates that diversion (entertainment) and ethnolinguistic identity gratifications for watching ingroup language television are the strongest mediators of the influence of identification on ingroup language television use. We examined four moderators of these indirect effects (objective vitality, subjective vitality, intergroup contact, and intragroup contact). The moderators revealed a number of rather complex effects which are discussed with regard to the local intergroup context and broader issues of media and intergroup relations.