Internet's effects on television viewing habits among university students

Communication & Technology

Since the advent of the Internet in the early 90's, it has played a significant role in the way people communicate and transmit information. With the convenience and variation it offers, it quickly assimilated itself in the lives of modern individuals.

The Internet has shaped and re-defined traditional forms of communication and information dissemination. Books are being digitized through Project Gutenberg. Newspapers such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have online counterparts. Radio has in its place podcasting, and TV is made digital with YouTube. The Internet has provided both access and platform for groups and individuals to share and consume information right off the top of their desks.

But a long-standing debate ensues. With this new technology come new threats that pose certain dangers to individuals and industries. The propagation of mp3 and music-sharing sites in the mid-90's brought the demise of a number of music recording companies. The Internet is being used to peddle prostitutes and spread child prostitution. Newspapers with low circulation are forced to close down and transfer the news to a cheaper medium -- the Web. The means, convenient as it may, have been used and then later, abused. With this in mind, will the dawn of YouTube and Peer-to-Peer file sharing networks likewise bring forth the demise of the decades-old television?

This paper, then, aims to look into the effects of electronic consumption of TV shows to the TV viewing habits of

RATIONALE

It is interesting to note the increased popularity of downloading TV shows over the Internet. Likewise, many of us now prefer viewing TV shows in virtual boob tubes (e.g. YouTube) over shows aired in cable TVs. Remarkably, not much is known and studied about University students as television consumers vis-a-vis their being Internet consumers. The general aim of this research, therefore, is to open doors for further research on the subject, which very much lacks local literature content.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This study will be patterned after two communication theories, both of which fall under media studies. These are the Uses and Gratifications Theory and Ball-Rokeach and DeFleur's Dependence Theory. In consolidating these theories, it is highly important to connect the media consumers (i.e. University students) and two specific mediums, namely television and Internet.

Uses and Gratifications Approach

This approach gives attention to the audience member or media user, proposing that the audience member is an active and discriminating user of media rather than a passive one. It looks into how an audience member's direct experience with the media affects his/her communication behavior. It also suggests that in knowing what their needs are, audience members will also know how to gratify those needs and as such choose what media will satisfy those needs.

Integration of Theories

Grounded on these theories is the assumption that media consumers, with the use of television and the Internet, seek gratification of their needs and interests. By means of either or both mediums, consumers view reruns of a particular television show, view television shows not produced and not airing in the country, or view television shows aired later on local television.

However, through changing times, most of these needs are satisfied through the Internet. This leads now to the more significant questions in focus: What are the effects of electronic consumption of TV shows to the TV viewing habits of University students and what are their motivations for consuming these shows over the Internet?

REVIEW of the LITERATURE

New Method of TV Consumption: Online Downloading and Viewing

Different innovations in computing technology heightened the accessibility of electronic consumption of TV shows over the Internet. During the past several years, file-sharing programs such as Napster, which began in late 1998, Kazaa, Limewire, BearShare and uTorrent, have provided means for file redistribution over different Internet protocols such as Gnutella and BitTorrent (Foulke, 2000).

Initially, the most common files to be largely shared over the Internet are music files in mp3 format, primarily due to the fact that the compression rate is much higher with mp3 than in standard CD, wave or windows media files, which are exponentially larger in file size.

Electronic consumption of TV shows did not become widespread in reach until early 2006 with the revolutionary Web 2.0 application which we have come to know today as YouTube. YouTube, essentially, enables the end-user to view videos over the Web without the need to install external software (Grecco, 2006). Wider accessibility and streamlined downloading time makes YouTube one of the video-sharing sites of choice today based on the number of audience drawn to its website (Allen, 2007). Coupled with the steady increase in broadband Internet penetrability -- approximately 298 Million broadband subscribers worldwide in 2007, from 217 Million in 2005 and about a 131.5% growth rate locally -- people are now more adept at consuming online video through video-sharing sites such as YouTube (Madden, 2007).

With the steadily growing popularity of YouTube, other video-sharing sites such as Revver, CrunchyRoll, Blip.tv, Stage6, among others, soon emerged. Consumers of online video started growing to as much as 80% of Internet users in 2007 (from only 62.8% of Internet users in 2006) and are projected to reach 86.6% of Internet users by 2011 (Streaming Media Magazine, 2007). But a study on online video consumption entitled Online Video places the figure at only about 57% of Internet users (Madden, 2007). However, they are similar in findings that males aged 18-24 are the most common consumers of online video. And contrary to popular belief, the online viewing demographic transcends almost all age groups, not just users aged 18-24 years old (Lafsky, 2007).

This growing statistic prompted TV networks to explore the uncharted territory of online video viewing. According to a University of Pennsylvania study, as of July 2007, about five major TV networks in the United States have made their episodes available for free viewing online. ABC.com offers full episodes of about twenty of its series, but is limited only to consumers in the United States (Waldfogel, 2007). However, the same episodes that are authorized to be viewed online can also be viewed illegally through other video sharing sites or be downloaded through peer-to-peer file sharing networks.

But which group represents the largest and the most intent consumers of Internet shows? Latest statistics from Big Champagne, an Online Media Measurement firm, places the average number of users logged onto these networks in 2005 to about 9,284,558 people worldwide, or a 36% percent increase from the previous data in 2004 (Aughton, 2004). A report by the Federal Trade Commission of the United States of America entitled Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing Technology:Consumer Protection and Competition Issues places the most notable group who download and view shows online are those in their late teens and early twenties (Federal Trade Commission, 2005).

TV Viewing Habits vs. Electronic Consumption debate on whether or not electronic consumption of TV shows has a clear and delineated effect on traditional TV consumption thereby ensues. The nature of the debate is mainly rooted on the fact that file sharing of music files had a staggering effect on worldwide music sales (Lafsky, 2007). Swedish broadcast statistics institute MMS reports that in 2006, Swedish TV networks lost about 24% of the 16-30-year-old demographic to online video viewing (TorrentFreak, 2006). Recent figures about TV-viewing habits in the United Kingdom show that 40% of people under 30 years old prefer to watch television shows "on demand" (Lafsky, 2007).

However, some argue that instead of preying over the audience share of TV networks, online video viewing actually aids in wooing new audience to TV, especially of the 18-24-year-old demographic who are, arguably, much harder to reach through traditional media (Lafsky, 2007). In a study entitled Lost on the Web: Does Web Distribution Stimulate or Depress Television Viewing?, it was found out that Web distribution of TV programs positively influenced the overall viewing of TV network programming (Waldfogel, 2007). A joint poll by America Online and the Associated Press reports that 80% of their respondents say that their TV viewing habits remain unchanged despite having consumed online videos. It can be inferred, therefore, that Web distribution of network material can actually become a form of free advertising.

RESARCH QUESTIONS and HYPOTHESES

The review of the literature and the study framework lead to the following research questions: Does downloading or online viewing of shows play a role in the TV viewing habits of University students? What are the motivations that drive these students who prefer online downloading and viewing over watching shows aired in cable TV?

It is likewise the review of the related studies and the theoretical framework that pointed out the most probable hypotheses for this study: That one, Online downloading and viewing of shows has significantly affected TV-viewing behavior of students (e.g. In terms of number of hours spent in watching TV vs. hours spent online). The next hypothesis is that as times change and as technology continuously evolves and shapes our everyday lives, so are our needs, preferences and motivations in media consumption. The needs that peers our age seek to fulfill by watching TV ten years ago could be vastly different from our perceived needs now.