Occupational position and consumption of news: A research note

This study explored in what way and to what extent people’s occupational position corresponds with the consumption of news and the exposure to political content offered by the traditional mass media TV, radio and newspaper. Empirical data from the ’Media use in the Netherlands, 2000’ survey among a representative sample of the Dutch population (Konig, et al., 2005) (N=825) were used. Occupational position was conceptualized as a situational characteristic that indicates different perceptions of people’s social context in which diverse aspects of media use may vary. Several characteristics of occupational position were used to indicate employees engagement in the public domain and the size of their public social capital respectively. News was understood as representation of the public domain. Some central indicators of the structure of relevancies, that play a central role in social action theory in general and the ‘media use as social action’ approach to communication research especially were included as moderating factors. As was the case in a previous project (Nelissen et al., 2008), the influence of the occupational position in general and the perceived amount of public social capital (or: social network) especially on media use, i.e. consumption of news as well as the exposure to political media content, revealed to be evident. Findings can be interpreted as being in line with the central assumptions on ‘audience activity’ of audience-centred models in communication research in general and the ‘media use as social action’ approach especially (cf. Renckstorf & Wester, 2001, 2004). It is the subjectively perceived social context, here indicated by occupational position as well as the subjectively held structure of relevancies that are central predictors of media use.