The role of EITB as a driver of
Basque culture
among Basque millennials
Natalia Hernández Gómez
Communication for Development One-year master
15 Credits
Degree Project-VT20 Supervisor: Florencia Enghel
2 I could not have completed this thesis without the help of many people who have been
part of this process in some way. Thank you for your participation and availability. Thanks to my supervisor Florencia, for motivating me, guiding me, sharing your
knowledge and great experience.
To my family, for teaching me what really matters in life and supporting me in all the decisions I have made to get here.
And to you, Ibai, thank you for being my “deskmate” (and soulmate) while writing this thesis, for your constant encouragement when I waver, for inspiring me and for
bringing out the best in me.
Esta tesis no la podría haber completado sin la ayuda de muchas personas que han formado parte de alguna forma en este proceso. Gracias por vuestra participación y
disponibilidad.
Gracias a mi supervisora Florencia, por motivarme, guiarme, por compartir tus conocimientos y gran experiencia.
A mi familia, por enseñarme lo que es realmente importante en la vida y apoyarme en todas las decisiones que he tomado para llegar hasta aquí.
Y a ti, Ibai, gracias por ser mi compañero de mesa (y de vida) mientras escribía esta tesis, por tus constantes ánimos cuando las fuerzas flaquean, por inspirarme y por
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ABSTRACT
This study analyses the involvement of young Basque millennials with EITB, the Basque public media. Specifically, it focuses on knowing what these young people think of these media and revealing what their experience of engagement with television programming is.
EITB was founded in 1982, years after the end of Franco’s dictatorship which, based on an ideology of extreme Spanish nationalism, persecuted any Basque cultural expression for decades. From its inception, this public broadcaster has sought to promote Basque culture and the Basque language and, after several years of development and growth, it is now facing new challenges arising from the digital era.
In this context, the new forms of consumption, habits and the massive offer of audiovisual material force the public broadcaster to make an effort to reach their audiences and to make them loyal. In this sense, I will analyse which the paths that EITB uses to contact young millennials are and where its role as an agent for the social development of Basque culture lies.
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CONTENTS
1.
INTRODUCTION ... 5
1.1 INTRODUCING THE TOPIC ... 5
1.2 THE PROBLEM ... 7
1.3 RESEARCH PURPOSE ... 9
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTION ... 10
2.
LITERATURE REVIEW ... 10
2.1 YOUNG MILLENNIALS AND TELEVISION ... 10
2.2 NEW MEDIA IN SPANISH NATIONAL PUBLIC TELEVISION ... 14
2.3 MEDIA AND THE BASQUE LANGUAGE AND CULTURE ... 16
3.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... 20
3.1 CULTIVATION THEORY ... 20
3.2 MEDIA FOR DEVELOPMENT ... 21
3.3 CONVERGENCE CULTURE ... 23
4.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 24
5.
ANALYSIS ... 28
5.1 SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE ... 28
5.2 DO BASQUE MILLENNIALS WATCH TELEVISION? ... 30
5.3 BASQUE MILLENNIALS WATCHING TELEVISION ... 30
5.4 BASQUE MILLENNIALS NOT WATCHING TELEVISION ... 32
5.5 EITB AND BASQUE MILLENNIALS ... 34
5.6 EITB PROGRAMMING AND MILLENNIALS ... 39
6.
CONCLUSION ... 41
6.1 ANSWERING THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS ... 41
6.2 LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH ... 42
6.3 RELEVANCE FOR COMMUNICATION FOR DEVELOPMENT ... 43
7.
REFERENCES ... 44
8.
APPENDIX ... 54
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1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 INTRODUCING THE TOPIC
New trends in the consumption of audiovisual products are increasingly palpable in society. While traditional media are based on the notion of mass communication, where the content comes from a single source and is directed linearly to many viewers, the new media deal with a flow of information which comes from different sources and is later addressed to many receivers (Wee, 2017).
In this digital age, the variety of entertainment options such as “computer, tablet, and mobile phone screens are supplanting the traditional movie and television screen” (Wee, 2017, p. 134). As a consequence, traditional media have to compete and adapt to reach a less loyal audience that, due to having so many options available, are capable of being a multitask viewers unlike previous generations (Poyntz and Pedri, 2018).Young people specifically, are one of the social strata that has escaped to other platforms such as YouTube, Netflix, HBO or Movistar+, for example (García-Orta, García-Prieto, Suárez-Romero, 2019).
That is why traditional media, specifically public broadcasting, have to find a way to reconnect with them with attractive content or tools (Wee, 2017). In this context is EITB, a Basque public communication medium, created in 1982 with the aim of promoting and normalizing the Basque culture and language. This birth was a significant event for the Basque society1 that had suffered for decades the persecution of any Basque
expression by Franco’s dictatorship (1939-1975).
Young Basques with ages between 25 and 40 years, also known as Millennials, have grown in parallel with the development of Basque language promotion. Since childhood they have had access to content in Basque, from cartoons and children’s
1 The origin of the Basque people is still unknown. It has a clear axis which this group of people is based
on: the Basque language. In spite of the different historical events it has lived through, it has managed to maintain its signs of identity and its culture. For this reason, when speaking of the Basque people, it is referred to the following historical territories where Basque culture is present: the Basque Country (Autonomous Community formed by Bizkaia, Araba and Gipuzkoa), Autonomous Community of Navarre and the French Basque Country (Lower Navarre, Labort and Soule). In this study, however, I will only focus on the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country that has more than 2 million inhabitants.
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entertainment programmes to series and competitions for teenagers. This paper will study the contents that EITB launches to the Basque youth, focusing on television programming that is aired but which can also be accessed online. The objective will be to analyze what kind of programming they are being offered, what the relationship with the promotion of Basque culture and language is, who the protagonists of those programmes are, what messages are transmitted to them and what connection young people have and feel with these contents.
Since its creation, EITB has particular objectives that make it a special means of communication. In addition to its role as a “public means of communication”, such as TVE at the Spanish level, the value of promoting the Basque language and culture is added and one of the reasons of its creation (Noci, 1998). For this reason, it could be said that the medium itself becomes the director and executor of development in a Basque society and culture damaged because of Franco’s dictatorship. The passing of the years has not diminished that need to promote the Basque language but has been evolving and reconverting. Thus, the appearance of private televisions in the 90s originated a hard competition of audiences that forced both RTVE and EITB to board the ship of programmes of more banal contents like shallow contests, talk shows or Basque versions of the most successful programmes of the private channels. (Garmendia, F. et al. 2003).
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1.2 THE PROBLEM
The public broadcaster EITB was born in 1982 and its creation is a response to what the 19th article of the Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country of 1979, also called the Gernika Statute, established (Larrinaga, A 2019, p. 193-194). This Statute is the institutional norm by which the Basque Country, in expression of its nationality, acceded to its self-government, becoming an Autonomous Community within Spain. In its 19th article, it disposed that “the Basque Country may regulate, create and maintain its own television, radio and press, and, in general, all social media for the fulfillment of its purposes”, (BOE, number 306).
EITB had the triple purpose of becoming a space for citizen information and political participation, cooperation with the education system and promotion of the cultural dissemination and development of the Basque language (Larrinaga, 2007, p. 84). This arises after Francoism, a dictatorship (1939-1975) where Basque and those expressions related to Basque culture were persecuted, mainly in the 40s-70s. This totalitarian military regime, closely related to the contemporary fascist dictatorships that took control in Germany and Italy, based its ideology on Spanish nationalism, conservatism, Catholicism, fascism and anti-communism. This deeply nationalistic ideology, under the motto “one, great and free”, did not conceive the existence of different thoughts and cultures, so it considered the Basque language and culture an anti-Spanish instrument that produced not only political but also linguistic and cultural ones (De Pablo, 2010). Children did not have the opportunity to learn the language and the adults had to resign themselves to speaking it in secret, under the threat of being punished. It was undoubtedly a very hard time in which the Basque culture managed to survive despite being sentenced to death.
That is why the Basque public broadcaster itself thus becomes a mechanism for language normalization for the Basque society2 and a clear driver of language. In its
beginnings (ETB 1), in fact, the programming was only in Basque with Spanish subtitles with the exception of the noon News programme (Garai and Azpillaga, 2016, p. 121).
2 Referred to Basque people in all territories where EITB is broadcast. It is worth mentioning the
programme “Iparraldearen Orena”, which reviews the news and current affairs of this Basque territory belonging to France.
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Starting in 1986, ETB 2, a generalist channel entirely in Spanish, emerged. Today, the group has three more channels, ETB 3 (in Basque and with children’s content), ETB 4 (open channel with offer both in Spanish and Basque) and ETB SAT / Canal Vasco (the international channel with contents in Spanish and Basque). ETB1 and ETB2 are the generalist channels on which I will base the study because they are the channels that focus on a young and adult audience.
EITB TV channels
Source: https://www.eitb.eus/es/television/programacion/
Regardless of which language they use, they are channels with a strong link with “the Basque world”, with news, series, reports, talk shows and contests at a local level: a space created for the Basque society that in some ways is a facilitator that encourages social change, the teaching of Basque, the establishment of a standard language in different fields (Barambones, 2009) and the communicative representation of Basque people.
In the Basque Country, although there is an interest in promoting and communicating in these languages, difficulties are encountered with the coexistence and influence of the most dominant languages, in our case with the Spanish language. Thus, “the rate of use of Basque within the family unit is around 13.5% of households; and the
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bilingual use of Basque and Spanish is around 7.5% of households. The presence of Spanish as a language of regular use, however, close to 80% of households, a percentage that has remained stable over the last thirty years and is still present in new households” (EITB, 2018).
Furthermore, although the content in Basque currently continues to have weight in the group’s global offer, it is true that they compete internally with their own channels in Spanish, perhaps more closely linked to entertainment, in addition to a large number of general private broadcasters communicating in Spanish. In the case of EITB, it can overcome obstacles such as the lack of professionals who command Basque as it has a large number of journalists and experts who have even been a kind of “educator” of the language.
It will be interesting to analyze how EITB tries to reach young Basque people, at a time when there is a multitude of audiovisual entertainment options, considering their nature of support of Basque culture and language. Young people in general are less and less users of traditional media in favor of massive and globalized digital platforms such as Netflix or Youtube (García-Orta, García-Prieto, Suárez-Romero, 2019). The Basque youth is no exception to this trend and, moreover, increasingly devotes more leisure time not only to content on demand but to Social Media (Rodríguez; Ballesteros, 2019, p. 13). For this reason, EITB faces the challenge of capturing the attention of young people; how does it do it?
1.3 RESEARCH PURPOSE
The purpose of the research study will be to learn from Basque young people to discover what their relationship and involvement with EITB is. Specifically, I will focus on knowing what Basque young people think and feel about their experience of engaging with EITB television programming and how they connect with their messages.
This work focuses on analyzing a specific type of Basque viewers, the millennials, that group of young people born approximately between 1980 and 1995. It reviews the content that EITB offers for them at a time when traditional media in general, and specifically public broadcasting, meet the challenge of reaching these young people in a digitized world plagued by different consumer offerings. I also use an online survey to
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investigate first-hand what the opinion of young Basques is about EITB’s programming and analyze it critically.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTION
My main research question is: How do young Basque people engage with EITB’s Basque programming?
My secondary research question is: What types of content does EITB offer to young Basque audiences?
Combined, these two research questions will allow me to consider if and how EITB’s offer for young audiences plays a role in the promotion of the Basque culture and language among them.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
In this section I review a selection of studies carried out in recent years that touch on the following topics that are of interest to this work: young millennials and television, new media in Spanish national public television, media and the Basque language and culture.
2.1 YOUNG MILLENNIALS AND TELEVISION
Nowadays, television has become a device in which we can contract content on demand, listen to the radio, search for information on the internet, watch YouTube, watch content via USB, play video games and even interact through interactive content (Diego, Guerrero and Etayo, 2014, in Guerrero, 2018). It is not surprising, therefore, that some questions arise regarding the definition of television (Uribe-Jongbloed, 2016, in Guerrero, 2018).
In this ecosystem, the different strata of society are related in different ways; while older people make a “more traditional use of television”, young people immerse themselves and navigate this sea of content and possibilities. The media, therefore, are in a competition to capture people’s attention (Levinson, 2004, in Gutiérrez, 2018) and more notably among the Millennial generation.
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The article “Millennials’ abandonment of linear television” (Guerrero, 2018, p. 1231) studies “the evolution of linear television consumption by the so-called millennial generation, in comparison to the general audience, and how it is affected by online viewing” in Spain. For this, the author has used both media studies to quantitatively extract the data from television audimetry, as well as qualitative online questionnaires to Internet users and interviews with different managers of the online platforms of television operators.
In his study, the author reviews the media offer of the main Spanish private television groups, Atresmedia and Mediaset, taking into account the channels that have been broadcasting continuously from 2013 to 2017. Thus, he establishes the year 2013 as a turning point for the progressive decrease in traditional television viewing, mainly among young people. It is at this time that the main operators consolidate their television on demand offer (Guerrero, 2018).
From this moment on, innovation and new synergies between other types of companies, such as telecommunication ones, are entering deeper into the world of communication and entertainment. In 2015, in addition, the well-known and large competing video on demand subscription platforms such as Netflix, HBO or Amazon Prime are added (Guerrero, 2018). This undoubtedly represents a great benefit for the consumer, who sees the offer expanded in its endless possibilities. However, for communication groups, it means a stiff competition that they have to face. All of them, traditional television and on-demand platforms, have the need to know more and retain the attention of less faithful viewers with less static consumption habits.
Considering this great audiovisual offer faced by young people, Cuarteto and Gutiérrez (2020) study the new television consumption against the old stereotypes in order to know the new habits of young Spanish people between 14 and 25 years old, taking into account which the programmes that best represent them are. Although it is not exactly the age range of this work, it is interesting because there is a trend towards the consumption of series on pay platforms. Moreover, young people consider that they are best represented in these pay platforms, to the detriment of reality show type programmes (Cuarteto and Gutiérrez, 2020) thar are broadcast on traditional television. In spite of this, one of these reality shows is one of their favourite programmes, meaning that young
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people may opt for consumption that entertains and distracts them more than for content which they identify with.
Television becomes yet another “task” that can be shared with other activities (Guerrero, Diego and Kimber, 2017 in Guerrero, 2018) and even with the use of another device. The study “I’m just on my phone and they’re watching TV: Quantifying mobile device use while watching television” analyzes the behavior of individuals in seven American families of device use and television at the same time. Thus, they come to conclusions such as that “participants often joined family members in the TV room to physically be together; when they lack interest in the programme, they spend the majority of the show on a secondary device and watch TV only during key moments” (Holz et al, 2015, p. 93).
In this study, although their analysis reflects that most of the member families analyzed pay more attention to the devices than to the television, certain programmes such as sport events, comedy, reality, or romance shows are more likely to function as a “background entertainment”(Holz et al, 2015, p. 100). Programmes of a more educational or cultural nature achieve greater audience follow-up, perhaps because “social conventions may prevent people from chatting with others during active shows that may be interesting to other members of the family” (Holz et al, 2015, p. 101). Therefore, the characteristics and the family reality can condition the type of programming that is seen in the house, especially when there is only one television. Given the linguistic circumstances of the Basque Country, these conditioning factors must be taken into consideration since they can influence the choice of the channel and the programming that is viewed in the house and, consequently, the levels of interest and attention of individuals.
Another competing platform is Youtube, which designed to share videos, becomes a professional content medium (Kim, 2012, in Guerrero, 2018) that commercializes professional content from large producers, (Vonderau, 2016, in Guerrero, 2018). This commercialization leads YouTube to follow the same business model as television, which slightly blurs that goal of being an alternative (Cunningham, Craig, and Silver, 2016, in Guerrero, 2018). In this context, televisions do not want to be left behind and are looking for ways to reconnect with that young audience increasingly attracted by the offer they
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find on the Internet, for example, on YouTube. This platform becomes the model that televisions want to imitate in this convergence between television and the Internet.
Thus, the large television groups in Spain create and launch different online platforms dedicated to the content produced by youtubers. Among these platforms, we highlight Flooxer belonging to Atresmedia (2015), mtmad belonging to Mediaset (2016) and Playz (2017) belonging to RTVE, the largest and oldest public media group in Spain since it has nation-wide coverage. Although Guerrero (2018) just mentions it and does not discuss it since public broadcasting is not the focus of his study, I am interested in highlighting Playz since it allows us to observe the efforts that the Spanish national public broadcaster makes to try to attract a young target through transmedia and interactive content. In order to know a little bit more about it, I will make a short summary and a review of two studies in the subsection 2.2 New media in Spanish national public television.
The conclusions of Guerrero’s study are clear and somehow mark the trends of millennials in front of television. Thus, it is stated that this audience is more attracted to non-rigid services, as mentioned before YouTube or Netflix, which are customizable and allow them to be connected. In addition, their participatory and protagonist role becomes relevant since they are interested in being an active part both at the consumer level and as programmers and producers.
The study concludes that there are indicators that confirm the flight of television viewers, specifically from those private channels analyzed, due to the appearance of payment platforms and on-demand television. Regarding consumption among young people, millennials watch less television per day than the average viewer with less affinity with large commercial television operators in Spain (Kantar, 2012-2017 in Guerrero, 2018, p. 1243). This results in the programmers not taking this generation into account in favor of older sectors, which ends in a greater aging of the audience. EITB, with the ETB3 channel, focused on a child and adolescent audience, shows its commitment to these groups. Talking about young people born between 1980 and 1995, the focus of this study, the programming may be diluted alongside that offered generally to adults so I will check in the analysis if young people consider that EITB offers ad hoc content for them.
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2.2 NEW MEDIA IN SPANISH NATIONAL PUBLIC TELEVISION
As mentioned in the previous section, traditional media are learning and adopting systems and technologies to penetrate this digital age. Then, I will review an article that analyzes this new context and how RTVE (the Spanish national public media) is adapted to it through new digital strategies, in this case thanks to the Playz platform.
Source: https://www.rtve.es/playz/
Despite the fact that traditional consumption falls, audiovisual consumption is at its peak through other means and supports (Cano, 2017, in Maroto and Rodríguez, 2018). Spanish television broadcasters, both public and private, try to adapt to a new environment full of new platforms. Audiovisual content converges with the Internet, Social Media and other tools to reach consumers through different means. At this point, Playz, RTVE’s platform, was born at the end of 2017, “as the logical evolution of Internet television, seeking an innovative formula focused on a captive market niche that was neglected” (Maroto and Rodríguez, 2018).
This platform, aimed mainly at young people, is developed on the internet, with content perfectly suited for viewing on a smartphone, with short-view content that refers users to other platforms such as Social Media or YouTube to expand information (Maroto and Rodríguez, 2018). In this way, it covers the need for viewers to choose “to decide where, when and how they want to receive the content they want to see” (Mazaira, 2017,
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in Maroto and Rodríguez, 2018, p. 665). In addition, it incorporates the figure of influencers in its contents, these new “opinion leaders” attracting new audiences, favoring interaction on social networks and engagement (Maroto and Rodríguez, 2018).
Some authors critically review the content that Playz offers to young people. Subires (2020) analyzes “Binario”, a documentary series about visible and sometimes ignored issues and realities of young people. These documentaries mix data and documentary journalism, a priori genres that are not preferable for young people. The study by Subires (2020) concludes that the format chosen is suitable for the target audience, as they can view it from any device with internet access, it has a very short duration, with a youthful language and aesthetics in order to be attractive to them. The documentaries deal with subjects of interest to them, the protagonists are young people and it is told through personal experiences, which helps to empathise and feel identified. In addition, the documentaries are socially critical and help to raise awareness among young people about different issues. It will be interesting to bear this point in mind when seeing what kind of programmes are the most interesting for the Basque millennials.
Pardo and Martínez (2020), analyze the “Neverfilms” series, a web series that parodies recognized trailers of films and series in a humorous tone. In this case, they question whether it is a transmedia content since it does not comply with the participatory and interactive action on its website or on social media, limiting itself to sharing the episodes through these ways. However, there are characteristics that this series does meet in order to reach young people, such as generating original content rescued from already created products, its short duration or the ability to watch an episode individually and be understood without the need for further information (Pardo and Martínez, 2020). It is about content focused on entertainment that connects with young people and that will have to be taken into account and discussed in the analysis.
This platform is a demonstration of hybridization between television and the internet, of that search for new formats to capture the attention of generations such as the millennial and also of the Z generation. EITB has in its national counterpart a way to navigate in this new tide of digital offers so as not to be shipwrecked in that quest to reach the millennials.
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2.3 MEDIA AND THE BASQUE LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
The Basque language, in spite of being a minority language, has evolved politically, educationally, legally and also in terms of mass media. I will analyze some works that may shed light on some points such as the consumption of media in Basque or the development of advertising in this language on EITB. Although the sample is not exclusively young people, it is important to take into account some of its reflections in order to have an approximate vision of the media in Basque in the Basque Country.
Salces’ study (2016) “Basque speakers and the media: opinions, habits and attitudes” delves into how Basque speakers relate to the media, with the aim of knowing how different social and psychological mechanisms influence in the media consumption of Spanish citizens speaking Basque language. This study arises from the need to know how the public and the situation of the channels to reach them is.
Salces (2016) makes a brief review of the three thematic blocks that surround his research: language, identity and media. Regarding language, he highlights the importance of the environment to provide adequate minimum conditions so that the speaker can use this minority language (Martínez de Luna, 2013, in Salces, 2016) and the influence of these factors to condition the linguistic choice (Arratibel and García, 2001; Bourhis and Landry, 2008, in Salces. 2016). In addition, Salces gives value to the socializing motivation to speak in one language or another (Baker, 1992, in Salces, 2016), the moment of learning (Etxeberria, 2009, in Salces 2016) and the importance of identity (Baxok et al, 2006, in Salces 2016). Regarding identity, he names Alberto Melucci (2001, in Salces, 2016, p. 439) to give value to how feelings of belonging can provide a “refuge in this age of existential uncertainties” but he reflects on how these identities “today they are built with cultural elements, both inherited and chosen” (Lull, 2006, in Salces, 2016, p. 439).
I have selected some of the points he mentions regarding the media, as they are of interest for this paper. Salces (2016) takes up the thinking of Tom Moring (2007) in which he sees the need for a complete offer in both content and media so that minority language speakers decide to be users of them. Therefore, he recommends the Basque media to offer heterogeneous thematic that may connect with the public. Focusing on only one type of
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information can play against these minority language channels. It will be interesting to know whether the Basque millennials perceive that the contents of ETB1 cover a wide range of topics that may be attractive to them, without falling into a basic, monotonous and not very diverse programming.
Salces also adds that media can attract different public depending on factors that influence the audience engagement. Thus, media broadcasters will not appeal in the same way if we talk about traditional media or digital platforms (Skobergo and Winsvold, 2011), the geographical scope to which the news refers since they are a reflection of specific collective identities (Amezaga, Arana, Basterretxea and Iturriotz, 2000) and if the media are able to get the right language and linguistic register to achieve engagement (Awbery, 1995; Zabalondo, 2005).
Through interviews, focus groups and with some data collected in audience studies, he has been able to reach conclusions such as the following ones. Interviewees confirm the existence of a reference medium in Basque per platform (in the case of television, ETB1) but interviewees are concerned about the economic and human capacity to expand the offer. In the context of the Basque Country, the relationship between the decision to display media in Basque may also have a political component. Thus, in addition to the personal motivations for the use of the Basque language, Salces (2016) affirms that in environments where the use of the Basque language is more generalized, the decision to use media in Basque is natural. Since in the Basque Country there are different realities in the use of the Basque language, I will have to bear in mind the characteristics and the circumstances of the sample in this sense.
Regarding the socializing power already mentioned above, the author highlights that mainstream programmes enjoy a socializing advantage as a night meeting point for families that can condition the choice of one channel over another depending on the nature of the linguistic knowledge in each house. In this respect, television is a key meeting point that encourages this socialization without doubt. This is a reflection already commented by Guerrero (2018) and that will have its space in the analysis of the results.
After reviewing the interesting study by Salces, I will proceed to make a brief summary Azpillaga and Garai’s study in 2016. In their work “Linguistic management and measures to promote Basque in EITB advertising” they analyze from a language
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perspective, the evolution of advertising in EITB as a public entity. The methodology is based on depth interviews with EITB’s Head of Management Advertising Department and Head of the Basque language Department. In addition, they do a content and documentary analysis. It is worth highlighting the review that they make of how different media approach minority languages both in Spain and in other countries. This gives us an overview of the advertising landscape of this type of media and the situation of EITB with respect to them.
Azpillaga and Garai start by focusing on the Galician language channel TVG. The contents were in Galician language but the advertising was kept mainly in Spanish, which means that “the presence of Spanish in advertising means the intrusion of the predatory linguistic species into the space reserved for the species that it is intended to protect” (Fernández and Pereira, 2006, in Azpillaga and Garai, 2016, p. 122). Regarding Catalan channels, despite broadcasting their content and advertising in Catalan, they suffer from a lack of Catalan mother tongue professionals who conceive the adverts first in Spanish and then translate them into the Catalan language (Sabaté, 1999 in Azpillaga and Garai, 2016), making the Catalan society be “a translated and corrected society” (Sabaté, 2000, in Azpillaga and Garai, 2016, p. 122). Barambones (2009) mentions an O’Connell’s study highlighting the contribution of the media to the survival of minority languages “for the initial transmission and repeated reinforcement of new terminology, especially for the benefit of young viewers” (O’Connell, 2003, in Barambones, 2009, p. 79).
These cases show the different scenarios that take place in other territories when the media offer content in minority languages, as it happens in the Basque Country with Spanish predominance. This author highlights the importance of minority language television as it allows minority language speakers to become part of a language community while being entertained (O’Connell, 2000). Despite this, the author encourages the television channels to be a vehicle to promote the oral culture, offering linguistic variety, with different dialects, terminology and registers (O’Connell, 2000). Television thus becomes a tool for young people, who may generally tend to speak the majority language, to find a space for meeting the language, its new models or new vocabulary (Riggins, 1992). In the case of ETB1, these objectives may be disregarded or not completely implemented since this channel is committed to a “unified Basque”
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language, leaving aside the peculiarities and richness of the language in each of the small Basque territories (Noci, 1998).
In the beginning, and despite the fact that the contents of ETB1 were in Basque, the advertising in EITB was in Spanish, since it came from Madrid-based wholesalers. This led to some criticism of EITB for not fullfilling its objectives of promoting the Basque language and culture, so in 1991, this point was regularized and EITB decided to translate the advertising, assuming themselves the cost of dubbing (Moragues, 2015, in Azpillaga and Garai, 2016). Over the years, some advertisers begin to provide EITB with the content in the Basque language. In addition, advertising content is properly generated in Basque (Azpillaga and Garai, 2016).
In relation to values, Medrano, Aierbe and Palacios (2007) study the identification of the values and types of social knowledge that some television programmes transmit and how they are perceived and interpreted by Basque adolescents. They assume that adolescents live in a society that sends them contradictory messages, that is, while parents and schools promote a series of values, what television shows to them is quite different. To remedy this ambiguity, adolescents must be provided with the tools and knowledge to critically understand television (Medrano, Aierbe and Palacios, 2007).
Although this study does not confirm that there is a relationship between the television diet and the adolescents’ perceived values in their favourite programmes, they do see the cultural responsibility of the media. That is, the media must reflect the historical, political, economic and social context of each territory and must become instruments for generating reality (Medrano, Aierbe and Palacios, 2007). Furthermore, these authors believe and support that television should not be a mere entertainment tool, but should educate and transmit values. This can be associated with EITB’s effort to educate directly through language while seeking to transmit cultural values that benefit the Basque community. It will be interesting to see whether the Basque millennials are able to recognise these educational efforts of EITB and to discover how they value this in their lives.
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3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Next, after reviewing different bibliographic materials of interest, I have extracted different theories that offer us different perspectives when I focus on my analysis. Thus, I will approach the Cultivation Theory, the Convergence Culture and Media for Development.
3.1 CULTIVATION THEORY
Cultivation Theory studies the long-term effects of television on viewers. This theory, developed by George Gerbner in the 60-70s, sought to discover the consequences and effects that could emerge on a cultural environment dominated by television. Although in its beginnings it was very focused on analyzing the possible relationship between television content and violence (Curi, 2007), it is true that it can also be applied to other types of themes or values such as women’s image, minority groups, stereotypes, religion or politics, summarized in some way as “acculturation” (Bryant J and Zillmann D, 1996, p. 42).
That is why this theory can be taken into account when analyzing the contents to which young people are exposed through Basque public television since, perhaps in some way, they configure a series of behaviors and attitudes related to the Basque language. We could start from the idea that the more viewers are exposed to a message, the greater the possibility that they will adopt it in their lives.
The studies carried out by Gerbner, Gross, Morgan and Signorelli, established that television was the most extensive resource of images and shared messages in history and the mainstream of the symbolic common environments in which our children are born, grow up and in which we develop our lives (Morgan, 2002, in Lara, 2008). In fact, television was the medium to which children were exposed from a very young age, even before having the ability to speak (Morgan and Shanahan, 1999, p.20). Television becomes a learning model at the communicative level and by extension, of behaviors, attitudes and ideas.
The recent incorporation of New Media “identifies these technologies with screen-rich ‘bedroom cultures, which have become the norm for kids in countries across the
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global North” (Livingstone, 2009, in Poyntz and Pedri, 2018). Regarding the television, this has caused a migration of viewers (Casero-Ripollés, 2012) above all among young people, who move “to the online environment in search of a new way of communicating and entertaining, but also to consume informative content” (Yuste, 2015, p. 181). An example of this can be found in the study “Marco General de los Medios en España. 2019” (AICM, 2019) based on a population of over 14 years old using different techniques such as face-to-face, online and telephone interviews. It can be seen that, while Internet consumption is progressively increasing, television consumption is suffering a clear decrease.
But television continues to be part of life acting as a second screen. Despite the fact that personal devices such as mobiles or tablets began to enter our routines as a support for television (Zarrinkalam, Kahani, Bagheri, 2018, in Mukherjee and Jansen, 2018) it is clear that they are becoming the main axis of communication and information in the lives of young people, specifically for those young people who can afford to buy a smartphone or tablet, and/or who have access to a smartphone or tablet at home thanks to their parents. Television, therefore, perhaps is not the main focus of young viewers’ attention, but rather a complement or second screen, to the activity they are doing on smaller devices.
Despite the rise of New Media, we take Cultivation Theory traditionally applied to television as a reference for this study, since the young people surveyed did watch television when they were kids, and that this may have an impact on how they engage with EITB today. In fact, “cultivation is about the implications of stable, repetitive, pervasive and virtually inescapable patterns of images and ideologies that television (especially dramatic, fictional entertainment) provides. […] Cultivation research approaches television as a system of messages […]” (Shanahan and Morgan, 1999, p.5). These messages precisely make up one of the starting points of the relationship between television with youth culture.
3.2 MEDIA FOR DEVELOPMENT
We take as reference the Media for Development approach formulated by Linje Manyozo (2012, p. 54), understood as the “strategic employment of media and
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communication as facilities for informing, educating and sensiting people about development and pertinent social issues”. Through this lens that is based on the dissemination of information to achieve a social change at the individual level (Manyozo, 2012, in Tufte, 2017, p. 51) I analyze the messages/stories that EITB is generating for Basque youth. For the analysis carried out in this paper, it will be interesting to take into account this term to link EITB, as a public entity, with that promotion of Basque language and culture in order to create a positive and developing impact on society.
Over the years different theorists have studied the term “Communication for Development” often confused with Media Development (Deane, 2008, in Manyozo, 2012, p. 16). Thus, Media Development as the “media that serves the public good, which holds governments to account, which is plural and acts in the interest of all citizens” (Deane, 2008, in Manyozo, 2012, p. 16). Arnold (2010, in Manyozo, 2012) and Rogers (1962, 1993, in Manyozo, 2012) share the same conception and definition of Communication for Development as an educational process to raise awareness about different topics or problems in order to influence the audience and change behaviors. This perspective will be taken into account in the analysis since EITB proposes a Basque cultural development and a change of attitudes in society through the positive promotion of certain contents and values associated with Basque culture, a clear sign for that, the Basque language. It will be necessary to check whether EITB has in fact managed to influence the Basque millennials in any way during their lives.
I could conclude that we are talking about a way of “education” through content of different typologies, in the case that I study in this paper, mainly entertainment. Related to entertainment, Martin Scott (2014, p. 95) assures that “although the use of entertainment formats to provide educational content (‘edutainment’) is a common characteristic, particularly of Media for Development projects, the assumption is that the public will rationally recognize and respond to such content in a manner directly related to development results”. Thus, media is considered the ideal tool for effectively disseminating information to achieve social change. Moreover, it can be related to that “cultivating” effect seen in the Cultivation Theory since it “includes a focus on the importance of developing suitable attitudes”, (Scott, 2014, p.16). At this point it should be noted that the nature of this communication is linear, that is, where there are some “senders” who provide the information to the “receivers” (Scott, 2014).
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In this study, when I talk about development, I relate it directly to culture. EITB as a means of communication bases its own conception on the development of the Basque language and culture. EITB seeks to rescue and save that culture through its contents and social action, so it becomes a particular case to consider. In this sense, content is the determining factor that drives social change, targeting the audiences in order to motivate them and cause an effect on their behaviour (Manyozo, 2018).
3.3 CONVERGENCE CULTURE
In the digital age, the conception of each means of communication changes as it is no longer about individual media that work separately, but rather live with and feed each other. Islas (2009) takes as reference Jenkins’ definition that “convergence is the flow of content across multiple media platforms, cooperation in three multiple media industries and the migratory behavior of media audiences , willing to go anywhere in search of the desired type of entertainment experiences” (Jenkins, 2006, in Rigo, 2009, p. 26). In this sense, television, the quintessential media for entertainment, coexists with multiple media and platforms that force it to find and define its own space.
The most outstanding point of the Convergence Culture theory goes beyond the emergence of new technologies and digitization as it is identified with a “holistic phenomenon that is influenced by a combination of technological, economic, social, cultural and global conditions” (Jenkins, 2001, in Georgi and Glaser, 2015 p.15). In the case of EITB, this cultural convergence takes place in a medium with certain peculiarities, such as its nature as a public broadcaster born after a historical period in Spain, or its Basque language channel which competes internally with a larger Spanish language channel.
In this context, viewers, in this case young people, learn to make use of different media technologies, where there is a freer flow of content and ideas. Consumers who migrate within this circuit want to be a more active part of this process, so they strive to have a more participatory role (Jenkins, 2008). The existence of this convergence where the media, platforms, applications and social media coexist, among others, makes it easier for these viewers to be active agents (Rigo, 2006). So, I am not talking about a closed
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circuit but about a process where different actors interact, feedback and share among themselves (Jenkins, 2008, in Rigo, 2006).
Thus, “convergence requires media companies to reconsider the old assumptions about what media consumption means, assumptions that shape both programming and marketing decisions” (Jenkins, 2008, p. 29). Faced with this new need for viewers, public broadcasters adapt to these changes to respond to a more empowered consumer (Jenkins, 2008) taking into account a new scenario where they are not the pillar of the communication. The media must mutate, changing their relationships with technologies, social networks and audiences (Rigo, 2006).
As a summary to this section on Theoretical Framework, Cultivation Theory, Media for Development and Cultural Convergence, they will help me focus the analysis of my study to confirm how young Basque millennials engage with EITB’s Basque programming and what types of content EITB offers to young Basque audiences. As seen in this paper, Cultural Convergence applied to the flow and synergies of content through different media platforms and devices means that media groups, and in this case EITB in particular, have to adapt to these new formulas in order to continue reaching young audiences. In this new panorama, EITB is in the process of adapting and connecting with young people in this digital era, taking into account its conception as a public medium that seeks to develop Basque culture and language. In this sense, it will be interesting to see if the educational or attitudinal change perspective of Media for Development is present in the programming that most interests young people. Furthermore, thanks to the Cultivation Theory and its process of visualizing television that the young people analyzed have had since childhood, it will allow me to see if EITB has influenced the way in which it engages with these television channels today.
4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The following section explains the methodological approach, the methods, the limitations and analysis process used in this paper.
This research focuses mainly on the use of surveys with open and closed questions since both quantitative and qualitative research converge. In this way, I seek to collect two types of data in order to enrich this paper and offer more rigor to what I am studying
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(Scheyvens, 2014, p. 66). While at first, I thought the idea of just quantifying with accurate data was right in order to draw more statistical conclusions, I realized that the interesting point perhaps lay in the “how and why”. In this sense, the concern for the context, experience and individual perspective of the investigated persons themselves gained strength (Taylor, S. J., Bogdan, R., & DeVault, M., 2015, p. 18-20). Thus, I added complementary “why?” questions because surveys that a priori may seem a purely quantitative method, become a perfect tool to complete and obtain more details of motivations, perceptions, emotions and personal experiences (Given, 2008, p.847). In addition, another reason why a quali-quantitative approach fits better in my study, is that it allows me to configure the sample without the need for it to be a representative sample of the population, as required to draw statistical conclusions.
The survey is aimed at young Basque people between 25-40 years old, target with whom I feel especially identified as I have grown up in the Basque Country. I have an experiential level of knowledge about the subject since I am part of the target (born in 1988) that I want to study, as well as the young people around me. This has allowed me to develop a convenience sample, that is, selecting a particular population group that is highly accessible to me as a researcher (Boslaugh, 2008). This undoubtedly supposes a facilitating element when it comes to reaching people given the expected time for the development of this work. It should be noted, however, that this type of sample does not allow for major generalizations since it is a rather limited approach in terms of people reached (Salkind, 2010). Within this context of convenience sampling, I have encouraged and trusted the respondents by developing a snowball sampling, a technique for finding research subjects in which one subject gives the researcher the name of another subject, who in turn provides the name of a third, and so on (Atkinson and Flint, 2001, in Baltar and Brunet, 2012).
To understand the final methodology and process that I have followed for this work, I have to mention that the COVID-19 emergency in Spain in mid-March arose in its development, which caused a change in plans. As a starting point, I had planned and prepared to engage in spontaneous face to face conversations with young Basques around me to draw conclusions about engagement, motivations, programming itself, their emotions etc. My intention was not to resort directly to an interview per se, but to prepare a small script to help me create a structure that gives meaning to the conversations I
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wanted to have. Although I could not use this script as planned, it did serve as a framework for developing and structuring the pilot survey.
After this pilot test and with the feedback received, I had to make a few modifications to highlight some of the questions and add a new one that allows me to expand on information. The final survey (8.1. Questionnaire) has been designed and uploaded in Sunet Survey tool in order to facilitate its dissemination, scope and easy response. In fact, one of the risks that I faced was the difficulty of reaching a broad enough audience so that the results could be considered rich enough to allow me to produce a substantial analysis in which too many open questions may “bore” the interviewees. I constructed a clear survey, with concise questions and that did not imply much difficulty or time to answer, that would capture the attention of those questioned and that might be of interest to them.
Survey: “Which are your television habits?
*Survey translated in section 8.1. Questionnaire
Once the survey was designed, I pilot-tested the survey with two respondents and used their feedback to improve it before I distributed it. I have spread it through digital
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media such as Whatssap, Email and Facebook, which have been very useful thanks to their flexibility and common use among the respondents of the study.
Survey message
Among the respondents, I have identified key people within my environment who will play an important role in reaching different types of young people. In this way, to spread the survey as much as possible, as mentioned before, through snowball sampling. In this case, instead of directly contacting people among my acquaintances, I trust that the interviewees share the questioning with their close friends and WhatsApp groups. This amplification helps me to overcome some obstacles such as the geographical scope or the time to build an appropriate sample (Baltar and Brunet, 2012).
I have identified different aspects that can help me address a heterogeneous target that helps me achieve the least biased vision possible. That is, as far as my possibilities
Hi, I am writing to you because I need your help for my Degree Project.
It will take only a few minutes and I think it can distract you a little in these difficult days. In the link that I add below I pose a small
questionnaire to know your habits and preferences related to television.
I really appreciate your sincerity and your time to answer this survey: your help is essential for my study to succeed.
I ask you please to SHARE it with all those people from the Basque
Country between 25-45 years old. It is a small gesture that means a lot to me, encourage them to answer it. https://sunet.artologik.net/mau/habito stelevision
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and my abilities allow me to, I am interested in reaching individuals of different sexes, Basque-speaking parents or Spanish-speaking parents, with compulsory studies in both Basque and Spanish, living in towns or cities and in a more difficult way perhaps to identify, whether they have a nationalist feeling or not. As the result of my sampling strategy, I quickly reached a significant number of people, a total of 147, discarding 5 respondents who did not meet the age range.
I will also analyze the TV programming aimed at young people, both in the channel in Basque (ETB1) and in Spanish (ETB2). As I want to fit as closely as possible to the real TV interests of the sample, after having the results of the survey, on the one hand, I chose the 5 most viewed programmes of a total of 15 in Spanish mentioned by the interviewees and the 5 most viewed programmes in Basque of a total of 14 mentioned by the sample.
From Madrid, where I live, I only have access to watch these programmes online on the EITB website. The idea was to analyze the last episode broadcast and uploaded to the website, but since the actual format of the programming has changed considerably due to the emergence of the Coronavirus, I had to look back to analyze a programme broadcast in its original format and with the usual contents. Thus, I have reviewed the specific web sections of each of the 10 selected programmes, as well as the programmes broadcast in the last week of February and the first week of March 2020.
5. ANALYSIS
Below, I present the findings of the survey taking into account the studies mentioned in the Literature Review as well as the perspectives of the Theoretical Framework.
5.1 SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE
Although my study was not conceived from a quantitative perspective, I wanted to try to achieve the heterogeneity of this in order to obtain profiles that could give me, as far as possible, a more “real” view of this part of the Basque population. In this sense, I can be quite satisfied, although it must be taken into account that by location, there is a higher number of people related to my environment and relationships.
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We have 61.9% women and 38.1% men with and average age of 31 years. I have reached young people both from towns and from medium and large cities, specifically, 38.1% of the respondents live in towns with up to 25,000 inhabitants, while 61.9% live in towns with more than 25,000 inhabitants. It is important to note that the distribution of the percentages, despite having more weight for the medium/large city, is quite heterogeneous considering that the majority of young people live in this type of localities due to the depopulation of the more rural environment (Recaño, 2017). By proximity, we see that there is an important weight of localities, whatever their size, in the territory of Bizkaia, with less relevance for Araba and Gipuzkoa. That is due to the fact that my closest environment is from this area and the “snowball” was at that moment “rolling” around it. This point is very close to the territorial reality of population in the Basque Country in which, according to the data offered on October 2019, by EUSTAT (Basque Institute of Statistics), the distribution by total population by territories is 52.23% in Bizkaia, 32.78% in Gipuzkoa and 14.98% in Araba.
At an educational level, the interviewees are distributed into different “models” of teaching that coexisted at that time in the Basque Country: the Model A (teaching in Spanish as a vehicular language, except in the subject of Basque language and literature); the Model B (teaching part of the subjects in Spanish -in principle, for subjects such as reading, writing and mathematics- and another in Basque -especially experimental and dynamic) and the Model D (teaching in Basque as a vehicular language, with the subject of Spanish Language and Literature). Regarding the percentages, Model A, with 41.1%, is the predominant one, but if we add up the percentages of Model B (26%) and D (32.9%), which share the Basque language, I realize they are more predominant than teaching in Spanish. Therefore, I can affirm that from the educational point of view, more than half of our sample has had direct access to the Basque language while the rest have followed an educational model where Basque had the same weight as any other subject, that is, Basque was not a working language.
The knowledge of Basque they claim to have now indicates that 50.4% state they have a low and medium level of Basque, 36.1% a high level and only 13.6% consider that they use Basque as their mother tongue. These data suggest that there are a number of people who, despite having studied in Basque, currently have a lower level of the language.
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5.2 DO BASQUE MILLENNIALS WATCH TELEVISION?
As mentioned above, in recent years, television in its “traditional format” has seen its audience decline due to, among other things, the emergence of new devices and new types of content. For this reason, I did not want to take for granted that the sample, which is also considered to be the largest user of these new modes of audiovisual consumption, would watch television and have a certain relationship with EITB, which is fundamental for the development of this paper. For this reason, I have established a conditional question in which I differentiate between those respondents who watch television in general (understood as the digital terrestrial service), including EITB, but not limited to it and those who do not. Despite the fact that general trends may lead us to believe that the millennials are not currently television users, the percentages confirm that the number of millennials who do continue to watch television is quite high, with 73.5% of those surveyed. This confirms that, despite the fact that general consumption may be decreasing year by year, television continues to be part of these young people’s lives.
5.3 BASQUE MILLENNIALS WATCHING TELEVISION
Before looking directly at young people’s relationship with EITB, it was important to know if it is a media group that young people tend to watch, are interested in and know about. I was faced with the risk that even if young people did continue to watch television, EITB would be totally discarded in favor of private channels, with more resources and with a lot of weight at the Spanish level. The results show data that I did not expect since they place ETB2 as the second most frequently viewed channel, very little behind La Sexta, a private Spanish channel belonging to the Atresmedia group, with a 12.7% share in 2018 of nationwide as shown in the AIMC study (2019). In our study, ETB2 notably outperforms TVE1, the state-owned channel, which together with TVE2, its more culturally focused sister channel, occupies the area of the lowest viewing positions.
The young millennials do bet on this Basque public channel in its Spanish format, nowadays more focused on entertainment and of a more commercial nature. However, ETB1 has not managed to position itself among the preferred channels of young people, occupying the penultimate position among the proposed channels. To see the possible reasons that condition the viewing of content to explain the tastes of young people, I have asked them which factor determines the preference of the channel they want to watch.
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The answers indicate that young people clearly prioritise the quality of the content, followed by its entertainment value. Not only do they make it clear when asked directly about their motivations for selecting one channel or another, but they reflect this by identifying which programmes they watch most, which we will expand in section 5.6 EITB programming and millennials. The fact that the contents come from the interviewees’ environment or their own/local language, are not a reason that determines the choice of one channel or another for this group. In other words, the elements that differentiate EITB from the competition are not sufficiently attractive for young people to decide to watch these channels. Thus, it could be concluded that quality and entertainment are the reasons that attract young Basques to watch the contents of ETB2, not so much the fact that they are local.
Moreover, I corroborate that although ETB1 offers more local contents and does it in the Basque language, they are not sufficiently attractive for young people to decide to watch them, starting a priori with the advantage that most of them show knowledge and understanding of the language. At a strategic level, therefore, EITB maintains its great commitment to entertainment with ETB2, which, with its greater audience, justifies the “funding that comes from public money (most of the budgets allocated to the Basque Government's Department of Culture) but in no way does it disdain advertising income (and that influences the programming)”, (Noci, 1998, p. 449). Television became a great source of entertainment from birth and young people, as they say in the survey, are more inclined to this type of content at least to watch in their leisure time. The decisive fact that ETB1 is broadcast in Basque may be a handicap, bearing in mind that, despite having an average knowledge of the language, they do not master it as their mother tongue.
When it comes to defining which channels (taking into account the 8 most relevant channels in the Basque Country) are considered to offer the most interesting content for young people, ETB2 is in third place. ETB1 is in fifth place and, although it is not one of the favourite channels for young people to watch, the channel “dedicated 100% to the Basque language is a success, being for a varied public” (respondent 1). Furthermore, from a linguistic perspective, despite not watching it regularly, they state that it helps the development of language “I don’t watch much ETB1 but I like to watch programmes and develop my listening skills to improve in the language”, (respondent 2). Among young people, there is also a certain nostalgia and gratitude for what the channel has meant for
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them, especially in their childhood: “All the cartoons I have ever watched have been in Basque” (respondent 3); “We have grown up with this channel, it covers all ages” (respondent 4).
However, if I analyze the behavior of these young people when watching television, I confirm that experience at the user level based on a screen and multi-task environment. 89.9% of them use other devices such as mobile phones, tablets or computers while watching TV. These young people “are like fish in water in the online world, living hooked on their phones and all those instant messaging services that allow them to be “always on” [...] That is why mobile devices have become the best ally of this segment of the population [...], (Yuste, 2015, p. 180).
Television not commanding Basque millennials full attention
This finding from my survey data is in line with Yuste’s (2015) argument that says that young people are hooked on mobiles and feel very comfortable using them. It could mean EITB’s efforts to engage young audiences must assess the reality of young people’s forms of television consumption, the space occupied by television in their daily lives and the trends in order to be able to apply strategies to reach them.
5.4 BASQUE MILLENNIALS NOT WATCHING TELEVISION
In this study, out of the millennials who do not watch television in its traditional format (26.6%), slightly more than half, 51.3%, do consume audiovisual material. However, they prefer to do so through on-demand content platforms such as Netflix, HBO or Amazon. In fact, among these young people who do not watch traditional television,
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61.5% confess that they would spend time watching television as long as they had programmes with content that was of more interest to young people. Television has in these young people who do not use traditional television but do use audiovisual content, an opportunity to approach them through content that is more attractive to them.
These users, who entirely consume audiovisual material from the new payment platforms, are a clear example of the change in the habits of young people, who have completely shifted their consumption from traditional television to on-demand platforms. This further suggests that these young respondents or their families or environment have sufficient purchasing power to be able to afford these payment platforms.
Thanks to the mobile or the tablet, the content travels with them everywhere, instead of their having to go to the content. In addition, Social Media plagued with all kinds of varied content, allow them to be informed and entertained at the same time that they socialize. This changes the way they had to relate so far in the era of one-way communication through “public broadcast media such as television, radio and newspapers. With such media anyone at all, providing that they can gain access to it, can be the audience. The broadcaster has no direct control over who makes up their audiences, though they may try and persuade people to join them.” (Miller, Costa, Haynes, et al, 2016, p.2).
Within this percentage of young people who say they do not watch traditional television, there is a relevant fact that I would like to mention. Taking into account that we live in a society saturated with all kinds of audiovisual content, telecommunications, advertising, etc., it is curious to see that 38.5% prefer to devote their leisure time to other types of outdoor activities, reading or sport. Leisure and the search for information for these young people are not associated with media consumption, either traditional or digital, but with alternatives outside this multi-screen environment.
Although they are not regular users of television, they are aware of the channels they can currently watch, and so I wanted to find out what their general perception of them is. When asked which channels they most identify with, ETB2 tops the list, followed by La Sexta and Antena3. ETB1 is in the middle of the table, ahead of the two Spanish public channels and Tele5. Taking into account both the Basque millennials who watch television and those who do not, we can state that these three channels (ETB2, La Sexta
