Comfort TV Research Project v1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Comfort TV Research Project - theorising the everyday use of TV as an apparatus for therapeutic reward, the restoration of identity, and other affects.\n
IRAS ID
210504
Contact name
Kerr M Castle
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 10 months, 20 days
Research summary
The Comfort TV Research Project seeks to better understand how audiences use television as an everyday tool for comfort. Within this context, Comfort TV refers to television’s potential to not only relax its viewers, but to strengthen, soothe and rejuvenate them; TV that makes the viewer feel better. The depth and variety of television content available via TV sets, laptops, mobile devices and tablets is incredibly vast and fluid, as are the amount of ways in which audiences now choose to put that content to use and make meanings from it. Accordingly, this project intends to look at how successfully audiences use and adapt television in an attempt to respond to their immediate situation, to meet their physical and emotional needs, as a reaction to life both around and beyond the screen.\n\nThis relatively untapped area for study reflects current shifts in the field, moving away from assessments of quality, of what is ’good’ or ’bad’ TV, towards how television is in fact used and valued by audiences. This qualitative research project focuses on three distinct audience groups: the family unit (5 x families, 18-20 participants), first year undergraduate students (10 x participants), and hospital patients (10 x participants). These groups have been selected as they represent the everyday audience, the audience in transition, and the extracted audience respectively, allowing for a broader examination of television’s role during periods of normality and crisis. Research data will be collected via a combination of methods, including written surveys, face-to-face interviews, participant viewing journals, and viewing environment photographs. In the case of hospital patients, research data will be gathered by written survey only. When the project is complete, we will have a far better understanding of where and how comfort value originates from television, and how its purpose and effect is understood by TV viewers.
REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 2
REC reference
16/NS/0107
Date of REC Opinion
25 Oct 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion