Tendencies of Visiting the Cinema and Watching Television: Students of the Cinema and Television Department at AfyonKocatepe University

Introduction

The activity of watching television is the key feature of the modern life in developed countries. Beginning of the life with television and the widespread of television increasingly have added new dimensions to the human-television relationship. As a matter of fact, with the passing of time, both the number of those possessing television (TV) and the time spent in front of the TV have mounted (Erdemir Göze, 2015:53).

Television can provide its audience with relaxation and entertainment to a large extent in exchange for minimum effort and too little price. Nowadays, more and more people have started to do the same activities and to enjoy the same activities in their spare time, thus, they have started to resemble each other. Just as people gathered in the stadium to have fun in Rome, today's people gather in front of the television (Aydoğan, 2004: 11). This power of the television is hidden in its capturing the truth in terms of visuality. This feature of it is revealed as the dominant feature of television (Hall, 1996: 6). According to Paglia, television is not something we watch, because it is always on (Postman and Paglia, 2011: 428).

As for movie theaters, they are considered as places that enable people to socialize, as well as providing the audience with the opportunity for an escape (Hansen, 2012: 106-107). Siegfried Kracauer asserts that the main reason why the audience wants to go to the dark movie theaters is not the desire to watch a certain film or to have a pleasant time but it is to lose their own identities in the dark by being free from the grip of the consciousness for a while, and to follow the successive images on the screen in a state ready to assimilate by means of their senses (Kırel, 2015: 211).

As emphasized by Kirel (2010: 25), the act of going to the cinema in the classical sense echoes with a social and spatial coexistence constituted by the movie theater, the film, and the audience trio. Judith Mayne (1993: 1) states that spectatorship is a concept that emphasizes the importance of going to the cinema, consuming the films and myths of films as symbolic and culturally meaningful activities. Within this framework, it is pointed out that spectatorship is not just the act of watching, and is a whole set of experiences including entertainment and leisure activities.

Nowadays, even though individuals' interest in cinema continues, their habits of watching movies have moved out of the movie theaters. It should be noted that the Internet is a determinant factor in the emergence of this situation. Nowadays, it is possible to watch online movies on the internet, yet downloading movies in any desired quality is also one of the most common acts for watching a movie. Although the process works against the movie theaters, the habits of individuals for going to the cinema still continue. However, even if the interest in cinema is very high, it should be stated that the rates or frequency of watching movies in movie theaters decreases gradually.

Young people who have university-level education in the CTV area have the potential to watch TV through different electronic vehicles and to watch movies without going to the movie theater with the influence of the convergence concept as a result of the developments in internet and information and communication technologies. The study is important in terms of addressing how often the population in question sits in front of the screen in order to watch the products of CTV sector in which they have the possibility of taking part after the completion of their education. Lembo (2007: 458-459) states that it is necessary to think about television watching habits and to seek an answer for certain questions.

Contrary to critical approaches to television, that is, those asserting that the audience is passive, one of the most important views advocating that the audience is active, is the Uses and Satisfactions Approach. “The Uses and Gratifications Approach” is the only theoretical field that tends to most directly being interested in the active audience (Severin and Tankard, 1994: 493). The Uses and Gratifications Approach replaces the passive audience with the active audience. In this way, “the active audience approach that has been put forward makes the audience reach the condition of a person searching, choosing and, creating his/her own impact” (Erdoğan and Alemdar, 1990: 114).

This theory advocates that the audience plays an active role from the first moment of coming into contact with television. As a justification for this, it is shown that the remote control is in the hands of the audience and they can watch the program of their interest as they wish. The uses and gratifications approach, which have introduced the human element into communication theory, pushes the sender category in the mass communication process into the background, while highlighting the needs and motives of the audience. In this approach, the watching mass is formulated as a category who uses communication tools to satisfy their certain needs.

On the other hand, researches in the field of cinema which are based on “the Uses and Gratifications Approach”, mostly focus on the psycho-social orientations of the individual. For example, when determining the motivation of the Egyptian cinema audience to go to the cinema, Yousry (2009) investigated the impacts of the factors such as the director, genre and cast of the film, in the framework of “Uses and Gratifications” theory. Hasrul&Jamaluddin (2014), examined the status of the domestic market in the face of the foreign market in the process of rapid changes in the film industry by associating it with film consumption motivation of film audiences. Hassan et al. (2015a; 2015b), on the other hand, have obtained data on the motivations of the Malaysian cinema audience to go to the cinema and the impacts of outstanding information tools and film industry on determining these motivations.

In all of these studies, it is seen that the motives of the watching mass to go to the cinema are considered as the main dependent variable and, certain variances like race, gender, socio-economic level, lifestyle, etc. (Srivinas, 2002; 2010) as the determinant of this variable.

Impact analysis in media studies also developed in parallel with the diversity of research topics in social sciences and progressed as a four-stage process (McQuail, 2010) starting from the 1900s and running along to the 1980s. The researches' focusing on the psychology of use and gratification, on the other hand, has emerged in the second stage and the audience analyses have been conducted in various contexts where the psychological needs and social conditions of the individual are determinative.

The results of this study are important in the sense that, on the basis of the individual difference based tendencies of the students mentioned in the study, it reveals whether the reason behind their acts related to their field of education, such as going to the cinema and watching television, is a necessity or because they actually regard them as social needs. In this sense, it is expected to make an important contribution to the literature.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the tendencies of the students of the CTV Department of AKU GSF to visit the cinema and watch television based on Uses and Gratification Approach.

Material and Method

The population of the study is composed of the students, studying at CTV Department of AKU GSF in the spring semester of 2018-2019 academical year. Therefore, within this population randomly chosen 165 students formed the sample of this study. After the incomplete and incorrect questionairre forms were eliminated, the analyses were carried out on 161 observations. The survey form was conducted on the students of AKU GSF, CTV Department between 22-26 April 2019 by means of face to face interviews.

The data set is obtained via a questionairre which includes demografic features of the participants besides “Motivation for Cinema-Going” scale developed by Yousry (2009) and Hassan et al. (2015) and, the “Motivation for Television-Watching” scale developed by Özarslan, Nisan (2011).

In this study, first of all, the descriptive statistics were presented, regarding the categorical variables like the AKU STV students' frequency of going to the cinema, watching television and using the Internet and, that regarding the demographic attributes such as gender, academic standing, accommodation and monthly average expense. The relationships among the addressed demographic attributes and categorical variables were examined by using the multiple correspondence analysis.

Correspondence analysis is a statistical technique that provides a graphical representation of cross tabulations (which are also known as cross tabs, or contingency tables). Cross tabulations arise whenever it is possible to place events into two or more different sets of categories, such as product and location for purchases in market research or symptom and treatment in medical testing (Yelland, 2000: 1)

Correspondence analysis (CA) is an exploratory multivariate technique for the graphical and numerical analysis of almost any data matrix with nonnegative entries, but it principally involves tables of frequencies or counts. It can be extended to analyze presence/absence data, rankings and preferences, paired comparison data, multiresponse tables, multiway tables, and square transition tables, among others (Greenacre and Blasius, 2006: 4).

Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) is an extension of CA which allows one to analyze the pattern of relationships of several categorical dependent variables. As such, it can also be seen as a generalization of principal component analysis when the variables to be analyzed are categorical instead of quantitative. Because MCA has been (re)discovered many times, equivalent methods are known under several different names such as optimal scaling, optimal or appropriate scoring, dual scaling, homogeneity analysis, scalogram analysis, and quantification method (Abdi and Valebtin, 2007: 1).

MCA can be seen as a way of analyzing a subject by variable matrix with categorical variables; or a subject by item matrix of multiple-choice data; or a multi-way contingency table. In all cases MCA scales the subjects and categories (items; levels of each way of the table). The scaling is multidimensional, since several scale values are obtained for each subject and category (Tenenhaus and Young, 1985: 91-92).

SPSS software was used in data analysis. In the study, the data obtained through the use of descriptive statistics techniques were presented in related tables and figures.

Findings

This part of this study includes both the destcriptive statistics and statistical analysis to determine the relations among the categorical variables. First of all, the frequencies of the individuals participating in the survey by the demographic attributes are given in Table 1.

Table 1. The frequencies of the individuals participating in the survey by the demographic attributes

When Table 1 is examined, it is seen that 56.5% of the participants are male and 43.5% are female. When the frequency of the academic standing is examined, it is observed that among the individuals studying at the STV Department of AKU Faculty of Fine Arts, the most crowded group are the first-year students with the ratio of 33.5% and the least crowded group are third-year students with the ratio of 16.1%.

The majority of the participant students (42.2%) accommodate in student dorms and a considerably large group of the students (39.8%) accommodate in houses. It is seen that the great majority (46.6%) of the students participating in the survey has a monthly average expense between 501-1000 TL, while 9.9% of which have 1500TL and above, 18.6% of which between 1001-1500TL and 24.8% of which between 0-500TL.

When the frequency of going to the cinema is examined, it observed that even the student studying in this field refrain from watching the movie films at the movie theaters. Likewise, the 39.1% of the participants go to the cinema once a month, 21.7% of which go every two months and, the total ratio of those going to the cinema once or more than once in a week adds up barely to 8.7%.

On the other hand, it is seen that vast majority (74.5%) of the students watch television one or less hour a day, those who watch television 3 and more hour a day have the ratio of only 13%.

It is necessary to note that the impact of the Internet on movie-watching behaviors is apparent. Today, as the most effective factor in shaping the behaviors of the cinema audience is the Internet, also the students of STV Department can watch almost any movie they want, not being restricted to the ones came to the movie theaters. This situation provides a great deal of comfort to students both in economic terms and in accessing movies. As a matter of fact, it is seen that almost all (98.1%) of the students benefit from the Internet for the purpose of watching movies and television programs.

The frequency of accommodations of individuals participating in the survey by their academic standing are given in Table 2.

Table 2. The frequencies of accommodations of individuals participating in the survey by their academic standing

When Table 2 is examined, the great majority of the first-year students in the ratio of 61.1% accommodate in dorms, in the second year this ratio has a little decrease and in the 3rd and 4th years dropped down to the ratio of around 19%. Because the students, the major part of which came from different cities, prefer living in the dorms at the beginning and, in the following years moving to houses after having a circle of friends and getting used to the city. Such that, the ratio of accommodating in houses which is 18.5% in the first-year students, reaches to levels of 37.5% and 61.5% respectively in the following years, being 58.1% in the senior year.

Table 3 and Table 4 indicate the frequencies of those who watch television for 1 hour or less in a day by gender and academic standing.

Table 3. The frequency of those watching television for 1 hour or less a day by gender

Table 4. The frequency of those watching television for 1 hour or less a day by their academic standing

When Table 3 is examined, the majority of the students who watch television for 1 hour and less a day, in the ratio of 59.2%, consists of male students. 33.3% of the students who stated that they watched television for 1 hour or less a day are the first-year students, 24.2% are the second-year students, 17.5% are the third-year students and 18.3% are the fourth-year students, and, 6.7% consists of students who did not graduate on time. It can be said that the courses taken by the individuals who participated in the survey, in the field of television extending to years can have an effect that increases their awareness of the television programs in every passing year.

The frequencies of the monthly average expenses of those who go to the cinema every two weeks or once a month, among individuals participating in the survey, are given in Table 5 and Table 6. Monthly average expenses of the participants are given in Turkish Liras (TL) currency. (1 EUR = 6,8 TL according to exchange rate in May 2019).

Table 5. The frequency of the monthly average expenses of those who go to the cinema every two weeks among individuals who participated in the survey

When Table 5 is examined, it is seen that half of the respondents who stated that they go to the cinema every two weeks had monthly expenses of between 501-1500 TL and that only 3% are in the 1501-2000 TL range. This situation can be interpreted that the students do not consider the act of going to the cinema as a priority and do not invest in their field of education to the extent of going to the movie theater or do not take enough interest in watching movies in the cinema. As a matter of fact, as mentioned earlier, the ratio of students going to the cinema once or more than once a week is only 8.7%.

Table 6. The frequency of the monthly average expenses of those who go to the cinema once a week among individuals who participated in the survey

When Table 6 is examined, as in Table 5, it is seen that 50.8% of the students who stated that they go to the cinema once a month have the monthly average expense between 501-1000 TL and that 25.4% are in the range of 0-500 TL. Only 8% of the participants who stated that they go to the cinema once a month have the monthly average expense of 1501 TL and above. It is observed that the frequency of going to the cinema does not increase evenly with the monthly average expenses of the participant students. This shows that even if the monthly expense of a student has increased, there is no extra amount paid to the movie theaters in the increased expenses.

Table 7-9 presents the means and standard deviations (Std. Deviation) scores obtained from the scales related to the tendencies to go to the cinema (LCV-Level of Visiting Cinema) and to watch television (LTW-Level of Watching Television) by the demographic attributes.

Table 7. Means and standard deviations regarding the tendencies to go to the cinema and to watch television, of the individuals who participated in the survey by their academic standing.

When Table 7 is examined, it is seen that the mean tendency (score) of the first-year students to go to the cinema is at the highest level with 3.61 and that this tendency decreases gradually in the following years and drops down to the mean value of 3.29 in the 4th year. When the mean scores of television watching tendency are examined, it is seen that among the students, those who have the highest tendency to watch television are the first-year students with the mean value of 2.93.

Table 8. Means and standard deviations regarding the tendencies to go to the cinema and to watch television, of the individuals who participated in the survey, by their monthly average expenses.

When Table 8 is examined, as previously shown in Table 6, although the monthly average expenses of the students participating in the survey increases, their average tendencies to go to the cinema decrease every passing year. On the other hand, the mean television watching tendency is observed to be highest in the students with the lowest monthly average expense (0-500 TL).

Table 9. Means and standard deviations regarding the tendencies to go to the cinema and to watch television, of the individuals who participated in the survey by their place of accommodation.

When Table 9 is examined, it is seen that among the individuals who participated in the survey, those accommodating in a house have the lowest mean tendency to go to the cinema and those accommodating in the dormitory have the highest level of the tendency to go to the cinema. The high tendency of the students living in the dormitory to go to the cinema can be explained by the fact that the dormitory environment accommodates the conditions that prevent watching movies alone and perhaps, that the students regard going to the cinema as one of the means of changing the environment by moving away from the crowded environment. When the mean tendencies of watching television are observed, it is seen that the lowest mean tendency is of those accommodating in a house.

The results of the multiple correspondence analyses performed to reveal the relationships among the categorical variables addressed in the study are given in Figure 1 and Figure 2.

Figure 1. The results of the multiple correspondence analysis regarding the frequency of going to the cinema and other demographic variables

When Figure 1, which includes students' place of accommodation, academic standing, gender and the frequency of going to the cinema, is examined the first dimension has 38.529% explanatory power and the second dimension has 37.968% explanatory power. Thus, the two dimensions in total reached to the explanatory power of 76.497%.

Among the ones in the fourth-year and above, those who go to the cinema once a week are usually female students staying in a hostel. In this context, it can be said that female students take going to the cinema more seriously as an occupation than men. The conditions of the hostel, which is crowded and not suitable for watching cinema movies, also requires this situation.

It is seen that those who go to the cinema more than once a week are usually male third-year students living in a house and that those who go every two months are usually first-year students living in dormitories. Certain factors can be said to have influences here, such that students need to do more readings because of the theoretical courses in the CTV department curricula, that they cannot immediately adapt to the university and dormitory environment, and that the movie-watching awareness is not fully developed yet.

Figure 2. The results of the multiple correspondence analysis regarding the frequency of watching television and other demographic variables

When Figure 2, which includes students' place of accommodation, academic standing, gender and the frequency of going to the cinema, is examined the first dimension has 38.654% explanatory power and the second dimension has 35.522% explanatory power. Thus, the two dimensions in total reached to the explanatory power of %74.176.

It is seen that the second-year students living with their family usually watch television for 1 hour or less a day; that the second-year students living with their family but have the possibility of staying in dormitories, usually watch television for 2 hours. Therefore, it can be said that both the crowdedness of the environment and the insufficiency of the number of televisions lead to this situation, regardless of whether the student lives with family members or in dormitories.

The students who watch television for 3-5 hours are generally fourth-year and above students and mostly female students living in the apart-hotels and hostels. Because, it can be said that, despite having professional CTV education, the students reach the awareness that they need to watch plenty of movies, only when they came to the third and fourth year. Multiple correspondence analyses shows that female students watch more television during the day than male students, as previously mentioned in Table 3.

Results and Conclusion

There are some similar studies, which measure and determine the peoples' tendencies of going cinema and watching television in different socio-demographical and professional groups. Besides those studies, being the first study on CTV students is the importance of this study.

Based on the assumption that the students of AKU CTV Department should have a special interest in their field of education, the tendencies to go to the cinema and watch television, which are among the activities that aforesaid students supposed to allocate time, were accentuated.

When the frequency of going to the cinema is examined, it observed that even the student studying in this field refrain from watching the movie films at the movie theaters. The proportion of students who go to the cinema once or more than once a week is very low. It is possible to relate this situation to the following conditions:

The fact that AKU CTV Department students who gained the right to study with the central placement system without any special talent examination are refrained from investing in this field as they lack sufficient interest in their field of education,

That they cannot appreciate the importance of watching movies in terms of their professional development,

The intensity of their courses and assignments,

The high prices of cinema tickets,

In consequence of Afyonkarahisar province being a provincial city, insufficiency of the number of movie theaters and of the diversity of the released movies.

It can be said that one of the most important factors that affect the frequency of going to the cinema and of watching television is the increase in the students' level of using the Internet and social media channels. As a matter of fact, it is seen that almost all of the students benefit from the Internet for the purpose of watching movies and television programs. Besides, social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., a wide range of mobile applications and other facilities offered by the Internet also distract students from the acts of watching TV and going to the movie theaters.

It is seen that among the students, those who show the tendency to watch television most are the first-year students. Various socio-cultural factors can be said to be effective on this result. Among these, it can be thought that factors such as not being able to make enough friends as a first-year student and not having enough knowledge about the social facilities offered by the city, cause the students to tend to watch more television, as a means for socialization and escape in the first year. It is also obvious that since the first-year students have not been sufficiently mastered their field of education in their first year, their previously formed habits direct them to watch the popular movies (blockbusters) released in the movie theaters. Over the years, students who have increased their knowledge and their level of awareness about cinematographic elements as well as about the world cinema become more selective and thus are less likely to go to the cinema.

On the other hand, it can be said that by the impact of the courses taken in the field of television extending to years, television watching rates of students have increased as a result of their reaching a certain level of awareness in the advancing years.

Although the monthly average expenses of the students who participated in the survey increase, their average tendency to go to the cinema decreases with each passing year. The decrease in the tendency to go to the cinema observed in the students who have a high monthly average expense among the students who receive professional STV education can be explained by the fact that the primary movies required to be watched are found in digital media such as the Internet, DVD, VCD, etc., rather than in movie theaters. It can also be thought that students with a high monthly average expense spend on increasing their internet quota and/or obtaining their own pieces of equipment (camera, video camera, tripod, microphone, voice recorder, etc.) instead of on going to the movie theater.

On the other hand, the mean television watching tendency is observed to be highest in the students with the lowest monthly average expense (0-500 TL). Indeed, the act of watching television is an activity that does not require paying extra sums under normal conditions (unless the membership to a digital platform is present). Assuming that the monthly average expense level is proportional to the income, the students who have the lowest monthly average expense fulfill their movie watching needs at home, in the dormitory, etc., mostly through wireless connections in the places.

It is seen that among the individuals who participated in the survey, those accommodating in a house have the lowest mean tendency to go to the cinema and those accommodating in the dormitory have the mean tendency to go to the cinema at the highest level. When this situation is evaluated, it can be said that the archives of the students in their memory sticks, the websites which provide the opportunity to watch movies directly on the Internet and the digital platforms such as Netflix, BluTV, Puhu TV offer a much more comfortable cinema movie experience at home. Because the home environment which is more suitable for watching a movie at the desired time, in the desired location and, if desired several times in a row, provides great comfort, as compared with the dormitories, hostels and living with the family.

When the mean tendencies of watching television are observed, it is seen that the lowest mean tendency is of those accommodating in a house. The most important reason for this is that they run out of time for watching television after the works required by the domestic life (cooking, dishwashing, laundry and so on) besides studying. The home environment contains different areas of socialization and pastime for students apart from watching television which can be said to cause students living in houses to watch less television.

Among the ones in the fourth-year and above, those who go to the cinema once a week are usually female students staying in a hostel. Those who go to the cinema more than once a week, are usually the male third-year students living in houses and those who go every two months are the first-year students living in dormitories. It is seen that the second-year students living with their family usually watch television for 1 hour or less a day; that the second-year students living with their family but have the possibility of staying in dormitories, usually watch television for 2 hours.

Students watching television for 3-5 hours are usually the fourth-year and above students and mostly females staying in the apart-hotels and the hostels. On the other hand, female students watch more television during the day than male students. Although the fact that female students watch relatively more television can be interpreted in the framework of the own dynamics of Afyonkarahisar province, which is still under development in terms of social and cultural aspects, it is also possible to say that various entertainment and competition programs, especially domestic series published outside of course hours, are more prevalently followed by female students. The fact that male students are watching less television can be explained by the fact that programs intended for males are relatively less frequent on television screens and thus that male students have a high probability of being interested in different hobbies and occupations.

References