While we spend as much time in front of the television as at work, what is our relationship to the small screen, and in particular, to series? Some answers with the sociologist Jean Viard.
TV series have been in the spotlight since last night, and until next Friday, March 24 in Lille, it’s the Series Mania festival. Should we still talk about TV series, in the age of Internet platforms? What is certain is that our consumption has changed. Decryption with the sociologist Jean Viard, research director at the CNRS, at the CEVIPOF center, the political research center of Sciences Po.
franceinfo: The French no longer have the same relationship to television as they once did. There is in particular the replay which has changed everything?
John Viard: Yes. The first thing to say is that, on average, the French are 100,000 hours in their life in front of the TV, they work about 70,000 hours, they do 30,000 hours of study. So basically, they’re as much in front of the TV as they are at work, and at school. This is just to give an order of magnitude. And these 100,000 hours, in fact, is exactly the life time we have gained since the invention of television in every home. In fact, life has increased by 100,000 hours and these 100,000 hours are spent entirely in front of the television.
Afterwards, what is true is that there was the first period when TV was in the living room, in front of the sofa, with the family, in any case as a couple, we watched very little TV only. And so it was effectively the big shows, the three channels and the state channel, and then there’s an explosion of channels. And then there is indeed an explosion of series, so a whole new relationship to the discontinuity of time, which means that we often watch it in bed, we watch it on a laptop computer.
So it accompanies us, it takes a long time in reality, and as we are initiated, a bit like in the past, I was subscribed to Tintin and at the end of each page of the week’s issue, there was a last drawing that made you absolutely want to know what was going to happen the next time. Basically, this technique from comic strips, we took it up in the series, and so we are completely absorbed by series that take us an absolutely incredible number of hours. And it’s very important because it actually becomes the first place for the transmission of cultural codes alongside education.
This is what connects us, the series, and at the same time, there are so many of them. There was a time when it could be a discussion the next day, at the coffee machine. Everyone had seen the same thing. This is no longer the case at all today. Does it connect us and at the same time, we each have our own different program?
Yes, it does not connect us in the same way, I agree. We were all in front of the show “The Screen Folders” in the 70s, and all that disappeared. But at the same time, we can’t stop talking about it, because basically, it’s a jungle, where information is very complicated to capture. There are plenty of them, we don’t necessarily know the actors, we don’t necessarily have the keys. We have series that we really liked. So it’s arrowed. If you liked a series a lot, we will tell you: that looks like it. And it’s artificial intelligence working on it.
But above all, we inform each other, we talk to each other, we say to each other: did you like this series, was it good? So I don’t think of it as a phenomenon of isolation but as a space for dialogue. It’s a bit like when we did without books after the war, in families who read a lot. Basically, I think it has somewhat the same type of function, precisely of what is good and what is not good. Why did you like it? So basically, there is this dialogue dimension, which you have to look at.
Tomorrow will be the beginning of cinema spring. Can the cinema resist this plethoric offer?
Listen, it’s difficult, but at the same time, we are in a society where the two terms are close, home. I am alone in front of my series, or I share with a boyfriend, a girlfriend etc. And at the same time, I want common moments. And it can be a big event, and it can also be going to the cinema, that is to say that the cinema takes on another function. We go there because there are other people around.
The problem is that the point of the series is that once you’ve paid for the subscription, it’s not expensive to watch a lot of it. Cinema is not the same. Will the cinema be able to remain economically accessible, as a festive place to go out? Maybe they have to make it up that we’re going to eat there. It’s like bookstores, you have to put coffee in them, you have to develop them.
The festivity, the sociability, basically, it’s the common place facing the private places. There is therefore a whole reflection also on cinemas. Theaters have done a lot of work on this. There are many theaters where you can eat before the show, during intermission, cinemas should probably also think about their festive dimension.