DIGITAL TELEVISION IN PORTUGAL: NEW TECHNOLOGY, NEW USES? Vera Araújo, Gustavo Cardoso and Rita Espanha OberCom, Palácio Foz, Lisbon vera.araujo@obercom.pt Abstract During the last decade, we have witnessed a vast change in the media landscape. A change due to technological innovation in mediation devices themselves, but also due to the ways users have chosen to socially domesticate them [4]. In this ambit, the process of television digitalization must be addressed with a special attention, as it is the medium with the widest implementation in households and as it is also a medium that is fully domesticated [18]. Nevertheless, the penetration of DTV in Portugal is still one of the lowest in Europe, and this country is one of the few which hasn’t launched Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT). Having the Portuguese context in mind, this paper tries to evaluate how existing viewing practices will interact with the process of television digitalization. For that, and based on the domestication theory [3] [20], we will first try to frame existing viewing practices for DTV population and for general population, in order to highlight some eventual differences or similarities in uses and viewing experience. Then, on the basis of this comparison, we will try to evaluate how viewing practices can be or are being influenced by DTV. Our research is based on the findings of an extensive survey (n=1041) designed to trace existing television viewing practices. Based on our previous research, we are departing from the hypothesis that television viewing habits in Portugal are still linked to traditional television practices, although the rise of the Network Society might have broaden up the scope of the audiovisual experience. Keywords Digital Television; Interactivity; Viewing practices; Audience studies; Domestication Theory. 1 INTRODUCTION: THE DOMESTICATION OF DTV Research on the adoption of technological innovations was initially developed in the 1980 and explores how technologies become a regular part of people’s everyday lives [20]. Domestication theory in particular describes the processes by which innovations are appropriated by its users. The domestication approach considers both the practical and the symbolic aspects of the adoption and use of technologies, showing how both the meanings of things, and their materiality, are equally important in the understanding of how technologies become part of everyday life [17]. It is first and foremost a social theory as it highlights the negotiations, challenges to power and control, rule-making and breaking that accompany the introduction of technologies into any social setting. Sørensen and Lie [11] have described domestication as a process through which artefacts are defined and placed in a way which may imply redefinitions of daily routines and practices. Appropriating technologies as artefacts into particular social settings is also the basis of the work by Roger Silverstone [17][18][19][20]; Berker, Hartmann, Punie, and Ward [3]; Eric Hirsch [17] and David Morley [17], who introduce a general framework that views the household as a “moral economy”, suggesting that members of a household have particular ways of consuming artefacts which are dependent on the politics of household life and the culture and identity residing in the home. Furthermore, four phases have been identified to describe the concept of domestication. 1) Appropriation is when a technology leaves the world of commodity and is appropriated and owned. Appropriation stands for the whole process of consumption as well as for that moment at which an object crosses the threshold between the formal and the moral economics [12]. 2) Objectification deals with how new possessions are placed within the everyday life in the household; that is, fitting the technology into a spatial arrangement, which consequently expresses its symbolic meaning. 3) Incorporation deals with negotiating and integrating the new technology into the routines of daily living and thus the temporality of everyday life. 4) Finally, Conversion defines the relationship between the household and the outside world. The household converts the functional and symbolic use of the technology into a production of meaning that leaves the moral economy of the household to contribute to the 'objective' meaning economy of the wider society.