Information and Entertainment in European Mass Media Systems: Preferences for and Uses of Television and Newspapers Heiner Meulemann It is examined whether preferences of persons and public control of the media determine informational rather than entertainment media use in European countries. Informational use is conceived of as newspaper reading, entertainment use as television viewing. On the person level, the hypotheses that preferences for information increase informational media use and that preferences for entertainment decrease it are tested—controlling for resources. On the country level, the hypotheses that public control increases informational media use as well as the positive effects of preferences for information on informational media use are tested—controlling for supply breadth and wealth. Data are 69 samples from 29 countries of the European Social Survey 2002, 2004, and 2006. On the person level, preferences for information increase, but preferences for entertainment do not decrease, informational media use. Public control increases informational media use only insofar as it decreases television use; but unexpectedly it also decreases newspaper use. In contrast, the supply of newspapers shows both expected effects: it increases informational and decreases entertainment media use. The expectation that public control increases the positive impact of preferences for information on informational media use is confirmed in four of the six tests. Research Design Aims and Questions In 2007, Europeans spent 225 min of a day viewing television (Television, 2008, p. 36) and 27 min of a day reading newspapers (World Press Trends, 2008, p. 941). What motivates people to devote 4 4 h of a day to media use and almost 10 times as much time to television than to newspapers? Cross-national research on the determinants of media use is scarce and often restricted to demographic variables; and these explain only small parts of the variance (Norris, 2000, pp. 82, 113). Clearly, demographic categories refer to facts too distant from motivating ‘uses and gratifica- tions’ (Ruggiero, 2000). These, in turn, are too specific to be listed in survey questionnaires and too subtle to be available for respondents in a standardized inter- view. To explain media use more comprehensively and more effectively in cross-national population surveys, this research will reduce ‘uses and gratifications’ to two, namely information and entertainment, and look for indicators of the corresponding preferences among established survey questions. A preference for European Sociological Review VOLUME 0 NUMBER 0 2010 1–17 1 DOI:10.1093/esr/jcq058, available online at www.esr.oxfordjournals.org ß The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com European Sociological Review Advance Access published November 4, 2010 at Pennsylvania State University on May 9, 2016 http://esr.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from