Five social dynamics of TV viewing

Brian Carruthers

A research project using virtual reality delivered new insights into TV's crucial role in creating the social glue that binds people together.

People have inevitably been watching more TV during the COVID-19 pandemic, but behind the headline numbers there’s another story to tell – and one that can be set against the debate about whether we’ve become a nation of couch potatoes during the past year.

Television plays a “crucial role in creating the social glue that binds us together,” Neil Mortensen, director of audiences at broadcaster ITV, told the MRS Impact conference (March 2021).

He made that assertion off the back of a research project that, as well as providing an insight into viewers’ lives and how people reacted to programmes,...

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