Dailiness: The Role of Media in Everyday Life

Paddy Scannell elaborates how media and technology influence our everyday activities. One of the ways he discusses this is through the view of ‘dailiness’. Dailiness, Paddy argues has to be defined from the very basic things such as what it involves in providing daily services such as milk, bread or the newspaper. So as to make the provision of the products and services every day a routine is developed (Rowe 201, p.104). In media, the providers are required to offer services on a daily basis and every time of the day; this process has to be maintained not just once in a while but all the time. The media has to provide a continuous and uninterrupted service which an individual can access and be satisfied with (Rowe 2011, p.95) Scannell defines dailiness as an endless, incessant and constant interactions that take place every day.

As a result of dailiness, people have become so accustomed to Radio and Television until they feel a sense of entitlement to such services. All the same majority of the population take media for granted. TV and Radio are main players that show how people interpret and experience their daily lives. Broadcasting plays a role that may not be seen but which is key to how we conduct our daily routines.  Paddy Scannell assumes that the constant flow that media feeds people with will always result in a constructive progression. Sometimes the audience may lose trust in what the media is supplying to them and may be forced to seek alternatives or challenge the broadcasters to improve on their quality.

The main aspect of dailiness is “routinization’, which simply means the processes and procedures that people involve themselves in every day. Our lives are run on the pulse and the media plays a part too. Paddy Scannell discusses how the media provides us with a daily service which progressively becomes part of our daily unchanging habits and lifestyle (Čuvalo 2016, p.69). In a society that is obsessed with the need for progression, time seems to hinge off the media. The Media consumes time and it may add value to it or debase it. Therefore, if media would go missing people would experience a pronounced disruption to their daily lives. Media is also in a position to change and influence the listener’s thought patterns, their perception of routine, and their comprehension of the temporary environment. The society has developed a habit of expectations due to the availability of the media to offer daily service. Therefore, daily routines of people may be affected when the media fails to offer the service consistently and this, in turn, affects how people see time. Scannell shows the importance of daily service through a sketchy reflection of his breakfast-period, a habit which is connected to the medium of radio (Scannell 1996, p.145). He provides insight into how broadcasting has the ability to re-temporize a person’s day if the media feeds a person with information that is appropriate for that moment (Salokangas 2002, p.111).

Scannell argues that media is a key to modeling our daily habits regardless of the popular belief that people can engage in the same tasks even if the media was interrupted. Things would be different if media such as newspaper, TV, and Radio would be eliminated. In an attempt to prove how important the media is to our daily lives and to illustrate the relationship between the media and our daily lives he uses the sunlight theory. This theory suggests that the sun acts as our biological chronometer media can also be seen as our everyday timer. Our association with media reveals Scannell’s ideology that every day is an independent entity whether we interact with the media consciously or unconsciously. Through weekly airings of television series, people are able to connect the activities of their lives to their development (Pink  &LederMackley 2013, p.679).

The difficulty may be encountered when attempting to make distinctions between different temporalities because of the incessant flow of information from the modern media. Viewers can access frequent, even hourly, news briefs anytime they want. The way we appreciate time is influenced by the media since there are times of the day such as mornings, daybreak and evenings that are perceived as news time. Due to the advancement of technology modern platforms such as online sites, Android and other smartphone alerts and the availability of TV stations dedicated only to news, experts may argue that the constant information flow is reducing the power of the media to model people’s lifestyles. When people are constantly plugged to the flow of information on a daily basis then we can question if the concept of dailiness is still applicable (Scannell 2002, p.200).

Though Scannell steadfastly argues that the situation of broadcasting on a daily basis is relevant to time, the innovation to the place where media is accessible anytime has changed the way we appreciate dailiness. While there still exist programs that appeal to people of different age such as programs for kids, teens, and adults the new forms of media especially internet makes it possible for the programs to be watched at the convenience of a person something that could break the value of dailiness (Scannell 2002, p.202). The individual can now choose the time to watch their favorite programs outside the dictates of the media houses. Scannell notes that the introduction of the new forms of media have made people extend the time they went to sleep by an hour (Jensen 2002, p.275). Dailiness is in a sense evolving to adapt to the evolution that is sweeping through the media too. Scannell’s notion of dailiness should be revisited due to the factor discussed above, it should also be evaluated to know the faces of dailiness that are still valid to the society and those which need to be changed by the society.

Media influence on our sense of time is changing very fast due to advancement in technology yet media still plays a crucial part in creating conscious and subconscious facets of daily routines. A research conducted by Sarah pink and Kerstin LederMackley on ‘Media –saturated’ families reveals the spread of media in family daily lifestyles (Pink 2013, p. 667). By following everyday habits of twenty families in the UK they examined the use of media on a daily basis. The main drive of the research was to examine the way the family uses different forms of media to form an environment of welfare in the family and to make the house ‘feel okay’. In one of their study case, Alan who is married and has four children were observed daily to establish the influence of media on his life. Every morning Alan is woken up by music from his alarm chronometer. He reads the newspaper as he prepares breakfast and listening to the news on the Radio at the same time. Here, Scannell’s notion of dailiness fits properly because the rhythm of Alan’s life is dictated by the type of the news that he will receive through different media. If the newspaper would not be delivered on a particular day then his sense of flow would be disrupted. Consequently, this would call for a restructuring of the day’s rhythm.  The research is of the opinion that media is not only the model for the day but has become part and puzzle of our daily existence (Robins and Aksoy 2006, p.86). The integration of media into our daily lives allows interaction with it while still executing other activities.

The author of a study titled ‘Media Life’ Mark Deuze analyzes details people’s captivation with the media every day (Deuze 2011, p. 138). He highlights how media infiltrates every facet of modern life and crucially form the elementary pillars of our life. When we put this side by side with Scannell’s notion of dailiness we understand that the contemporary society is so sunk into the media that chunks of their days are spent exploring it to the extent that media becomes invisible. The thing that contributes the most to shape our lives is the same thing that puts a mask over our eyes that we turn a blind eye to it.  Therefore, this is a theoretical advancement of Scannell’s concept of dailiness since it shows the rapid movement of media into invincibility is caused by the habits that have come with the modern generation (McKitterick n.d). The contemporary generation is so much addicted to the media to the point that it has become integrated into their daily schedule. Media changes the pulse of people’s daily existence this supports Scannell’s first notion of dailiness in which he argues that media serves as a framework for unifying the daily life.

Deuze (2011, p.243) agrees with the theory put forward by Scannell but at the same time, he also argues that the notion of dailiness has evolved to acclimatize to the modern society. Deuze proposes that the chief obstacle of media within a modern culture is its absence from the forefronts of their minds. When we take for granted the media and other forms of technology that we interact with we simultaneously become naïve to how media influences and alters our life especially the way in which we perceive time. Deuze argues that the connection between people and the media is an intricate one and it is not easy to separate people from the media. Deuze claims that we are no longer living with the media but we are living in the media, meaning that media has become indispensable to the community. Media can also be used as a method to adapt to the ever-changing patterns of the contemporary life (Robins Askov 200, p.123)

 Media’s invisibility and its relationship with dailiness are deeply explored in a study by Mira Moshe in which she explores the concept of ‘time-squeezing’, this is the ideology of putting as many activities as possible within a short time period (Moshe 2011, p. 69). Dailiness is still relevant in Moshe’s study because our perception of time is influenced by interactions with the media. The question that was posed earlier in this essay on whether time would feel different without the media can be solved by Moshe’s study with an affirmative yes. If on a certain day media services could be withdrawn then our perception of time would be greatly affected. When we multitask by interacting with media while executing our daily activities we agree with Scannell’s concept of dailiness and the same time proposing that there no longer exists limits that mark particular periods of time. While in times past, habits revolved around the media in the contemporary culture it is the media that has become embedded into people routines due to the ease of accessibility. The notion of dailiness is boosted by Moshe’s concept of ‘time-squeezing’ but at the same time, it creates the need to re-assess the validity of dailiness to the modern society.  In a world where engaging in several activities at the same time is so prevalent (because of the huge number of mediums to facilitate multitasking) we cannot continue to hold to Scannell’s original definition of dailiness. The contemporary culture wants things done without delay so most people do not sit waiting for media to model their time structures and daily activities instead they embed media into the desired daily tasks (Salokangas 2002, p.103).

According to Moshe, Muhammad Nasir puts across the growing importance and influence of media to the society. In a 2013 studyNasir, (2013, p. 408) compares the priority and relevance of media to that of food and body wear, he suggests that the media has become a basic necessity and without it, we would not survive. Nasir points to the habit of daily newspaper reading suggesting that people who engage themselves to read the paper every day develop the habit to the point that it becomes a second nature. The pulse and speed of our daily survival are made short term by the integration of media into our way of life. Here Scannell’s concept of dailiness is challenged by Nasir who argues that in the past the media would shape people’s days and habitual activities but currently it does not have the ability to shape our lives in a similar way. Most of the news channels are at the moment readily available due to their online availability, the effect of time- dictated programs such as the news has reduced greatly. We have experienced a world where tea- time was associated with taking a snack while watching a particular TV program, however, the evolution of our society has lost appreciation of designated program periods. Today people involve themselves more in binge-watching television programs, such advancement has shattered Scannell’s concept of dailiness (Jenzen 2002, p.283). Media does not play a crucial role in temporalities as it used to, neither does it have a massive influence on people’s daily structures as it used to have.

The concept of dailiness as defined by Scannell exists naturally (Scannell 2002, p 106), yet at the present, it is not the media that shapes our routine but it can be argued that people access media information anytime they want. There was a time in the past when the media was a big factor to the sense of perceiving time but in the contemporary world the media is too embedded into every day that there are no separating people with the media, they have become indivisible. That is the origin of the concept that media has no significant influence on time as had been suggested by Scannell. Modern media forms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook give people real-time notifications any time something crops up and they have become part and puzzle of our day-to-day lives (Cuvarlo 2016, p.68).

Scannell’s theories have had a profound influence, all the same, because of the rapidly advancing nature of the media we should reevaluate whether the notion of dailiness is still valid and if it is still valid how valid is it? The concept of dailiness can be applied to the contemporary media framework so as to determine if it is still relevant (Schiller 2001, p.879). The information provides in this essay is strong enough to convince the reader that media still trends currently but it does not affect our daily structure like it did in the past when the ideologies of dailiness were being penned. Research shows that media has become our second nature and has been embedded into our daily sense of habitual activities and this has resulted to the blurring of the boundaries that existed between daily lifestyle and the media (Hampton 2005, p. 240).

Conclusively, media infiltrates every facet of modern life and crucially from the elementary pillars of our life. When we put this side by side with Scannell’s notion of dailiness we understand that the contemporary society is so sunk into the media that chunks of their days are spent exploring it  to the extent that media becomes invisible When we take for granted the media and other forms of technology that we interact with we simultaneously become naïve  to how media influences and alters our life especially the way in which we perceive time Dailiness as explains by Scannell’s can still be appreciated by older generations or by those people who are not hooked to the modern forms of media. Scannell’s ideas of dailiness may carry different connotations from generation to generation.

References

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