Mediennutzung in der ländlichen Gesellschaft. Medialisierung in historischer Perspektive

Here, media use is understood as an active process. On the one hand, this process must be regarded as a medialization process. On the other hand, it must also be understood as a process of media “appropriation“(„Aneignung“). Media use always depends on social contexts. Under the conditions of rural life, especially the time budget available to the users, the rhythms of social life and everyday work, material leeway, and the relation between medialized and direct communication were important. In rural society, media contents were acquired within the village society where social control was strict and people knew one another. The rules of media use in families were also more pronounced than in cities. Since the early modern era, rural society was penetrated by media which generally came from outside, such as books and the radio. Newspapers, which were often produced in small towns, were closer to rural society. Genuine rural media were in particular letters, farm diaries, and petitions. In Germany, rural areas gained early and comprehensive access to the communication networks of the telephone and later the internet. Gradually, the patterns of use of these media in rural areas were virtually no different from those in the cities.