PART II

EMPIRICAL PAPERS

PAPER 5

Media gossip and interpersonal media gossip: an exploratory study

Abstract

In this paper I present a summarized overview of what Media Gossip is about and how I explain our interest in this modern form of gossip. I focus both on Media Gossip transmitted through mass media channels and Interpersonal Media Gossip which concerns the exchange of traits/behavior information about media characters in the context of interpersonal face-to-face communication. This latter form can cure the de-voicement of our modern individualistic societies where we hardly know our neighbors and where mutual acquaintances to gossip about are sometimes hard to find. Interpersonal Media Gossip can be seen as the modern glue of mass media societies.

In this paper I present the results of two exploratory studies. By means of interviewing 103 Flemish people about their Media Gossip consumption and engagement in Interpersonal Media Gossip I found indications for age and sex differences. In general women seem to outscore men in interest in Media Gossip. Men gossip as well though and mostly about sports people. Younger people are most attracted to international high status celebrities. They want to learn from the strategies of these prestigious individuals. As age increases, interest in Belgian celebrities increases as well. For elderly people Belgian celebrities are most valuable. Not so they can learn from their strategies, but Belgian celebrities are the people they follow up on and talk about with their real life social contacts.

These results are more or less all confirmed in a second study where I used a large-scale survey. I asked 838 Flemish people about their Media Gossip consumption and tendency to gossip about media characters. Same age and sex differences are found. Women are most interested in watching soaps and reading gossip magazines. They gossip interpersonally most about showbiz celebrities. Men, on the other hand, read more newspapers and watch news programs on television. Their Interpersonal Media Gossip exchange focuses more on sports people and politicians. Further it shows that gossip magazines are borrowed from friends rather than bought.

1 Introduction

You wake up listening to the radio. On your way to school or the office you pass billboards with celebrities promoting their latest movie. At the gym you watch the news or maybe your favorite soap opera. In the evening you gather with friends to go and see the latest movie starring your favorite celebrity. Arriving home again you watch the news and some other television programs until you fall asleep. This is a daily pattern many people recognize. Media products are all around, whether we like it or not. A lot of these media messages contain gossip about known and unknown people. Can we call these messages ‘gossip’? And why are we so attracted to them?

In this paper I explore some basic principles of Media Gossip. I present my results from two exploratory studies on the consumption of Media Gossip. I interviewed 103 people about their use of Media Gossip and their engagement in Interpersonal Media Gossip. In a second study I asked 838 Belgian people some questions about their consumption of Media Gossip and who they gossip about in their Interpersonal Media Gossip exchange.

First of all, however I will resume some theoretical aspects I have outlined in chapter 7.

1.1 How much gossip is Media Gossip

Researchers such as Noon and Delbridge (1993) have excluded talk about celebrities from gossip: “… thus speculation about the private lives of royalty, for example, would fall outside of our definition and could be considered ‘idle chatter’.” (Noon & Delbridge, 1993: 25). Still, in the most general sense gossip as a noun concerns the “information about the deviant or surprising (which both depend on the context) traits and behaviors of a (or more) third person(s) (most often non-present, but potentially present in the conversation).” (See chapter 1 for extended discussion). Celebrities can be third persons just like anyone else, and therefore I see no reason to exclude gossip about celebrities from the discourse of gossip. I do agree with Post (1994) that as a noun Media Gossip resembles Interpersonal Gossip more or less, but as an act both phenomena are significantly different.

As a noun Media Gossip contrasts from Interpersonal Gossip in gossipees. Gossipees of Interpersonal Gossip are known to the gossipers when Reputation Gossip is transferred. Reputation Gossip deals with trait/behavior information attached to a specific person, and when the gossipee of Reputation Gossip is unknown to the gossipers this information has little or no value. Gossipees can be unknown to the gossipers for the exchange of Strategy Learning Gossip. Here the focus lies on the fitness-relevant information of behavior strategies. What is a good strategy, and what is not, is taught to receivers of Strategy Learning Gossip. They vicariously learn how to behave to secure and/or increase their fitness by the trials and errors of others’ strategies (see also below and chapter 4).

Media gossipees are either unknown people or celebrities. The first, unknown people are short-term Media Gossipees, appearing in the media only once or very few times. The second, celebrities, are long-term media characters, appearing in the media, and therefore also in the discourse of Media Gossip, on a regular basis. “[T]he celebrity is a person who is well-known for their well-knownness” (Boorstin, 1961: 58, as cited in Turner, 2004: 5). Still, although celebrities are known they are not encountered in real life by the gossipers. Celebrity Gossip, as a subcategory of Media Gossip, deals with information about the traits/behaviors of known others, but different from Interpersonal Gossip these known others do not interact in real life with the gossipers.

In its original context gossip information is exchanged through face-to-face communication between two or more individuals in a rather private setting. It is this context and the medium used to transmit gossip that contrasts Media Gossip from Interpersonal Gossip. Media Gossip is not exchanged in a private setting between people knowing each other, but in a public setting of mass media products such as gossip magazines, newspapers, magazines, television programs, movies and so on. Gossip magazines are commonly regarded as the most typical media products transmitting Media Gossip stories. This is true; these products consist dominantly of gossip stories. Still, other media products as well contain Media Gossip. Soap operas, movies, advertisements and even ‘serious’ media products such as ‘news’ (both written and audiovisual) bring Media Gossip to their audience. All these media products sometimes contain information about the traits and/or behaviors of others, which I have classified as gossip in the most general sense. The major difference between these forms of (mass) Media Gossip and forms of Interpersonal Gossip is the context wherein they are exchanged. Because the private setting is lacking Morreall (1994) argues that ‘gossip columns’ are misnamed, because they cannot be classified as gossip. Being spread to a broad unknown audience Media Gossip as an act resembles ‘rumors’ more than it resembles Interpersonal Gossip as an act (Bergmann, 1993).

A mixture of both Interpersonal Gossip and Media Gossip is what I refer to as Interpersonal Media Gossip. This is gossip information about Media Gossipees that sneaks into the context of face-to-face classical Interpersonal Gossip. We acquire Media Gossip through media channels. As soon as we start discussing this information with real life members of our social networks, I talk about Interpersonal Media Gossip. Interpersonal Media Gossip resembles Media Gossip as a noun and contrasts Media Gossip as an act. Interpersonal Media Gossip is similar to Interpersonal gossip as an act and is different from Interpersonal Gossip as a noun.

In the act of Media Gossip senders are unknown to their audience. Because the trust-based bond between people knowing (and trusting) each other is lacking, Media Gossip senders deal with problems of reliability. Solutions to resolve this problem are adding pictures as proof of what is gossiped about. This ‘see for yourself’ effect explains why gossip magazines are so heavy on pictures (Bird, 1992). Presenting their stories in interview style, media senders transfer gossip ‘as if’ the gossipee is present in the conversation and even stronger ‘as if’ the gossipee is the sender of the transferred information. Last, the battle for scoops is strong in the media sector. New information is most valuable to the audience. Especially concerning gossip new information is the clue to elicit the feelings of surprise of the recipient. Still old news is not worthless. Stories that have been told by other media sources are still valuable because they have credibility-value for the receivers. If more sources and especially independent sources transmit the same story, the content is more likely to be true.

1.2 Media Gossip: teachers or friends

To explain our interest in Media Gossip I put suggested two hypotheses: the ‘Learning Hypothesis’ and the ‘Parasocial Hypothesis’. Both are not opposed to each other, but the Parasocial Hypothesis rather complements the Learning Hypothesis for a part of the media audience. Let me explain both in more detail.

1.2.1 Celebrities and public unknowns: teachers of the mass media audience

The Learning Hypothesis says that Media Gossip is liked by all people because it teaches us about life. Media Gossip is about life lessons; about what is right and what is wrong. About what is a successful strategy to solve a problem and which behaviors lead to failures. About how others attract mates, and about what those who do not succeed do wrong. Media Gossip is a fast and frugal means to fill our gap of knowledge about strategies important to succeed in daily life. Guth (2000) talks about our Master Module, in which we store behavioral information from our past experiences to enable fast decision making in the future. If you know from past experiences, that a strategy is not very successful, you can quickly decide not to use that strategy anymore when confronted with a similar problem.

Accumulating own experiences can be costly and consumes a lot of investment from an individual. Scalise-Sugiyama (1996, 2001), Henrich and McElreath (2003), and Richerson and Boyd (1992) have stressed that learning through own experiences can be too costly for an individual. We therefore exploit the expertise of others, as Russon (1997) puts it, because this is a cheap way to get information about successful and unsuccessful behavior strategies. Gossip, and more specific Strategy Learning Gossip, is an ideal tool to transmit information about successful and unsuccessful strategies which have been tested by others.

Regarding Media Gossipees as the ‘teachers’ of our mass mediated societies I talk both about celebrities and public unknowns. Central in this approach, to explain our interest in Media Gossip, is the fact that information about successful and unsuccessful strategies is transferred. Totally unknown individuals can become Media Gossipees of mass media Strategy Learning Gossip if they can teach the mass media audience about successful or unsuccessful strategies. And of course the same is true for celebrities as Media Gossipees.

Still, in our observations of others’ behaviors and our exchange of strategy information through gossip we do not focus on just anyone. Learning mechanisms are shaped by natural selection, and individuals are selective in their copying behavior (Richerson & Boyd, 1992). According to Henrich and Gil-White (2001: 176) we are more likely to copy healthy individuals. Since clear skin, bright eyes, shiny hair, and lack of injuries are cues of a potential state of health, we therefore are more likely to gossip about and copy those who have these features. More general, the best option for an individual is to keep his or her status as high as possible. It has been argued (Boyd & Richerson, 1985; Henrich, et al, 2001; Henrich and Gil-White, 2001) that mimicking the behavior of higher status people is an adaptive strategy that might lead to an increase in one’s own status. However, since reputations are complex it is often difficult to determine what exactly causes someone to be skilled and prestigious (Henrich and Gil-White, 2001). Boyd and Richerson (1985) therefore argue that evolution most probably has shaped human psychology for a general copying bias rather than a specific copying bias. It is less costly to mimic the general behavioral pattern of an individual than to analyze precisely which behavioral combinations lead to success. The so-called General Copying Bias theory explains why we do not often copy specific strategies, but the overall behavior of higher status individuals.

The General Copying Bias explains why we are more tuned to gossip about celebrities and more easily mimic their strategies than the strategies of public unknowns. Strategies with an unclear outcome will not be shared or mimicked when the gossipee is a low status public unknown. However, if the gossipee is a high status celebrity, unclear-outcome strategies will be shared and mimicked, because copying the general behavioral pattern of higher status others can increase the status of the gossipers.

In chapters 4 and 5 I have outlined how the General Copying Bias can distort our decision making processes of when to send and act on received gossip information. Full elaborated decision processes first look at the outcome of gossiped about strategies before looking at the status of the Media Gossipee. Only unclear-outcome strategies of high status celebrities will be shared and mimicked when gossipers use the elaborated decision processes. When senders and receivers use a less elaborated decision process to decide when to share and when to act on received Strategy Learning Gossip, they first look at the status of the gossipee before looking at the outcome of the gossiped about strategy. If the gossipee is higher status than the gossipers, the information will be passed on by senders, or from the receivers’ side: mimicked. This less elaborated decision route implies that all strategies (successful, unsuccessful and unclear) of high status celebrities will be shared and mimicked. In the less elaborated decision process, strategies tested by public unknowns do not pass the first decision criterion and remain subject to a fully elaborated decision route, where successful strategies will be stored to mimic and unsuccessful strategies will be stored not to mimic in the future.

In sum the ‘Learning Hypothesis’ explains the interest of all media audience individuals in Media Gossip because Media Gossipees teach us about important life lessons.

1.2.2 Celebrities: friends of the mass media audience

Next to this general interest of all media audience individuals in Media Gossip the Parasocial Hypothesis predicts an additional interest from some media audience individuals who are also interested in Reputation Gossip about celebrities. Reputation Gossip functions to learn about specific other individuals’ reputations and to manipulate these reputations. Reputations concern traits and behaviors attached to a specific person (Bromley, 1993). Gossipees of Reputation Gossip have a central role; replacing them with another person changes the value of RG.

At first glance it makes little sense to learn about individuals whom we never encounter in real life. Likewise, manipulating the reputation of individuals whom we do not interact with and whom we will not encounter in the future either, seems a waste of energy. Celebrities are people whom most of us do not interact with. Not now and not in the future. Still, stories such as “Jennifer Aniston files for divorce from Brad Pitt ending hopes of a reconciliation”, “Brad and Angelina shoot nude scenes” and “After nearly six years together, Reese Witherspoon and hubby Ryan Phillippe appear to be spending less time together” all appear on the cover of gossip magazines[8]. It could be argued that these gossip stories transmit Mating SLG that teaches the media audience how to deal with problems of break-ups. But most consumers are interested in these stories just because it is about Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and so on. People follow up on these celebrities, and some even get emotional when hearing about the break-up of celebrity couples.

Reason for this is because some individuals establish some kind of bond with celebrities. As Caughey (1984: 33, cited in Bird, 1992: 155) says: “people characterize unmet media figures as if they were intimately involved with them, and in a sense they are…” Barkow (1989,1992) added to this an ultimate explanation. He believes that celebrity gossip is a recent by-product of Interpersonal Gossip. Our modern minds are not adapted to recent emerged environments, such as the media environment. The modern mass mediated environment mismatches the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness, in which our minds were shaped by natural selection. Especially photographical, audiovisual stimuli are a too recent phenomenon for our stone aged minds to be adapted to. When we see an image of a media character (a celebrity), our brain processes this information as an encounter with this person. If this happens regularly, as is the case with celebrities who are secured of long-term media coverage, our brains start accumulating these encounters and make us (falsely) believe these people are part of our social networks.

Peculiar about the interactions of some individuals with celebrities is that celebrities reveal their private lives to an audience, and this audience shows emotions towards the celebrities. But the audience does not share their private lives with celebrities, and celebrities do not show strong emotions towards their audience. Interactions in which reciprocity is lacking are called parasocial interactions (Horton and Wohl, 1956; Rubin, Perse, and Powell, 1985, Turner, 2004). Celebrities are parasocial, or one-way, members of our social networks. Aniston, Pitt, Jolie and so on are one-way friends, one-way lovers, one-way rivals to these individuals who encounter these stars on a regular basis and start (unconsciously) seeing these people as part of their social network.

This explains why some want to learn about these specific celebrities through Media Reputation Gossip. Why some want to manipulate their reputations using Reputation Gossip and so on. It is important to be updated about the members of your social network, to calibrate your attitudes towards those who change, to detect cheaters and altruists, to learn about social structures and so on. Likewise it is important to manipulate the reputations of those surrounding us in such a way that our own and our allies’ reputation increases and the reputation of our rivals and foes is scandalized (see chapter 4 for extended discussion and explanation of the functions of Reputation Gossip).

The ‘Parasocial Hypothesis’ explains that some of the mass media audience show an additional interest in Media Gossip about some celebrities, because they feel connected to these celebrities. Celebrities have become their friends.

1.3 Interpersonal Media Gossip: modern social glue

It has been suggested and shown that gossip has a social glue effect on gossipers. Individuals engaging in the act of gossip feel connected when talking about mutual acquaintances. In their intimate sharing of information they also exclude non-members (e.g. Abrahams, 1970; Almirol, 1981; Ayim, 1994; Ben-Ze’ev, 1994; Bergmann, 1993; Besnier, 1989; Dunbar, 1998; Fine & Rosnow, 1978; Gelles, 1989; Gluckman, 1963, 1968; Goodwin, 1990; Gottman & Mettetal, 1986; Greengard, 2001; Hannerz, 1967; Leaper & Holliday, 1995; Morreall, 1994; Noon and Delbridge, 1993; Saunders, 1999; Smith et al, 1999; Young, 2001). As Tannen (1991: 97) puts it: "Telling what's happening in your life and the lives of those you talk to is a grown-up version of telling secrets, the essence of girls' and women's friendships." Gossip creates bonds, not only for women as Tannen (1991) suggests, but for men as well.

But whom do we talk to in our modern individualistic societies, if nowadays individuals even practice social sports, such as bowling, alone? In his national bestseller “Bowling Alone” Putnam (2000) describes the drastic decline of social activities of the American people in the twentieth century. In line of this thinking, Locke (1998) talking about the social de-voicing of our societies refers to the stunning fact that in our western societies, people talk less and less to each other due to urbanization, relocation, television, individualism, economic success and disappearance of social programs. Locke (1998) warns for the negative consequences of this de-voicing phenomenon. Gossip might appear to be idle chitchat, but Locke attributes important functions to it. Gossip makes people feel less lonely and depressed. De-voicement of our societies increases feelings of loneliness and depression.

Celebrities as mutual parasocial, or one-way, acquaintances might resolve this problem. We nowadays do not often know who our neighbors are and we regularly interact with people we do not know very well. Shared real life acquaintances are sometimes hard to find, which restricts potential gossip conversations between individuals who hardly know each other to the exchange of Strategy Learning Gossip only. By seeing celebrities as mutual acquaintances a new area of Reputation Gossip topics opens up between individuals who hardly know each other. “Have you heard what happened to Charlie Sheen? Denise Richards kicked him out of the house” is a great opener to start a gossip conversation about these celebrities. People who consume many media products, such as movies, soaps, gossip magazines, and so on, have a lot of food to gossip about with other individuals who consume a lot of media products as well. Interpersonal gossip about celebrities might evoke feelings of friendship between individuals who actually hardly know each other. Kanazawa (2002) has shown that people, and especially women (Kanazawa, 2003) who consume more television programs experience higher friendship satisfaction. His explanation for this was based on the parasocial interactions between television consumers and the television characters. Television provides artificial friends who give us friendship satisfaction. I however think that the higher feelings of friendship satisfaction might not stem from television consumers’ parasocial interaction with television characters, but from the television consumers Interpersonal Media Gossip exchange. Those who watch a lot television a lot have an extended parasocial network they can gossip about with other real life people who consume a lot of television programs.

2 Methodology

In this rather exploratory study on the use of Media Gossip and Interpersonal Media Gossip I will report data from two studies. The first study consists of semi-directed focus groups. The second study concerns a large scale anonymous survey[9].

2.1 Focus groups

In a 2004 exploratory study on gossip in our daily conversations, some questions about Media Gossip were added. To reduce the researcher bias and standardize all interviews, all interviewers used a semi-directive questionnaire and a list of topics to discuss. This semi-directive questionnaire did not reflect the theoretical framework as outlined above. This reduced the interviewers’ direction of the answers.

At the start of each interview, respondents were presented a Belgian gossip magazine (Story) to elicit their responses on questions on Media Gossip asked at the beginning of the interview. Letting them read some Media Gossip stories immediately gave my respondents something to discuss about and opened up the discussion about Media Gossip spontaneously. After the discussion on Media Gossip, questions about Interpersonal Gossip were asked. The results of those have been discussed in paper 1 of this dissertation.

I was in charge of the study and in total fourteen graduate students co-operated in this project. Eight students were trained to moderate focus groups, the other six students helped with tasks such as recruiting respondents, organizing the focus groups, transcribing the texts, and analyzing the results.

In total, 103 participants were distributed in fourteen focus groups. I controlled for sex and age of the respondents. I recruited 30 adolescents (younger than age 18), 32 young adults (aged between 18 and 30), 23 adults (aged 30-45), 17 middle-aged adults (aged 46-60) and 15 elderly people living in an elderly home (all over 65 years old). For each age group I set up a focus group with only male participants, only female participants and if possible an extra group of mixed participants (for an overview see table 1).

The group size of all focus groups varied from 5 participants to 10 participants, and most groups reached an ideal average size of 6-8 participants (Morgan & Scannell, 1998). For an overview of the constitution of all groups see table 5.1.

All three adolescent focus groups were interviewed at the same high school. The elderly respondents were interviewed at two elderly homes. To recruit all other respondents I used snowball sampling; asking friends and family members to ask others. I always made sure that respondents were administered to a moderator and assistant they did not know. We also distributed adverts in public places, such as bakeries, bars, shops and so on. Last, adverts were also broadcasted by the Ghent University Student Radio, and two national radio channels. Most of the responses came from ‘snowball sampling’; students’ friends and family members recruiting other people.

Table 5.1. Overview of participants of focus groups according to age groups and sex.

2.2 Media Gossip survey

The second study concerns a large scale anonymous survey about interest in Media Gossip and use of media products. For this study the survey was distributed to 838 Belgian people with the help of 100 graduate students from Ghent University, using a purposive sampling method. Each student was responsible to distribute 10 surveys during the 2003 two-week Christmas holiday, among people from their social network. They were asked to use quotas to come to an equal male/ female and age distribution.

The questionnaire consisted of four main parts. In a first part respondents were presented some Media Gossip stories and asked questions about their interest in these stories. In a second part I presented my respondents some good and bad gossip stories about well-known celebrities and investigated the respondents’ tendency to share these with others. The results of part one will be discussed in the next two papers. For the results of part two I refer to paper 8.

In a third part I asked some general questions about their tendency to engage in Interpersonal Media Gossip. Respondents were asked to indicate on 1-7 Likert scales how often they talked about different kinds of celebrities. “1” indicates “not at all” and “7” stands for “very often”. The different kinds of celebrities were showbiz people, sports people, politicians and Royals. For some I further classified for nationality (Belgian, American or other). Following this, respondents had to indicate their media use on 1-9 Likert scales. I asked them how often they consumed gossip magazines, soap operas, movies, newspapers and television news. For their consumption of gossip magazines I additionally asked if they borrowed these magazines from others, and if they read these magazines when offered to them in public (such as at the dentist, doctor’s office, supermarket check out and so on). I also asked the respondents who indicated buying gossip magazines to clarify which magazines they bought.

To produce a profile of the respondents, they were asked some personal questions at the end of the survey.

3 Results

I first present the results from my interviews, and then turn to the results form the survey. In the conclusion results of both studies are brought together.

3.1 Focus groups results

I organized the results of my focus group interviews according to the age of the different groups of respondents. I start presenting the results of my youngest age group, the adolescents, and chronologically present the results for all four older age groups. For all age groups I present the results about the use of Media Gossip and their engagement in Interpersonal Media Gossip.

3.1.1 Adolescents

In their consumption of Media Gossip adolescents indicate not buying gossip magazines themselves, because they are too expensive. They report to read them whenever possible; if their parents buy them or in the waiting room of the dentist or doctor, or if friends have them. Focusing on Interpersonal Media Gossip, adolescents report to daily gossip about celebrities with their real life friends. When I asked them how often they talk about stars, I got responses like “Daily!” or “Really, no kidding, daily!”.

When I asked the female and male adolescents which celebrities they gossip about, they spontaneously and vividly started mentioning names like: David Beckham, Orlando Bloom, Johnny Depp, Christina Aguilera, Anna Kournikova, Roberto Carlos, Angelina Jolie, Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Brad Pitt, and so on. Striking is that none of them named any Belgian celebrity, while all respondents are Belgians themselves. I asked them the reason for that, and they replied that Belgian stars are ‘stupid’. They think the Belgian celebrities are dull, foolish and cannot act. They like American celebrities because these are far more out of reach:

I gossip more about international stars, I do not know that many Belgian celebrities (Female adolescent)

Yes more about international stars, there are many more international celebrities, like mainly film stars (Female adolescent)

I never see those Belgian ones (Male adolescent)

Belgians are stupid (Male adolescent)

Because the American ones are out of reach (Male adolescent)

Yes, those Belgians, you walk into them in Gent or so. It would scare the hell out of me if suddenly Johnny Depp was standing in line next to me in the supermarket! (everyone laughs) (Female adolescent)

Adolescents report they gossip about celebrities because they look up to the glitter and glamour of international stars:

Yes, seriously, like on ‘Cribs’ [television program] they show their houses, with pool and four cars … (to which all other adolescents start screaming ‘yes yes’). But yeah, you can only dream of ever having this don’t you? (Male adolescent)

I think it is because we admire them so much (Male adolescent)

When asked which topics about these international (dominantly American) celebrities they gossiped about, both female and male adolescents reported to talk a lot about the physical appearance of female celebrities. The reason why they do this differs between males and females. Girls report to discuss the clothes celebrities wear. They gossip about what is nice to wear and what is not, which indicates they use celebrities as role models to learn from (Strategy Learning Gossip). Boys sometimes talk about the physical appearance of specific celebrities as well, to judge their sex-appeal:

Yes we say like she looks fine and she looks good (Female adolescent)

You know what I like best? When they judge dressing styles, like “Oh my god, she wears so and so” (all other girls giggle and agree) (Female adolescent)

Oh yes, like “Urgh, gosh what is she wearing?!” (Female adolescent)

Yes guys, when we were talking about Jessica Simpson the other day, we were judging her appearance as well! (Male adolescent)

Further, male adolescents also reported to be interested in the behaviors of celebrities (Strategy Learning Gossip). What they do, and what happened to them, and especially if they did something wrong. Drug (ab)use is a popular topic, they say:

Yes when they are caught for using drugs! Mostly it is not so positive, but it depends how you regard the use of drugs of course (Male adolescent)

Overall the results from our adolescent interviewees indicate that they talk most about the behaviors of celebrities from which they can learn something. Celebrities of whom they can learn how to dress, how to impress, of whom they learn what is right and what is wrong to do in a society. These answers indicate that for young adolescents the Learning Hypothesis explains their major interest in Media Gossip. Some responses of other adolescents were in line with the Parasocial Hypothesis. Some adolescents explicitly expressed to feel jealous of some stars, and even regret when one gets married:

Sometimes you gossip because you are jealous… It is always sad if such an actor gets married. (Female adolescent)

As I outlined in the introduction, the Learning Hypothesis indeed explains the interest of all, while the Parasocial Hypothesis only explains an additional interest of some media consumers. Strategy Learning Gossip dominated in the answers of these 30 adolescents. This indicates that the learning aspect might be most important to these young, fairly inexperienced individuals, but further research is needed to falsify or proof this.

3.1.2 Young adults

The young adults I interviewed were less vivid in their responses to questions about Media Gossip. Young adults report that they like to read gossip magazines, but do not feel the urge to engage in Interpersonal Media Gossip very much.

Well, I have to say that in se it doesn’t interest me that much, but if I get such a magazine in my hands, I really enjoy it. What is so enjoyable, I do not know. Movie stars, people you know, or so? (Male young adult)

One of the female young adult respondents reported that she does not gossip so much about celebrities anymore, but that her younger sister does. The reason, according to this female respondent is because her younger sister is still fascinated by the celebrities’ prestige, and she herself is not that impressed anymore by all the glitter and glamour:

When I talk about celebrities it is not really gossip, and most of the times I do this with my sister who is 4 years younger than me. She still has that feeling of ‘wow, who is this’ and blablabla and David Beckham and Robbie Williams and others (Female young adult)

The celebrities, female young adults gossip about, are actors and singers. Male young adults gossip as well about these celebrities, but add sports people. Different from the adolescents I interviewed, the young adult interviewees were not that negative about Belgian celebrities. Some of the young adults reported that they are mostly interested in international stars:

If we gossip about celebrities it is about international celebrities. People who were involved in some incident and then you will tell this. But Belgian celebrities? Maybe about our tennis players, but for the rest? … (Female young adult)

Still, others prefer to talk about Belgian celebrities, since they feel closer to them and have more in common with these people. Young adults feel more connected to same-nationality celebrities and like the fact that chances to encounter these Belgian celebrities in real life are reasonable:

Yes, I think we are more interested in national stars because you have higher chances of meeting those people maybe? (Female young adult)

Yes, we have a lot more in common with them [Belgian celebrities]: same country, same language, … and maybe because we have these common features we feel more connected and have more interest in these people? I don’t know. (Female young adult)

Yes maybe because chances are higher you might meet them in real. (Female young adult)

It is maybe less private [gossip about international stars]. I think that you will more easily read an article about for instance Raf Van Brussel [Flemish celebrity] than about someone who lives at the other end of the world (Female young adult)

Young adults reported to gossip about remarkable events, such as the deviant behaviors of these international and Belgian celebrities. Examples they mentioned were for instance Michael Jackson’s trial and Janet Jackson’s incident at the American Super Bowl in 2004. Besides these topics they report to be most interested in who is dating whom and who broke up with whom. The make-ups and break-ups of both Belgian and international celebrities grabs their attention. The reason for this, as a female young adult reports, fits completely in the Parasocial Hypothesis; they want to learn who is available, even though they realize a real life relationship with these celebrities is no option:

About relations, that is interesting isn’t it? If a guy is single again, you know you cannot have him, but it is nice just to imagine that it might be possible. (Female young adult)

When asked about their other motivations to consume Media Gossip and engage in Interpersonal Media Gossip with real life friends, the young adults I interviewed reported that Media Gossip consumption relieves stress. When they read gossip magazines they perceive feelings of joy. Media Gossip entertains, relaxes and young adults mostly read them when they feel stressed, for instance during the exam period, or when they feel bored.

What drives me [to gossip about celebrities]? Well maybe it is an easy way to start a conversation with someone you know less, or just with someone you know but if you have nothing else to talk about at that moment. (Female young adult)

Further, Interpersonal Media Gossip bonds the ties with their real life connections:

Yes it [celebrity gossip] is like the weather. If your are on a train for instance, and you are in company of someone you know a bit but not much, and you know you will have to keep this person company for half an hour or so, well then you say like ‘hey have you heard so and so’. (Female young adult)

A male young adult reported that celebrity gossip is not merely an easy way to start a conversation with new or rather unknown others, but it is also a safe way of gossip, because it is less private than Interpersonal Gossip:

It is also something neutral, you can give your opinion to someone else without exposing yourself too much. It is not very intimate what you say. (Male young adult)

In sum, young adults contrast from adolescents in their attitude towards Belgian celebrities. They do not regard Belgian celebrities as dull or non-gossip-worthy as the adolescents do. Further, while adolescents’ answers indicated that most of their Media Gossip consumption and Interpersonal Media Gossip concerned Strategy Learning Gossip, young adults seem to be more tuned to Reputation Gossip. They are especially interested in the make-ups and break-ups of celebrities.

3.1.3 Adults and middle-aged adults

In general, all 40 adults I interviewed showed little interest in Media Gossip. The two groups of only female respondents indicated some more interest than the other groups. Most adults reported not to buy gossip magazines, and if they did, they indicated buying them for their children:

I buy those magazines for my kids, because they love to read this gossip. [we asked her the age of her kids: 19 and 22 years old] (Female middle-aged adult)

Some answers show that adults, and especially women, might feel embarrassed to admit they buy gossip magazines or love to read Media Gossip. Social desirability might have affected the responses of the adults. In paper 1 I mentioned not having problems of social desirability concerning questions about Interpersonal Gossip in the focus group interviews. This appears to be different for questions about Media Gossip. The responses from female respondents show that they somehow do show some interest in Media Gossip. The male respondents, however, are not interested:

I do not buy them [gossip magazines]… but I do love to read them! I collect them at work. Colleagues buy these magazines and give them to me and during the holidays I read them all [other adults start giggling and confirming] (Female adult)

Yes, I will read these magazines when I can, but I do not buy them (Female adult)

I don’t buy these magazines either, but I do read them if possible. And I love reading them, but I just do not want to spend so much money on buying them. I buy these cheap television guides in which they report short pieces about film actors and so on as well. (Female adult)

I do not care that much about these magazines. I will read them at the hairdresser, but I would not buy them myself. I would not do any effort to spent my money on that (Female middle-aged adult)

I do buy Story [Belgian gossip magazine] every week, but because of the television programs. I do look at the stories… (Female middle-aged adult)

When you collect them and you read some old issues again you can follow up on people. Last year they were dating and then they switched and now they are back together… (Female adult)

I cannot imagine that I have ever even talked about a celebrity. (Male adult)

I would never buy such a magazine [gossip magazine] and neither would people I know, we do not talk about these things. (Male middle-aged adult)

If men gossip about celebrities, it is mostly about sports people, they say:

Sportspeople yes, both from Belgium and abroad. Soccer players and cyclists mainly… (Male middle-aged adult)

Well, yes stars… Sportspeople and soccer plays. If it is about some stupid singer singing a stupid song or so I do not care… the same with actors. However, if they are really good actors ok. (Male middle-aged adult)

Even those men who are not that interested in sports admit to gossip about sports people. Their gossip is more like joking, but still they engage in the exchange of traits/behavior information of sportspeople:

I do not care for soccer myself, but I have this colleague who is a big fan of Anderlecht [Belgian soccer team]. So when I enter our office on Monday, I will joke around a bit like ‘Anderlecht did well last weekend’ while actually they lost a game with 2-0. Even though I do not know their players, I do talk about that and joke around (Male young adult)

Of course, gossip about sports occurs most with others who think and feel the same about this topic:

Yes it is like with the Champions League. You do not talk about that with people who do not know anything about it, but when others start talking to you about that, you start as well, and automatically you will start talking about players like Zidane and then you are talking about famous people of course. (Young male adult)

In line with what I outlined in the introduction Interpersonal Media Gossip seems to bond gossipers. The male adults’ answers indicate that their gossip about sports people unites them. They gossip about soccer players with others who care for soccer as well, and doing this, they feel united. Benwell (2001) already compared men’s talks about soccer with gossip, both are uniting she said. This is because men’s talk about soccer is gossip; they talk about the traits and especially behaviors (achievements, sports actions) of other people (soccer players). Johnson (1994) explicitly analyzed men’s gossip about soccer players, and concluded from her study that this form of gossip is all about “us against them”, we belong to the group of soccer-lovers and they do not. We know all and they know nothing. This is what I would classify as Ally Maintenance RG. Gossip here functions to outline group boundaries, to increase the status of allies (we know all) and lower the status of non-members (they know nothing).

When asked if they are more interested in international or Belgian celebrities, the adult respondents did not have a strong opinion; the nationality of celebrities does not matter that much. Still, there is some indication that Belgian celebrities are slightly more preferred over international celebrities to gossip about.

Nationality does not matter that much, since the world becomes one village anyway. (Male adult)

I prefer gossip about Belgian celebrities, just because they are more human compared to those from Hollywood. There [Hollywood] it seems like normal that everyone is doing all sorts of things with everyone else, while in Flanders they resemble us more. You can meet them in the streets, and that is what I want to read [other respondents start laughing] (Female adult)

However, as one of the female adult respondents comments: sometimes it does not matter if a celebrity is Belgian, or has another nationality:

Gossip articles about parents and children are interesting. Whether they are Belgian or not, it does not matter, if they have kids they are interesting [to gossip about] (Female adult)

This is of course because, as this lady reports, her interest goes to the gossiped about strategies and behavior, and not as much to the reputation of the gossipee. For Strategy Learning Gossip indeed, the identity of the gossipee is less important.

The adult respondents’ answers indicated support for both the learning and Parasocial Hypothesis. The answers of my male respondents supported most the Learning Hypothesis. They indicated to like Media Gossip if it reports about interesting behaviors. My female adult respondents indicated to be selective in their search for Media Gossip about interesting strategies; they are most interested in stories about celebrities that match in life stage:

Whether someone is a celebrity or not, it does not matter that much. What counts is their behavior. It is what he did that is most interesting, not whether he is a well known person or not. (Male respondent)

I agree, for instance the article about Jo Depoortere (Belgian showbiz celebrity) his travel report. It is the topic that appeals, not the fact that it is about Jo Depoortere. Whether the gossipee is Jo Depoortere or Kevin Costner, it does not matter. (Male adult)

I think those celebrities who are closest to your own life stage are most interesting. If they are in a similar stage in life, you will pay more attention to them. For instance, I am not pregnant myself, but when you reach the age you want to have kids, you will be more eager to read about that. I would have never read about such things when I was younger, I would not have thought about it. (Female adult)

I would read the story about the Royals just to read about their traveling adventures, not to know more about them. Although I do follow up on the story about Amadeo [Belgian Royalty] because he is 18 just like my son and I compare, like what happens to him. And his mother was married in the same year I got married, so we are all the same in some aspects, I can recognize myself in these things. (Female adult)

Some female adult respondents also indicated support for the Parasocial Hypothesis. They are not only attracted to Media Gossip where strategies are central, but are drawn to gossip about celebrities they like, which signals an emotional bond, typical for parasocial interactions:

I only read about celebrities I like, whom I admire. I will not be interested in gossip about the Royals, but for instance the break up of Katja Retsin and Jan Schepens [two Belgian showbiz people who split up at the time these interviews were conducted] interests me, I like them. (Female adult)

When asked what topics they like to gossip about when it comes to Media Gossip, adults report to gossip about celebrities if something extraordinary has occurred. For example if a sportsperson has achieved a stunning victory, male adults report to gossip about this hero. Further, relations, and travel experiences seem to be popular topics:

Relations are the most interesting of all. (Female young adult)

Travel reports. I would buy Marie-Claire [Belgian women’s magazine] if they report about the traveling of celebrities. (Female young adult)

Further, articles about fashion appealed to all female adult respondents. Both gossip about the good looks and bad looks of celebrities catch their interest, but adult women do prefer gossip about the bad looks, about failures of female celebrities:

Yes, like articles about women aged 50 that still look good and the others who look horrible after all their plastic surgeries. (Female adult)

Yes when they look bad because their surgeries have failed. (Female adult)

Like Whitney Houston, poor girl looks horrible. (Female adult)

It [failures of celebrities] shows they are human after all. If it would be all glitter and glamour… Well it is not that frustrating that you do not succeed yourself, but it just relieves that they as well fail sometimes and are not always as perfect as you would guess from a first glance. (Female adult)

Other occasions when adults indulge in Media Gossip is when they recently saw a movie with famous celebrity actors.

If I just saw a concert or a movie and I think like ‘yes this was a good movie’ and then I see an actor appearing in such a magazine [gossip magazine] I will read about him. But I would not buy these magazines myself. (Female adult)

I do not care that much about the celebrities themselves, but about the things they do. (Female adult)

In their reports about their motivations to acquire Media Gossip, adult female respondents admit they like to learn that celebrities are human after all. They do not really feel compassionate or envious about these well-known people. The male adult respondents, on the other hand, did discuss that Media Gossip is often driven by jealousy and envy; they have fancy houses and cars, which regular people cannot achieve:

They are successful after all, and for people who are not that successful, it [jealousy] might be a reason to gossip about them, yes. (Male adult)

And last, our female adult respondents spontaneously mentioned how gossip about celebrities is easy and cheap talk to start a conversation with people you do not know that well:

It is easier to talk about that than talking about yourself, it is less personal. Especially with people you do not know that well it is easier to talk about people you do not know personally. (Female middle-aged adult)

In sum, older adults are not very attracted to Media Gossip and do not engage in Interpersonal Media Gossip a lot. If they do, it can be about both Belgian or American or other celebrities. Their answers indicate that both the learning and parasocial hypotheses explain their interest in Media Gossip. Similar to the young adults, I here also found an explicit indication that Interpersonal Media Gossip is used as a strategy to establish bonds with rather unknown others.

3.1.4 Elderly

Last, I present the results of the 15 elderly people I interviewed. The elderly women report to buy gossip magazines, and read them on a regular basis, but the elderly men I interviewed were not that enthusiastic about these magazines:

I read gossip magazines every week! (Elderly woman)

Oh yes, it interests me! (Elderly woman answering if she reads gossip magazines)

I never read gossip magazines. (Elderly man)

One of the caretakers of the elderly home I visited later commented that they do not like to admit it, but that all their inhabitants love Media Gossip and gossip a lot about celebrities.

When I asked the elderly interviewees which famous people they gossip about (Interpersonal Media Gossip), they mentioned mainly Belgian celebrities. Some foreign celebrities were mentioned as well, such as the US President, but the elderly respondents’ greatest interest goes to Belgian, and more specific Flemish people. Belgian celebrities they gossip about are Flemish soap actors. Besides this, most of the elderly we interviewed were also very keen on famous Belgian tennis players. The most favorite Media Gossipees of all elderly respondents are the Belgian Royals:

Well, every week on Sunday evening I watch Royalty. (Elderly woman)

Yes that’s what we look at. (Elderly woman)

Oh yes! (Elderly woman)

And me as well, and all of us. (Elderly woman)

Royalty is a television program that reports about what the Royals from Belgium and other countries have done in the past week. If focuses mostly on Belgian Royals. Next to consuming Media Gossip about Royals a lot, elderly people also report to engage in Interpersonal Media Gossip about Royals. They interpersonally discuss what the Royals have done, like for instance when the Belgian Royals have traveled abroad:

Well yes… like Princess Mathilde and … Prince Philip… When we see them on television… Like when they went to… well you know… when they went to Congo… and then we talk about that, but not that very often. (Elderly man)

Further they interpersonally gossip about the achievements of for instance the Belgian tennis players Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters. They are proud of what these girls realize, and praise them for being so down to earth:

Well these are my thoughts, I never met them, I only know them from television and reading about them in the magazines, but they are such good players. Justine Henin is first and Kim Clijsters third at the moment [in the world ranking of tennis players]. And still it has not grown above their heard that they are so good. (Elderly man)

In sum the consumption of Media Gossip of elderly people seems to focus on Belgian celebrities, with a special focus on Belgian Royals. Their Interpersonal Media Gossip exchange deals with about an update of what their favorite celebrities have done, they follow up on celebrities they like. They feel proud about Belgian celebrities that have achieved something.

In general the responses of the elderly people indicate that they rather consume Media Gossip to learn about specific celebrities and not so very much to learn about strategies. Their interest in Media Gossip can best be explained by the Parasocial Hypothesis.

Still, again these few qualitative results are only indications and additional research is needed to falsify or proof the prediction that the Parasocial Hypothesis rather than the Learning Hypothesis explains the interest in Media Gossip of elderly people.

3.2 Media Gossip survey results

3.2.1 Population description

From the 1000 distributed surveys I received 838 completed surveys, which is a response rate of 83.8%. I received 460 completed surveys from version B, and 378 completed surveys from version A. The results I discuss in this paper origin from part three and four of the survey, which are exactly the same for version A and version B. Files of survey A and survey B were merged for the analyses of this paper.

The 838 Flemish respondents in this total sample were aged between 10-82, with an average age of M_age=34.57 (Std. Dev.= 16.09). Of these 838 Flemish respondents 397 were male (47.4%) and 441 were female (52.6%).

3.2.2 Interpersonal Media Gossip: who gossips about whom

Looking at the results for the tendency to engage in Interpersonal Media Gossip about different kinds of celebrities (see table 5.2) of all 838 respondents it first of all appears to me that average scores are low. The highest mean score on all 11 1-7 Likert scales is M=4.45 (for gossip about Belgian sports people). Most scores are below “4”, which indicates that respondents signify not to gossip very often about all different kinds of celebrities. This might be due to social desirability. Even though this was an anonymous survey, people might refrain to admit they gossip about celebrities. From my above described focus group responses I noticed that especially adults claim not to gossip about celebrities, but once they start discussing their answers, and this accounts for adult women in particular: they do show interest in Celebrity Gossip.

Even though the average scores are rather low, my results do show differences between tendencies to gossip about the different kinds of celebrities. Belgian sports people (M=4.45) seem to be most popular to gossip about, followed by Belgian politicians (M=4.30) and non-Belgian sports people (M=4.07). Next in descending line are Flemish showbiz people (M=4.04) and non-Belgian politicians. The lowest score of all eleven categories is for Walloon showbiz celebrities (M=2.02). My respondents declare to almost never gossip about these celebrities, and proclaim to gossip more about American showbiz celebrities (M=3.44) and other (non-American, non-Belgian) celebrities (M=2.94).

Table 5.2. General Tendencies to engage in Interpersonal Media Gossip about different types of celebrity gossipees

When controlling for sex of the respondents (see table 5.3), my results show that women have a stronger tendency to gossip about Belgian showbiz people than men (M_female= 4.24 vs. M_male= 3.83; p<.001 using T-test for independent samples). Female respondents also outscore male respondents in their tendency to gossip about Belgian (M_female= 3.87 vs. M_male= 2.88; p<.001) and non-Belgian Royals (M_female= 3.26 vs. M_male= 2.30; p<.001).

Table 5.3. Sex differences in tendencies to engage in Interpersonal Media Gossip about different types of celebrity gossipees

* Using a T-test for equality of means

Male respondents outscore female respondents in their tendency to gossip about Belgian national politicians (M_male= 4.49 vs. M_female= 4.13; p<.001), non-Belgian politicians (M_male= 3.93 vs. M_female= 3.43; p<.001), Belgian sports people (M_male= 4.77 vs. M_female= 4.25; p<.001), and non-Belgian sports people (M_male= 4.51 vs. M_female= 3.68; p<.001). All significances were computed using T-test for independent samples.

For tendencies to gossip about Walloon, American and other showbiz celebrities and local Belgian politicians I did not find significant sex differences (see table 5.3).

Next, looking at the descriptive results for tendencies to gossip about the different categories of celebrities when controlling for age I found some significant age differences that are in line with my indicative results from my focus groups. Using a One-way Anova posthoc Scheffe test I compared the differences in mean scores on tendency to gossip about the different kinds of celebrities for five age groups. The age groups are similar to the constitution of the age groups of the focus groups, discussed above. Adolescents are all respondents younger than 19, in this sample the youngest person is 10 years young. The category ‘young adults’ are all respondents aged between 19 and 30. All respondents aged between 30 and 45 are referred to as ‘adults’. ‘Middle-aged adults’ are respondents aged between 46 and 65, and respondents aged over 65 are referred to as ‘elderly’.

For tendencies to gossip about Belgian (both Flemish and Walloon) showbiz celebrities, no significant differences exist for the different age groups. For tendencies to gossip about American showbiz celebrities I did find significant (p<.05) differences. Adolescents and young adults have stronger tendencies to gossip about American showbiz celebrities than all other, older, respondents (see table 5.4 for different means). This result is in line with what was indicated by my above described focus groups. Especially adolescents vividly talked about Celebrity Gossip and named several American showbiz people who are popular celebrity gossipees.

My focus groups indicated that adolescents regarded Belgian celebrities to be too dull and ‘stupid’ to gossip about, but looking at the results here, they do indicate to gossip about Belgian showbiz celebrities, and even slightly more often than about American or other showbiz celebrities (see table 5.4 for an overview of all mean scores).

For other than Belgian or American celebrities, adolescents and young adults again significantly (p<.05) outscore the older age groups in their tendency to gossip about these celebrities.

While outscoring all other age groups in tendency to gossip about showbiz celebrities, adolescents significantly (p<.05) gossip less than the other age groups about all three kinds of politicians (local Belgian, national Belgian and international). Both adolescents and young adults show significant (p<.05) lower tendencies to gossip about local Belgian politicians. When looking at the results for Belgian national politicians (see table 5.4 for an overview of all mean scores) young adults are similar to the older age groups and have a significant (p<.05) stronger tendency to gossip about these than adolescents. For international politicians I noticed a drop down of the tendency to gossip from the elderly age group. They, along with the adolescents again, report to gossip significantly (p<.05) less about these international politicians than young and older adults.

For gossip about sports people no significant differences were found for the five different age groups.

Last, for gossip about Royals the elderly significantly (p<.05) outscore all younger age groups. Both for Belgian and non-Belgian Royals the elderly age group shows a significant (p<.05) stronger tendency to gossip (see table 5.4 for a detailed overview of all mean scores).

Table 5.4. Age differences in tendencies to engage in Interpersonal Media Gossip about different types of celebrity gossipees

Using a One-way Anova posthoc Scheffe test

3.2.3 Media Gossip: who consumes what

In this last section I discuss some descriptive results for Media Gossip consumption. I asked my respondents to indicate on 1-9 Likert scales how often they consume different sources of Media Gossip. Gossip magazines are the most known and explicit sources of Media Gossip, and for this Media Gossip channel I asked some additional questions, such as whether they buy these magazines, and if not if they borrow them from other people. I had also asked them to mention their favorite tabloid, but most respondents did not answer this question (see also below).

In general television news seems to be the most consumed Media Gossip source (M_news= 7.49, see table 5.5). I comment that news is not regularly regarded as a source of gossip, but in my most general definition of gossip news can be classified as Media Gossip, since it is about the traits and behavior of third people. As follows from table 5.5 newspapers take up a second most popular place (M_newspapers= 6.73), followed by watching movies at home (M_movie-home= 5.63) and watching soaps (M_soaps= 5.47). Least popular are reading biographies (M_biographies= 2.24) and gossip magazines (M_{gossip magazines}= 3.26).

Table 5.5. General results for consumption of different kinds of Media Gossip sources

When asked whether they bought gossip magazines most respondents (89.2%) answered negative. I additionally asked those respondents who answered negative on this question whether they borrowed gossip magazines from other people, presenting them a list of different sources (see table 5.6). On this question almost half of the respondents admitted to borrow gossip magazines from family members (44.3%) and from doctors or dentists in waiting rooms (44.5%). Friends were less popular sources to borrow gossip magazines from (16.7%) and colleagues and neighbors seem to be unpopular sources (see table 5.6).

Table 5.6. Detailed results for all N=838 respondents’ consumption of gossip magazines

As already said, most respondents (583; 69.6%) did not mention to have a favorite tabloid. From those who did 105 (12.6%) respondents mention gossip magazine “Dag Allemaal” as their favorite gossip magazine. 61 (7.3%) respondents mentioned gossip magazine “Story”. Women’s magazine “Flair” was mentioned by 26 (3.1%) respondents, and family magazine “Humo”, which is regularly not regarded as a real gossip magazine was mentioned by 11 (1.3%) respondents. In the following results where I focus on sex and age differences in Media Gossip consumption I will not mention the answers on this question again because of the low response.

Do women consume more Media Gossip than men, as Bird (1992) and Hermes (1995) assume from their exploratory studies? From my results (see table 5.7) significant sex differences are indeed present, but women are not the biggest consumers for all kinds of Media Gossip sources. My female respondents highly significantly (p<.001) watch more soap operas (M_female= 6.18 vs. M_male= 4.68) and read more gossip magazines (M_female= 3.73 vs. M_male= 2.75) than my male respondents. In general both male and female respondents consume newspapers and television news more often than all other sources of Media Gossip. Still, my male respondents significantly (p<.05) outscore their female colleagues on reading newspapers (M_male= 6.87 vs. M_female= 6.61) and watching television news (M_male= 7.59 vs. M_female= 7.39). Again I comment that news is not commonly regarded as a Media Gossip source. News is not fully covered with stories classifiable as Media Gossip, but can be regarded as the main source of gossip about politicians and sports people.

Table 5.7. Sex differences in consumption of different kinds of Media Gossip sources

*Using Independent Samples T-test for equality of means

The results for sex differences in consumption of gossip magazines show that more female than male respondents (17.0% vs. 3.9%) reported to buy gossip magazines. Female respondents also reported to borrow gossip magazines more often from friends (21.7% vs. 11.6%), colleagues (6.8% vs. 2.0%) and public places such as doctors’ and dentists’ waiting rooms (50.3% vs. 38.6%). For borrowing gossip magazines from family members the yes-rates do not contrast very much for male and female respondents (45.8% female vs. 42.8% male). An overview of all results can be found in table 5.8.

Table 5.8. Sex differences in consumption of gossip magazines

To test age differences I again used a One-way Anova test to look at the different mean scores for the five age groups. The results I report here are again taken from the posthoc Scheffé test that reports the significant differences between groups at an alpha= .05 significance level. An overview of the descriptive results for all five age groups on the consumption of different sources of Media Gossip can be found in table 5.9.

Adolescents, young adults and elderly respondents reported to watch soap operas most often and significantly (p<.05 using Scheffé test) more than adults, who again score significantly higher (p<.05) than the middle-aged adults who reported to watch soap operas least often of all age groups.

No significant differences were found for the five different age groups’ consumption of gossip magazines and biographies.

Table 5.9. Age differences in consumption of different kinds of Media Gossip sources

Using a One-way Anova posthoc Scheffe test

Adolescents and young adults visit movie theatres most often and significantly (p<.05) more than adults and middle-aged adults, who again score significantly (p<.05) higher than the elderly people, who reported to almost never going to movie theatres (see table 5.9 for detailed mean scores).

For watching movies at home the middle-aged adults score significantly (p<.05) lower than all other age groups, but still all mean scores (see table 5.9) are rather positive.

Last, only adolescents score significantly lower (p<.05) on reading newspapers than all other age groups. And for watching news on television there is an increase in consumption as age increases (see table 5.9).

I again looked at the results for the more detailed questions on the consumption of gossip magazines. Elderly respondents reported to be the ones who most often buy gossip magazines. From the young adults only 7.2% reported to buy gossip magazines, and for all other age groups about 13% (for details see table 5.10) report to buy gossip magazines.

Adolescents are the ones who most often (61.7%) borrow gossip magazines from family members. From table 5.10 we can derive that this number decreases as age increase. From the elderly respondents only 25.0% reported to borrow gossip magazines from family members.

Table 5.10. Age differences in consumption of gossip magazines

Using a One-way Anova posthoc Scheffe test

Friends supply gossip magazines to almost a third of the adolescents and elderly people (33.9% of my adolescent and 32.1% of the elderly respondents answered positive on the question if they borrowed gossip magazines from friends). About a fifth (19.0%) of the young adults respondents reported to borrow gossip magazines from friends, and for the other adults these percentages are much lower (8.9% for adults and 9.6% for middle-aged adults).

Neighbors and colleagues are unpopular sources to borrow gossip magazines from for all age groups (see table 5.10), while public places such as waiting rooms of doctors and dentists are popular sources for all age groups, and mostly for the three adult age groups (see table 5.10 for detailed results).

4 Conclusion

I will now unite the results of both studies to give a general overview of this exploratory study on consumption of Media Gossip and engagement in Interpersonal Media Gossip.

In general, Media Gossip is consumed by both sexes of all ages, but in different degrees. I will resume results on sex and age differences in following paragraphs, but let me first mention some general results. Sports people are the most popular Media Gossipees when looking at the results of the survey. In my interviews especially older adults, and more specific adult men, reported a lot about Interpersonal Media Gossip about sports people. Next in line of popular Media Gossipees are politicians. In my interviews participants did not report about their consumption of Media Gossip or their Interpersonal Media Gossip exchange about politicians. In general, talk about politicians might not be perceived as being gossip, which might explain the fact that it is not mentioned in the focus group interviews. Participants of the focus groups discussed most about Media Gossip about showbiz celebrities, which are less gossiped about than sports people and politicians according to the survey results.

From both the interviews and the large-scale survey it follows that gossip magazines are not bought by many people. Social desirability might influence the answers of the respondents, because in the interviews I noticed that especially adults were embarrassed to admit they like Media Gossip. Half of the survey respondents did report to borrow gossip magazines from others. Public places, such as waiting rooms of doctors and dentists are popular places to read Media Gossip magazines.

That Interpersonal Media Gossip creates and enforces bonds with (rather) unknown others stems from my focus group interviews. Especially adults explicitly indicated that they use Interpersonal Media Gossip to start conversations with people they hardly know. Also from the survey results it shows that gossip about media characters occurs for all ages and both sexes. The results for tendencies to engage in Interpersonal Media Gossip are rather low though.

Previous studies (e.g. Bird, 1992; Hermes, 1995; Levin & Arluke, 1985; McCutcheon et al, 2002) have suggested that women are the biggest consumers of Media Gossip. From the results of my focus group interviews and my large scale survey stems that women indeed reported to gossip more about showbiz celebrities than men do. Women more often buy gossip magazines. They borrow them more often from friends and colleagues. And women read these gossip magazines more often, when they are presented to them in public places such as the waiting room of their doctor or dentist. Still, my research results suggest that men not necessarily consume less Media Gossip than women, but rather devour a different kind of Media Gossip.

Combining the results of both studies, and taking all results for both consumption of Media Gossip and engagement in Interpersonal Media Gossip into account, I conclude that men are more interested in gossip about politicians and sports people than women. Benwell (2001) already suggested that gossip about sports people unites men, just like gossip about soap opera actors unites women. The latter has been shown by studies of Brown and Barwick (1987) and Riegel (1999). My male respondents report, both in their interview responses and in the large-scale survey higher frequencies of tendencies to gossip about politicians and sports people than all of our female respondents. They also report to watch TV news and to read newspapers more often than the women we interviewed and questioned. An additional interesting sex difference in Interpersonal Celebrity Gossip worth mentioning here is Johnson’s (1994) finding from her analyses of men’s gossip about soccer players that male Interpersonal Celebrity Gossip is less detailed and less emotional loaded than women’s gossip conversations about their favorite celebrities (showbiz people).

Combining the results from my focus groups and large-scale survey, I notice clear differences in tendencies to gossip about celebrities when controlling for age. Adolescents and students have stronger tendencies to gossip about American showbiz celebrities. In the focus group interviews adolescents reported very vividly about their interest in these prestigious people. American celebrities are preferred to Belgian celebrities because the first are considered to be more prestigious and the latter as dull and ‘stupid’. The fact that you can encounter a Belgian celebrity in real life makes those celebrities unattractive to adolescents. However, from the large scale survey it does show that adolescents talk about Belgian celebrities as well. From their answers in the focus group interviews it shows that adolescents gossip about the glitter and glamour of international celebrities. As one of our students reported, these young people are fascinated by all the luxury these celebrities posses. As age increases this fascination decreases.

Adolescents’ view on Belgian and American celebrities is in contrast with adults’ view on Belgian and American celebrities. Adults like the idea that you can encounter Belgian celebrities in real life; this makes them feel closer to them. They cannot compare themselves to the American celebrities who, in their view, behave surreal and have little interesting things to say. The results of the large-scale survey show that adults have a moderate tendency to gossip about Belgian celebrities and have a low tendency to gossip about American celebrities.

Both studies show as well that elderly people gossip most about Royals. In the focus group interviews they reported to watch television programs about Royalties and to follow up on these people, because they like them. In contrast to Saunders’ (1999) study I did not find indications that elderly people gossip about celebrities to learn about social norms or to discuss fashion rules. My results, and especially those from the focus group interviews, rather indicate that elderly people in general gossip about Royals and Belgian celebrities whom they like, for whom they care and about whom they want an update of what they did. Though I do not have clear indications, I did notice that elderly somewhat more than all other age groups, gossip about celebrities as one-way members. They did explicitly report not to have many real life social contacts to gossip with and about, and the celebrities they do gossip about are Belgians with whom they feel connected, and whom they praise.

5 Discussion

Johnson (1994) already suggested that the content of men and women’s Interpersonal Celebrity Gossip conversations contrasts, with women’s gossip being more detailed and emotionally loaded. I did not find support nor contradictory results from my studies. I suggest future research to focus on this. A suggestion to future researchers could be to present male and female respondents with Media Gossip stories about a variety of celebrities (showbiz celebrities, sports people and politicians) and to ask them to write down how they would share this information with their male and female friends.

In my questions about the tendencies to gossip about the different categories of celebrities I did not make a differentiation between good or bad gossip. This might be interesting to do in future research on Interpersonal Celebrity Gossip. The results from my focus groups indicate that adolescents look up at American celebrities and look down on the Belgian ones. The results from the large scale survey show however that both are gossiped about, with a slightly stronger tendency even to gossip about Belgian celebrities. It might be interesting to investigate whether Belgian and American celebrities are gossiped about in similar or different ways.