Seeking Comfort in Past Media: Modeling Media Nostalgia as a Way of Coping With Media Change

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Abstract

Coping with media change is the modus operandi in societies shaped by an ongoing media saturation of everyday lifeworlds. However, demands to participate in media change are sometimes perceived as challenging. In this regard, media nostalgia, understood as the longing for past media culture and technology, is introduced as a resource to cope with media change. Presenting results from an online survey, a structural equation model (SEM) illustrates that those who are stressed by media change draw on media nostalgia as a way of coping whereas media nostalgic engagements become unlikely when individuals feel comfortable with media change. This article argues that certain current individual and societal appearances of media nostalgia are related to people’s coping attempts.
Original languageEnglish
JournalInternational Journal of Communication
Volume2017
Issue number11
Pages (from-to)626-646
Number of pages21
ISSN1932-8036
Publication statusPublished - 2017
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Faculty of Humanities
  • media nostalgia
  • memory
  • new media
  • media change
  • coping strategies
  • digitalization
  • SEM
  • online survey

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