Contemporary media research highlights the importance of empirically analysing the relationships between media and age, changing user patterns over the life course, and generational experiences within media discourse beyond the widely hyped buzz terms such as the ‘digital natives’, ‘Google generation’, and other digitally and technologically capable generation groups. This doctoral thesis seeks to define the ‘repertoires’ of news media that different generations use to obtain topical information and create their ‘media space’. It contributes to the development of a framework within which to analyse generational features in news audiences by putting the main focus on the cultural view of generations. This perspective was first introduced by Karl Mannheim in 1928. Departing from his legacy, generations can be better conceived as social formations that are built on self-identification, rather than equally distributed cohorts. With the purpose of discussing the emergence of various ‘audiencing’ patterns from the perspectives of age, life course and generational identity, the thesis presents Estonia – a post-Soviet Baltic state – as an empirical example of a transforming society with a dynamic media landscape which is witnessing the expanding impact of new media and a shift to digitisation.The thesis is based on data from two nationally representative cross-section surveys on media use and media attitudes (conducted during the 2002-2012 period) and focus group discussions, that are used to map similarities and differences among five generation cohorts born between 1932 and 1997 with regard to the access and use of the established news media, thematic preferences and spatial orientations of media use, and discursive approach to news formats. The findings demonstrate remarkable differences between the cohorts, suggesting that they could be merged into three main groups that represent the prevailing types of relations with the news media. Yet, the study also reveals that attitudes and behaviour (including media behaviour), are not necessarily divided by year of birth, but are more and more dispersed along individualised interests and preferences. / Audiences in the Age of media Convergence: Media Generations in Estonia and Sweden

Book consumption is no longer only a solitary practice of one person sitting in an armchair with a bound volume of their favorite novel or the latest paperback bestseller. Books have become part of what Henry Jenkins has termed convergence culture. Books are no longer just books, they are also adapted into films, they are available as audiobooks and e-books, they are accompanied by websites, author blogs, and dedicated Facebook pages, they are continued by fans writing their own stories based on the original, they are discussed in online forums and communities, and they are being reviewed in Youtube videos, to just name a few. Convergence culture refers to the spread of content over different platforms and devices, the conglomeration of media companies on the production side, and the new possibilities for participation on the side of consumers. Media and communication studies have curiously neglected book consumption in its re-examination of audience studies in the light of convergence. This study assumes that audience studies, redefined to account for cross-media use and active as well as passive aspects of consumption, are well suited to investigate contemporary book consumption. The aim of this study is to explore media use surrounding books in the broad sense described above. It also investigates how commercial structures on the one hand and participation on the other shape book consumption. To do so, this study exemplarily analyzes the book related media use of members of an online reading community (Lovelybooks). Methodologically this study follows a mixed-methods approach by adopting the concept of media repertoires. Media repertoires describe patterns of habitual media use, thus integrating the quantitative mapping of media use with the analysis of the meaningful principles behind it. The results from a survey that was distributed to Lovelybooks’ members describe which media components are used, how they are combined and to what extent they are participatory. Semi-structured interviews complement the survey results by exploring which influence commercial structures and the attitudes towards them have on Lovelybooks members’ participatory media use. The interpretation is informed by critical political economy, discussing the implications of an online community being commercially owned and run, the consequences of commercial structures for participation, and the appropriation of personal data and labor by corporations.