Analysing Tastes and Fevices for TV Series via a Corpus of Photographs

Résumé 0

As part of a tablet survey on the taste of French people for television series, respondents were asked to take photographs of their home viewing settings. The survey “Sociology of television series: tastes, devices and practices” was conducted in 2017 as part of the ELIPSS Panel (Longitudinal Online Social Science Survey) and it generated 1,344 photographs taken by participants of the series viewing devices (screens and seats). This article examines the status of these photographs and sociologically analyses them in relation to their taste as measured by the questionnaire. The photographs are processed in line with the tastes of the photographers via a factor analysis followed by a classification. The images bring to the analysis of viewing practices critical information about the participants’ investment into the viewing conditions, and it allows for an analysis of the viewing devices of the French viewers. The article concludes by discussing the sociological limitations of the exercise.