The Status of news consumption in audiences everyday life

In this article, we examine audiences’ interaction with news media. The main question is what the status of news and news media is in the everyday life of the audiences. For this purpose, using semi-structured interview method, 29 individual and group interviews with 54 Tehran citizens from different age and sex groups were conducted.
Results show that the news presence in the audiences’ everyday life is ritual. The experience of news absence makes this rituality more apparent. Interviewees simultaneously confront with news from both domestic and foreign news televisions (which are contained established official discourse in Iran and rival discourses) because of five specific reasons and uses: access to the reality of an event, access to knowledge about rival discourse, coercion and monopoly, trust on news of domestic and foreign televisions, attraction and professionalism. In addition, the pattern of news consumption among Tehranian audiences can be categorized into five levels: weak, medium, strong (discrete - purposive, continuous, non-purposive, and continuous- purposive). Moreover the level of trust on media among people who have a strong relationship with the media is low due to the variety of available discourses.