Abstract | Abstract
On the basis of a theoretical discussion about the concepts of leisure and media use, the article investigates how so-called ordinary people apply different media to disclose part of their leisure time and everyday life for public consumption not only in order to construct a personal identity formation, but also in order to commercialize the self. The interaction and everyday actions of participants in reality programmes on television and creators of Vlogs on YouTube are objects for observation and recording leisure behaviour with the intention to entertain and engage other people in their free time. There are two principal aspects of this: first, the functionality of the leisure time in the present media culture, in which performing and presenting the self in various situations become a serious matter for the reality star or Vlogger. Second, power and control of the performance are significant aspects of understanding this functionality, which furthermore involves a distinction regarding the specific affordances of television and YouTube as media platforms. The article’s theoretical fundament framework draws on Colin Campbell’s revision of Max Weber, and especially the notion of modern hedonism.