Imagine that you're participating in a group activity - for simplicity let's say it's in your spare time. As far as we can tell, your activity will fit (roughly) into one of three kinds of group activity. The first one is where the media or activity form nothing but the background for social engagement - like having the radio on in the background at work, or going around to a village coffee morning. The second grouping is where the media or the activity is an inspiration or an ongoing pretext for social activity - like going to an political meeting or playing a game of football with friends. And finally there's that grouping in which the media or activity takes up almost all the attention of the whole group - leaving (at least while it's occurring) no room for overt social interaction. The cinema or the theatre are the perfect examples of that kind of activity. ... there's another [axis] based around who you're undertaking it with. Some activities you might choose to undertake with mostly complete strangers (perhaps joining an adult education class or going on a demonstration). Others are clearly activities that you undertake with just your friends. If you put these two axes together, then you get a model of a space upon which you should be able to plot (in theory) pretty much any group activity you can think of.