This study explored traits that adult television audience members perceived to be linked to positive and negative portrayals of women on television, and whether respondents' gender is linked to perception differences. Contemporary criteria for evaluating positive and negative images were linked to most responses. No significant gender differences…

One week's network programing was recorded in 1987 to determine character incidence by sex, age, minority group membership, and other variables. Results showed significant changes since the 1950s in the treatment of minority group members but little change in the incidence or nature of portrayals of women. (DM)

Two studies used multidimensional scaling to uncover viewers' spontaneous, largely implicit interpretations of Dallas (American) and Coronation Street (British), two soap operas in a genre of social realism that explicitly aims to parallel or directly contribute to the symbolic world of the viewer. The results bear upon the discipline of social…