Notes the potential educational and socializing role of television for children in light of the amount of viewing time, sensitivity to nonverbal communications, and their relative ease of influence. The effects of commercials and televised violence are cited, as is television's ability to influence behavior and cognitive functioning. (RAO)

A human ecological approach to the study of children's television viewing raises questions that researchers have largely neglected. Does television influence the interaction patterns of socializing agents with children and with one another? Are there long-term, psychological consequences of unintegrated and competing influences from television and…

This paper makes a critical exploration into the core epistemological assumptions of mainstream television effects research and explains why the mainstream study of the cognitive impact of television on children suffers from two reductionist tendencies, i.e., television is understood by most researchers to be solely a technical medium, and most…