This paper examines the dominant genre of the last American television season--the action/adventure/law enforcement show--and discusses differences between this genre and television shows in the 1950s to 1970s. Today's programs are described in terms of the similarities they exhibit with the strategies of the New Right and the apparent…

Technological advancements in television images have resulted in an increase of media imagery. One cause of people's fascination with the new media technology is the constant utilization of depth axis staging. The visual elements that make up the image are often placed within the Z-axis, moving rapidly toward or away from the viewer, often…

Emphasizing the influence of television on children, this pamphlet explores some of the major criticisms of television and discusses ways parents can help their children get the most out of television. It is argued that the major problem with television is the amount of time that it steals from our lives, time that could be spent in developing…

Argues that television programs must be polysemic to achieve popularity because of the wide variety of subcultures represented in the television audience. Analyzes two scenes from "Hart to Hart" to demonstrate the textual devices that bear the dominant ideology and those that resist it. (JD)

Examines the portrayal of the Black experience on television in relation to civil rights legislation during the period. Reviews various television programs and finds that despite an increase in the number of Black characters on the air, stereotyping has remained a problem. (FMW)

The first of a two-part review of the National Council for Families and Television's (NCFT) journal publications from 1978-1983 discusses articles examining both television and children, and discovers a multi-phase evolution in NCFT's perception of children's associations with television. Periodical articles by television and academic/research…

Discusses problems posed by television violence; how behavioral and social scientists became interested in television violence and its effects on children; how psychologists study relationships between television violence and behavior; how television violence can be counteracted by television industry, parents, and educators; and results from the…

Provides several suggestions concerning how public television might organize to approach the future. Suggestions include accepting the telecommunications center concept, revising the structure to provide a stronger national service, sustaining local programing, and providing new services. Government role, a new federal funding plan, and the system…

Explores the relationship among media consumers, institutional economics, and cultural ethos and suggests that communication researchers must adopt a flexible methodology capable of considering all relevant forces. Uses the case of Norway's broadcasting of the U.S. television series "Dynasty" to help illustrate these premises. (MG)

Describes a study that analyzed television series programs from 1950-89 featuring families to identify racial/ethnic composition, number of children, head of household, marital status, and family configuration and to compare television family characteristics with real families based on census figures. (16 references) (LRW)

Broadcasting has become a powerful symbol of a collision of ideas over how Western society should be organized. The roots of that clash lay in two powerful forces that seem to have nurtured a certain intellectual bleakness about public culture. The first such force was a belief in the imminent emergence of a multi-channel society in which cable…

This paper describes the future perspectives of biocybernetic communication research applied to television, i.e., the measurement of the information impact of television on both individual human beings and groups in terms of energetic changes in the human body. A summary of the recent state of the art of biocybernetic research includes discussions…

The news media of the 1990s will probably not use videotext systems or three-dimensional holograms to replace the newspaper. Instead, simpler combinations of news media that mimic the characteristics of print may replace advertising in newspapers, causing them to downgrade journalism or increase subscription cost, thereby decreasing circulation…

Although "The Equalizer" and "Finder of Lost Loves" are different kinds of prime time fiction--urban thriller on the one hand and fantasy melodrama on the other--they share an underlying dramatic structure and symbolic problematic in their repeated enactments of a therapeutic cure overseen by a mediating, authority figure. The…

Drawing on international studies concerning leisure attitudes, media consumption, and parental impact on the television viewing decisions of 4- to 14-year olds, this paper focuses on the importance of developing a coherent media education policy for pre- and primary-school children, parents, elementary school teachers, and television station…