Max Headroom, the computer-generated media personality, presents a good opportunity for an investigation of the degree of intertextuality in television. Max combines narrative genres (science fiction and film noir), television program types (prime-time episodic narrative, made-for-TV movie, talkshows), advertising and programming, and electronic…

This comprehensive field test report describes a 1978 impact evaluation of the 3-program "Collecting Information" cluster of ThinkAbout, a series of 60 15-minute instructional television programs for fifth and sixth graders designed to strengthen reasoning skills and review and reinforce language arts, mathematics, and study skills. The…

Reported in this document are findings from an evaluation of three kinds of prosocial children's programming broadcasted by the NBC network during the 1980-81 season. The prosocial programmings evaluated were "Drawing Power,""Play Alongs," and "How to Watch TV". The primary goals of the study, as stated by NBC, were…

The growth of international television distribution has resulted in easy access to news, information, and entertainment programs originating in foreign countries. At the same time it has caused some concerns about the spread of values alien to a country's culture or simply irrelevant. The research reported here attempts to quantify the actual use…

Formative evaluations were conducted for the last four rough-cut instructional television programs--"Peers,""Friendship,""Prejudice," and "Thinking"--from "On the Level," a series of 12 lessons designed to aid secondary school students in dealing with personal and social growth. The following…

Reviews a study of 167 British secondary school students which evaluated a course developed to improve television literacy by focusing on skills related to recall and drawing inferences from and making judgements about programs. Pretests and posttests given to groups divided by ability levels are described and results are analyzed. (Author/LRW)

This study reports on an experiment that used interactive cable television to upgrade the quality of day care by educating day care center directors and caregivers. The report is written for citizens and public officials who are concerned about the quality of care in day care facilities and who might wish to consider telecommunications as a means…

It is widely believed that television viewing has a negative impact on school achievement. This belief is supported by negative statistical associations sometimes found between school achievement and amount of television viewing; that is, heavy TV viewers tend to show poorer achievement than light viewers. One possible explanation of this…

This study is the main element of the summative evaluation of "Freestyle," a television series on sex-role stereotyping and career awareness. The series was developed for fourth to sixth graders viewing it at home or at school and contains 13 half-hour episodes. In seven test sites across the country, 268 teachers used…