Investigates whether audience reaction to an editorial affect evaluations of adjacent newscasters. Tests effects of strong to weak television editorials on audience members and finds that strongly worded negative editorials cause a lowering of the judgment of competence of the adjacent newscaster if the audience members disagreed with the…

Examines whether role assignments to television sets (assignments of particular content to particular screens) influence what viewers think about what they watch. Finds that designating TV sets for specialized functions or uses results in more positive evaluations of the content, even when the TV sets and programming are identical. (SR)

States that contrary to previous reports of "grazing," most viewers only used their remote control devices (RCDs) once or twice every half hour. Claims that the dominant RCD operation was direct channel punching, as opposed to dial turning. Concludes that most RCD activity did not take place during a program, thus voiding industry…

Examines psychophysiological and cognitive processing of television events to see what kinds of contextual information might be stored as a result of both real and fictional television events and mediated and unmediated television events. Examines decision processes that use this information. Suggests that television may result in contextual…

Finds that, among college students, (1) both related and unrelated cuts resulted in cardiac orienting responses; (2) processing unrelated cuts required more capacity than processing related cuts; and (3) memory was better for information presented after related cuts, with this effect greater for visual memory than for audio memory. (SR)

A study examined the influence of viewers' backgrounds on their interpretation of "associational montage" in television advertising (editing which seeks to imply an analogy between the product and a juxtaposed image possessing desirable qualities). Subjects, 32 television professionals from two urban television stations and 95 customers…

Examines the visual attention of undergraduate students to the television screen. Finds that varying relatedness of episodes, for which strategic inertial processes should vary in strength, produces a corresponding difference in inertia of looks crossing boundaries. Suggests that results previously interpreted as reflecting nonstrategic processes…

Analyzes television news stories broadcast during the Persian Gulf War for censorship disclaimers, the censoring source, and the producing network. Discusses results in terms of both production- and viewer-based differences. Considers the question of whether censorship "works" in terms of unanticipated results related to story…

Examines adolescents' television viewing motives, activities, and satisfaction, in an attempt to integrate the audience activity construct into the uses and gratifications model. Suggests that more strongly motivated viewers engage more actively in various audience activities throughout the viewing process and receive greater viewing satisfaction…

A study involving 111 adults with blindness examined the impact of watching television science programs with and without audio description. Results indicate respondents gained and retained more information from watching programs with description. They reported that the description makes the program more enjoyable, interesting, and informative.…

Examines violence in music video programming. Reveals that 15% of music videos feature violence, and most of that aggression is sanitized, not chastised, and presented in realistic contexts. Discusses the findings in terms of the risk that exposure to violence in each channel and genre may be posing to viewers' learning of aggression, fear, and…

Television journalism has long been the object of study by scholars of news media ethics. A study examined the reasoning process and the criteria for judgment used by viewers when evaluating possibly problematic television (TV) news content, and analyzed these criteria as they are applied to ethical issues and problems in TV newscasts. Thirty-four…

A study of 240 TV viewers who watched or listened to and watched news stories showed highly significant differences in their recorded perceptions of the information. The spoken narrative was responsible for the perception of violence in the stories. Discussion of the results also touches on the subject of verbal violence. (14 references) (CP)

Investigates the nature and extent of violence contained in television programming that targets children aged 12 and younger. Notes that the violence itself is just as likely to be glamorized in children's as in nonchildren's shows, but it is even more sanitized and more likely to be trivialized. Documents five subgenres of children's programming…

Three empirical studies focused on viewer reactions to ethical issues in television news, and on actions audience members felt were appropriate to control possibly unethical behaviors in television broadcasting. The first study was a 12-minute telephone survey of 293 randomly selected adults in Minneapolis-St. Paul (Minnesota) in 1989 to determine…