The literature of film and literature of television are, to a large extent, two separate entities. The major film theorists have not had much to say about television, and television has inspired few theorists of its own--few, that is, whose major concern, like the film theorists', is aesthetics. One of the earliest forms of commentary on…

A study examined the family communication of two television families: the Huxtables, on "The Cosby Show," and the Simpsons. Content analysis was used to analyze communication behaviors in 9 episodes of "The Cosby Show" and 12 episodes of "The Simpsons," and behaviors were coded as to type of communication. Results…

The public receives a large percentage of its information about mental health issues from media sources. Research has shown that the portrayal of occupational roles is often distorted and unrealistic. Cultivation theory predicts that television's version of reality helps influence or "cultivate" viewers' beliefs about the world. This cultivation…

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…

This paper argues that the proliferation of videocassette recorders in the United Kingdom, especially England, has altered the terms of all electronic--and possibly cinematic--viewing in that country, with the exception of areas where communal viewing is the dominant practice, where broadcast is the dominant distribution mode, and where cinema is…

A study examined the television network visibility of representatives and senators during the two-year period of the 97th Congress (1981-82). Among other questions, the study sought to determine whether high visibility on network news was limited to an elite group of leaders and activists, and whether the Senate-to-House network coverage ratio was…

A mail survey of commercial television stations nationwide was conducted to determine if stations as a whole are accepting program length commercials (whose airing was deregulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1984). Sales managers at 482 of 769 commercial television stations responded to the questionnaire. Results indicated…

The academic community in the United States for the most part has failed over the past decade to focus its attention on the preservation and improvement of the American public broadcasting system, either through institutionally cooperative, sponsored research or independently generated work. That public broadcasting research has been neglected…

A study examined the impact of viewing context on the evaluation of televised content, specifically whether viewers of the final episode of M*A*S*H who watched it at a party evaluated it differently from those who watched it in their usual manner. A group of 181 students, categorized according to the viewing context, were asked to rate program…

A study tested the validity of two active TV viewing constructs that predicted the effects of content and degree of active viewing on a television viewer's perception of a mean world. Random digit dialing produced interviews with 163 subjects who were asked separate questions about their prime time and daytime viewing to determine their level of…

A study was conducted to explore the hypothesis that heavy television viewing, particularly the viewing of a great deal of violence, cultivates certain misconceptions about social reality. Four counties in Florida were selected for the study on the basis of geographical location and amount of violent crime. Survey questionnaires were administered…

A study examined how much of the news being presented by other developed nations' network television news programs involved the United States in comparison to those stories involving other developed and developing nations. It was expected that if the American dominance existed in other developed nations' media, the New World Information Order's…

A study was conducted to examine whether "Segment Three" (a minidocumentary series aired weekdays from 1977 to 1979 on the "NBC Nightly News") consisted of highly dramatic, conflict-oriented messages that emphasized and exaggerated the inability of individuals to predict and control their own lives (learned helplessness). The…

In a 2-week period, the feature stories broadcast on television "magazines" were analyzed to determine how they differed from stories in the traditional print media. Five such programs were monitored: "60 Minutes,""20/20,""NBC Magazine,""PM Magazine," and "Hour." The feature story content…

Noting that previous research has shown that television content influences attitudes and behavior, a content analysis of 269 television commercials broadcast during prime time was conducted to examine whether male sex role stereotyping existed in the commercials and, if it did, to determine the characteristics of that stereotyping and whether the…