Several aspects of the history of religious broadcasting are examined in this paper. First, the paper provides an informative review of scholarly treatments of the history of religious broadcasting in the United States, tracing the evolution from early broadcasts of simple church services to today's evangelical paid-time programming. The paper…

This study investigated the effects of background television on cognitive performance as it applies to reading comprehension and memory using G. B. Armstrong and B. S. Greenberg's (1990) model. Subjects, 95 undergraduates from lower-level communication courses, completed a cued-recall test of the content of an expository prose passage read under…

With Coca-Cola's selection of a digital, computer-constructed "spokesthing" named Max Headroom, came a dramatic shift toward a reliance on high technology to deliver the advertising message. Headroom was developed in Britain, and made his debut on the Home Box Office television network in 1985. Coca-Cola then bought the rights to…

On the assumption that the mass media, to some degree, shape their users' thoughts about the nature of the world, this paper explores the development of a framework for studying television-influenced social reality--the controversial television-viewing-and-aggression hypothesis known as cultivation theory, as well as recent cultivation theory…

A study suggested that audience feedback plays a central role in determining the types of television programs shown on the air and that two major ways series are adopted are through imitation of popular series and through a gradual, evolutionary process. Through an analysis of the prevalence of programs in six genres, these hypotheses were…

According to a new myth in the television broadcasting industry, the producer has become the representative of the show business side of news production, while the reporter has remained the protector of the more noble goals of journalism in the television newsroom. To explore the dimensions of this myth, a study examined data, available from a…

To assess the roles of TV news commentators during times of crisis, a study examined network news commentary during the 10 days following each of three crises--Spiro Agnew's resignation (October 10, 1973), the Saturday Night Massacre (October 22, 1973), and the seizure of the American merchant ship "Mayaguez" by Cambodians (May 11,…

This paper offers a platform for reappraising British television during the period of 1950-1960 by identifying the inaccuracy and bias of three firmly entrenched assumptions that dominated the history of British television between the publication of the Beveridge Report (1951) and the Pilkington Report (1962): (1) British television in the period…

Noting that little theoretical work has been done on the processes of adapting novels for television viewing, and that what discussion there is tends to concentrate on judgments about "faithfulness" to the original, this paper suggests that more can be gained from approaching television adaptations in a less literal way, and shows how…

A study was conducted to determine the political issues of the 1980 presidential campaigns as expressed by televised political spot advertisements during the primaries. Issue information was coded for 140 30- and 60-second political commercials. An advertisement's issue score was defined as the number of terms used that matched terms from a…

To demonstrate the uses and efficiency of major television news archives, a study was conducted to describe major archival programs and to compare the Vanderbilt University Television News Archives and the CBS News Index. Network coverage of an annual news event, the 1983 State of the Union address, is traced through entries in both. The findings…

Content analysis was used to study the values evident in televised beer and wine commercials. Seventy-seven prime time commercials, 7.6% of a week's total, were analyzed along value dimensions adapted from Gallup's measure of popular social values. The intensity of each value was coded on a five-point scale. None of the commercials in the beer and…

Addressing the issues of the application of the First Amendment and deregulation, this paper examines the judicial and legislative precedents for cable television regulation and the current industry status. The paper then addresses the questions: (1) Should and could a different regulatory approach be taken? (2) What types of models might best be…

Deregulation of the cable industry has been based largely on the assumption of existing diversity and competition and on the promise of promoting diversity within the industry. To test this assumption, a study examined levels of channel diversity for a sample of cable systems at three stages of the deregulation process. A random sample of 326…

To examine how the contents of Korean television serial dramas have changed and to determine trends of their portrayals of male and female characters' lifestyles, a study analyzed Korean television dramas of 1977 and 1987. A sample of three channels' video--22 daily and 14 weekly episodes of 18 different television dramas during weekday prime time…