Studies investigating selected aspects of children's television viewing are described and the findings are used as the basis of a theoretical formulation in which young children's television viewing is seen as a transactional process similar to other normal information processing activities. According to this formulation, the child's motivation to…

More than 500 television news directors were surveyed in a study of the effects of three factors--multiple ownership of stations, newspaper crossownership, and cable television use--on the quality of local news programing. For purposes of the study, "quality" was defined in terms of expenditures for news programing (greater expenditures…

The total percentage of women employed in executive positions in television stations in the United States is substantially lower than previous studies indicate. Of the 1743 persons employed in those jobs in commercial and noncommercial stations in the top 50 markets, only 4.8 percent are women. This compares with 91.2 percent who are men (the sex…

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of several independent variables in predicting the perception of television's content as real. The relationship between the perception of television violence as real and agressive predispositions of young viewers was analyzed. Two hundred seventy-three Mexican children in the third and…

To some degree television is the current inheritor of anxiety over the effects of communications from outside the home, and is not alone among mass media in presenting sizeable amounts of violence. However the accessibility, pervasiveness, and very character of television make it the ultimate mass medium, and hence a cause for concern. Television…

Long range effects may be of three varieties: those which are observable in the immediate period subsequent to exposure but are long range because of their continuing repetitive accumulation with each exposure; those which represent the cumulative or delayed impact on individuals of exposure to television; or those which represent the immediate…

As universities gain access to satellite delivery systems, faculty are asking questions about how information processing varies between print versus television delivery systems. A study compared 68 undergradaute adults' information processing activity when the same message is presented in print vs. on television. Results reveal little differences…

This paper addresses the television program "Cheers" and demonstrates one way of interpreting the complexity of messages within the program. The interplay of visual messages within the "Cheers" programming is referred to as intertextuality, or the relation of one text to another to express an idea. Two basic types of…

A study examined the effectiveness of the Children's Television Act of 1990 in altering the marketplace for informational and educational children's programming on commercial broadcast television. Producers and distributors of nationally available series that commercial broadcasters were using in 1993 to meet the requirements of the Act were…

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…

Uses of the gratifications sought and gratifications obtained distinction in explanations of media effects have taken two conceptually distinct forms. The discrepancy approach poses that the difference between what is sought and what is actually obtained, expressed effectively as a discrepancy score, significantly aids effects explanations. The…

A study examined the United States television networks' news coverage of human rights in Central America during the administration of President Jimmy Carter to determine whether the President's hopes for greater media coverage of human rights issues were acknowledged by network newscasts. A content analysis of "Television News Index and…

Even though television scholar Herbert Zettl singlehandedly created the term "television aesthetics" by proclaiming that TV is an art, television studies are still excluded from the respectable divisions and disciplines of knowledge. Television is considered the epitome of mass culture/kitsch, and the very idea of a TV…

The present study investigates the impact of sibling pairs' friendly or unfriendly viewing styles on the younger siblings' understanding of the content of television programs. A total of 19 sibling pairs were videotaped as they viewed one of two television programs. The younger child in all of the pairs was in first or second grade. Fourteen of…

When children watch television, they can assess the reality of what they are seeing. Content judged unreal may have less influence on viewers than does content judged real. This study examines children's reality judgments about television series featuring families with children. Participants included twenty-seven 7-year-olds, nineteen…