A study compared the perceived value of a product by children who had viewed a commercial with that of others who had examined the product. Data indicate that, when television commercials exaggerate the virtues of the products, boys are more apt to be misled by the advertising claims than girls. (JEG)

Investigates differences among children, young teenagers, and adolescents in television viewing program preferences, attitude about the medium, and motivation to use television. (Author/JEG)

A content analysis of television programs presented during times likely to have high proportions of children in the audience indicated that entertainment programs contain messages about the political system which are often negative or inaccurate. (Author/MER)

Reports findings of a survey of school children in the fourth through ninth grades designed to determine what guidance parents provide to children on viewing specific television programs during and after the family viewing period, how perceptions of such guidance compare, and what demographic differences influence provision of guidance. (CWM)

This study of children's understanding of commercial audio and video network techniques which are designed to communicate the balanced breakfast concept indicates that children show a general lack of concept understanding. Thirteen references are cited. (Author/MER)

This review of the findings of Swedish research on children, television, and radio provides summaries of studies conducted over approximately 15 years in four different chapters: children's television viewing and radio listening, how children are influenced by television, children and foreign television programs, and disadvantaged children and…

Comparison among several measures of children's television viewing revealed few age differences in ability to produce consistent self-report viewing data, but wide discrepancies between mother and child viewing estimates. Eleven references are cited. (Author)

Perceptions of media violence and comparisons of those perceptions for different viewer subgroups were examined in a study of fifth-grade boys' perceptions of selected television scenes which differed in kind and degree of violence. Two parallel videotapes were edited to contain scenes of different kinds of physical violence, a practice scene, and…

An examination of 18 children's reality-fantasy judgments about television indicated that such judgments shift with age from a focus on physical features and a rigid assessment of actuality, to a sensitivity to the plausibility of characters and plotlines, and an appreciation of authorial intent. Sixteen references are cited. (Author/MER)

Five and seven year olds were able to correctly distinguish between factual and fictional television programs and test clips, based upon genre of program, production features, content. Age and vocabulary scores predicted accuracy of factuality judgments, but television viewing history did not. Older children understood better than younger ones…

The Children's Television Workshop (CTW), responsible for the programs "Sesame Street" and "The Electric Company", conducted extensive research into the systematic use of television to promote the social, emotional, and intellectual growth of young children. Working without precedents in the field of formative research…

Research on incidental learning by children from television is both a cause and effect of the increasing attention being given by social and behavioral scientists to the influence of mass media. Laboratory-type experiments and data collected from everyday life are consistent in their findings, providing convincing evidence that television can…