Studies compliance gaining behaviors among characters in 18 prime time television programs. Finds that situation comedies were more likely than dramas to contain family characters who attempted to gain compliance. Finds that parental characters were more likely than children to seek and achieve compliance. Compares results to "real life"…

Assesses aggressive behavior on television in terms of its realism. Replicated and contextualized reality were assessed for 100.5 hours of programming. Replicated reality compared television portrayals to real world characteristics, and was similar in seriousness to aggression and gender patterns of perpetrators and victims. Contextual reality…

Examines the importance of economic knowledge in understanding television network news and the concepts that television journalists use most frequently. Analyzes news content of 60 programs throughout 1987. Finds that over 12 percent of total news time was devoted to economic topics. Suggests that school curricula should emphasize economic…

To determine the extent of Black participation during the network's convention broadcasts a study investigated how many Blacks were selected as news sources in live interviews conducted by ABC, CBS, and NBC during the 1984 Democratic Convention, the status of each Black source as compared to that of Whites who were interviewed, and how many…

A content analysis was performed on all of the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) Nine O'Clock News and ITV (Independent Television) News at Ten programs that were broadcast during Britain's year-long miners' strike--March 1984-March 1985--and a four-month sample of Channel 4 news to examine how television news covered a protracted story of…

Research in audience analysis has generally lumped together members of ethnic groups under a broad category of "nonwhites" and has ignored different orientations of these minority groups toward television and mass media. Despite increasing research interests in minority audiences, specific oriental populations have largely been ignored in regard…

Noting that daytime television serials have been used to teach a variety of subjects, including writing and language skills, this paper reviews literature on the nature of soap operas so that instructors can use them more effectively. Following an introduction citing studies on the educational uses of soap operas, the paper explores the following…

The image of the family as a secure refuge against a threatening outside world has persisted in the television sitcom since its inception in the early 1950s. Although some television programs have dealt with major problems directly, most, including the sitcom, have completely ignored them. Harnessing hysteria over the possibility of a nuclear…

A study was conducted to explore the way network television news observes three countries friendly to the United States: Australia, Canada, and Japan. Every news story from 1968 to 1983 on the ABC, CBS, and NBC networks that mentioned any of the three countries or their people was examined. Coders classified the 4,038 stories based on origin,…

A study analyzed the visual content of the 1984 New Hampshire and California Democratic candidate debates to determine how Jesse Jackson was portrayed by television. The New Hampshire debate was chosen because it offered the first opportunity for Jackson to be heard and compared to the other, more media-prominent candidates. The California debate…

The mythic structure of the popular television melodrama, "Dallas," may be analyzed in order to shed light on the reasons underlying the program's wide appeal. First of all, "Dallas" combines the conventions of the crime formula in such a way as to create a new mythology of crime for television, one similar to that found in the…

A study of changes in children's programing on network television in the United States from 1948 through 1978 is detailed in this report. The first chapter discusses the concepts of "diversity" and "shape" as they apply to television programing, and provides details about the research methodology used in the study. The second, third, and fourth…

The agenda setting hypothesis of mass media effects, which maintains that the mass media set the agenda of public discussion and determine which items are to be discussed and which ignored, was tested. Agenda was defined as an attribute of individual respondents to be compared with those of various media. In a preliminary study, a group of 59…

This paper discusses the wide appeal, and the effect on the viewing audience, of traditional television soap operas. It reports on a comparison of role interactions, topics discussed by the characters, and types of topics and problems presented on the television program "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" with those presented on two traditional…

Six studies and an overview focus on the amount and character of the violence portrayed on television (TV), the circumstances and milieu in which this violent fare is created, and the formal and informal influences which affect the selection and prohibition of TV content. The overview serves as an introduction to the six studies and summarizes…