Finds that women's preferences for comedy television programs were strongest immediately prior to and during menses when negative affect was also most evident. Finds also that at the midpoint of the menstrual cycle, when positive affect proved the strongest, an elevated interest in suspense drama programs was apparent. (SR)

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…

Explores communication strategies and styles used in television advertising by female U.S. Senate candidates for the 1986 elections. Finds that they focused on issues and stayed away from negative advertising in their ads, tending to highlight their competency as political officials and their past accomplishments. (SR)

A study examined the differences in perceived credibility of male and female television news broadcasters. News directors' attitudes concerning what makes a newscaster believable were surveyed by telephone. Their descriptions were converted to semantic differential scales. Next, two videotaped newscasts were produced, one with a male and one with…

Investigates the effects of India's first long-running television soap opera that was designed to promote women's status in Indian society. Finds that exposure to the program was positively associated with viewers' involvement with the characters in the program and with viewer's television dependency, but did not make viewers more aware of women's…

Points out that the images and voices of Jewish women are largely absent from prime-time television. Links feminist theory and images of women as signals of systemic troubles in a community to mass communication theory. Provides a multidisciplinary approach for considering "doubly" and "triply" oppressed minority women. (SR)

Conducts interviews with nine groups of South African women, examining their responses to episodes of "Suburban Bliss," a South African television sitcom that attempted to use humor as a catalyst to transcend the aftermath of apartheid. Evaluates whether "cultural reconciliation" is possible through harnessing the varying…

Demonstrates a causal relationship between television portrayals of the ideal body and the distortion of self-perceived body size in a young female audience. (SR)

To investigate the relationship between soap opera viewership and sexual and relational perceptions, telephone interviews were conducted with 209 female college students. Quota sampling was used to complete a ratio of two telephone interviews with soap opera viewers for every one with a nonviewer. For sampling purposes, a viewer was defined as…

The Radio-TV section of the Proceedings contains the following 13 papers: "Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Nationwide Survey of Television Newsrooms" (Sonya Forte Duhe' and Erin Haynie); "Network Television News Coverage of the Environment and the Impact of the Electronic Newsletter 'Greenwire'" (Claudette Guzan Artwick);…

Examines the economic and cultural contexts of the popular television show "Twin Peaks," reading it as reactionary postmodernism. Argues that the show's clever innovations in production, avant-garde techniques, and postmodern sensibilities obscure in-depth or ongoing discussions about its reactionary politics, regressive and misogynistic…

To test the hypothesis that use of sexist language in television newscasts cultivates images of women as immature, frivolous, or incompetent, two television news anchors (one male, one female) were asked to tape versions of a news story involving a 28-year-old female lottery winner. In one version, each anchor referred to this female as…

The bibliography on analyses of television programing provided in this paper indicates the types of content analyses that have been conducted on television programing over much of the last 30 years. Compiled after a review of relevant books and the back issues of "Journal of Communication,""Journal of Broadcasting," and "Journalism Quarterly," the…

Discusses methodology and results of a study which utilized Dolf Zillmann's annoyance reduction hypotheses to test the relationship between affective states of annoyance and praise and voluntary television selection and use. Results indicate annoyed individuals viewed television significantly less than praised individuals. (Author/MBR)