Examines the current state of empirical research on religious television, discusses some of the implicit difficulties in exploring this phenomenon and its viewership, and suggests avenues for future research. (MS)

Presents systematic evidence that violent, fictional television stories trigger imitative deaths and near-fatal accidents. In 1977, suicides, motor vehicle deaths, and nonfatal accidents all rose immediately following soap opera suicide stories. (AM)

Concludes that television viewing and adolescent audiences' perceptions of program reality are strongly related. (FL)

Argues that texts may be especially rhetorically effective when the content, the medium used to convey the content, and the real life experiences that make the content relevant are formally or structurally similar. Suggests that formal linkage creates rhetorical effect, and uses Burke's theory of forms to explain the effect of formal links. (MS)

Extends previous applications of expectancy-value theory to gratifications research in a study of student exposure to television news. Findings suggest that expectancy-value and gratification-seeking orientations are highly related but distinctly different judgments. Discusses issues in research on emotion-cognition and problems in attitude…

Reports that schizophrenic-labeled persons consistently rated television programs as closer to reality than did a sample of nonschizophrenic respondents. (FL)

Content analyses of the nightly news programs of the three commercial television networks for 1976 revealed (1) the generally low priority given to news about the broadcast media, (2) the variability of cross-network reporting performance, and (3) a preponderance of reports on the media's role in politics. (GT)

Identifies the significance of the long-running debate among religious broadcasting professionals and religion practitioners regarding the size of the audience for religious television. (MS)

Presents the results of study in which prime time television shows were rated by 85 adult volunteers in the Washington, D.C., area to determine how individuals with mental disorders were commonly portrayed by the mass media. A table summarizes the characteristics of mentally ill persons on prime time television. (JL)

Discusses the Cook Islands experience in acquiring television and how highlighting push, pull, and temporal factors accounts for the creation and maintenance of dependency relationships. Demonstrates how the dependency relationships cannot be reduced to "natural" market forces but rather a range of strategies which Television New Zealand…

Indicates that (1) both younger (four-five years) and older (seven-eight years) children were significantly less likely to discriminate commercial from program content when the host-selling format was viewed, and (2) older children are more favorably influenced by the same commercial content when it is seen in a host-selling presentation than in a…

Offers a clarification of the original uses of the word "stereotype" and argues that the current failure to account for evaluative and historical aspects of stereotypes has diluted the usefulness of the concept for critics and teachers. (MS)

Commercial television's global development into a multibillion dollar business is explored in this "Notebook." The first half consists of a transcript of a symposium on "Selling the World," with representatives of governments, universities, and the three major networks' foreign subsidiaries. The international activity of the…

Uses fantasy theme analysis to examine Norman Lear's series "a.k.a. Pablo." Develops an argument demonstrating how a rhetorical vision and its concomitant group consciousness emerged and was sustained throughout preproduction research and collaboration, and how it disintegrated when dramatized first in scripts and then in performance.…

Examines the determinants and consequences of the Korean "Family Reunion Program" aired in June 1983. Compares the medium and audience involved to current definitions of media events. (MS)