To measure Denver viewers' parasocial tendencies (inclinations to establish vicarious relationships) with TV news personalities, a study conducted a telephone survey in the Denver metropolitan area in October and November, 1987. The study examined viewer reactions to four local stations'"news teams" and individual news…

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…

The Look-Listen Opinion Project is an annual media literacy survey sponsored by the National Telemedia Council. The 1988-89 survey--the 36th--focused on the opinions of students at the elementary and secondary levels. Students were presented with guidelines for evaluating television programs and asked to select television programs to evaluate.…

Traces historical development of soap operas and presents results of surveys conducted with college students to determine how viewing affects their behavior, attitudes, and beliefs. Results indicate students neither seek nor take advice from soap operas whereas early radio soap opera listeners sought practical explanations of appropriate behavior…

A content analysis of major German television news shows and 53 weekly surveys on 16 issues were used to compare linear and nonlinear models as ways to describe the relationship between media coverage and the public agenda. Results indicate that nonlinear models are in some cases superior to linear models in terms of explained variance. (34…

This report on a study conducted in Iceland to determine the relationship between mass media--especially television--and the attitudes of preadolescents and adolescents toward foreign countries begins by reviewing the following topics: (1) the history of television from its start in 1966 to the present in Iceland; (2) the origins of Icelandic…

In Japan, the production and broadcasting of television (TV) programs for children began in 1953. After the first few years of trial and error, children's programs gradually rose in popularity with the introduction of TV animation, dramas, special-effects photography, music/variety and quiz shows, comedies, and action dramas. Since the inception…

This study examines two concepts--the relationship between different types of television viewing as evidence of viewer selectivity, and the structural relationships between television viewing and experiences derived from a subculture and location in the social structure. A review of the way mainstream research has characterized the viewing…

Two studies used multidimensional scaling to uncover viewers' spontaneous, largely implicit interpretations of Dallas (American) and Coronation Street (British), two soap operas in a genre of social realism that explicitly aims to parallel or directly contribute to the symbolic world of the viewer. The results bear upon the discipline of social…