Contends that the effect of television can best be understood as part of the overall attempts by social scientists to understand the effects of the mass media. Argues that symbolic interactionism is the most viable theory for bringing together the pure and the applied aspects of this issue. (LLL)

Finds that double presentation of a radio story to children did not result in fewer novel ideas than did a single presentation, thus proving implausible the faulty-memory hypothesis that radio stories elicit more novel responses than television stories because they are less well remembered. Notes that radio stories elicited more novel responses in…

Explores whether exposure to televised fictional depictions of realistic life-threatening events (fires, drownings) affects children's risk-related assessments that could influence longer-term responses. Finds that children exposed to a particular threat rated similar events more likely to occur in their own lives, considered potential…

The Advertising and Public Relations section of this collection of conference presentations contains the following 17 papers: "Using the FCB Grid and the 'Lost Quadrants' to Write Advertising Strategy" (Johan C. Yssel); "Antitrust and the Marketplace of Ideas: The Continuing Problem of Issue Advertising Access to Broadcast…

Discovers that the content of broadcast news in Puerto Rico is similar to that in the United States, with political and government stories commanding a relatively large amount of news time. (FL)

Concludes that the editorial presentation of a story can have significant effects on an audience's perceptions of a story's target. (FL)

Indicates that consumers place little value on advertisements in nationally circulated magazines and on television as sources of information. Television commercials seem to be valued even less than print advertisements. (FL)

Found considerable support for the hypothesis that voters who rely on television use candidates' image characteristics to make their voting choices more than do voters who rely on newspapers. Found little support for the second hypothesis that candidates' stands on issues will play a stronger role among voters who rely on newspapers. (PD)

Introduces special issue on the topic of mental health and the media. States that there is no single answer about the impact of the media. Suggests that articles attempt to encourage counselors to think critically about the role of the media in influencing individual mental health and in shaping public perceptions of mental health issues.…

Draws upon overlapping disciplines (the sociology of interaction, ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, and the pragmatics of philosophy of ordinary language) with a common interest in the intelligibility of the social practices of everyday life, to investigate how it is that television and radio appear as unproblematically and meaningfully…

Hypothesizing that the way in which the media present information influence their audiences' reaction to it, a study examined 158 economy-related news stories broadcast between September 15 and October 31, 1980, by the three major television networks: ABC, NBC, and CBS. Analysis was guided by three questions: To what degree was economic…

This paper focuses on the experimental findings of Shanto Iyengar with regard to media agenda-setting and a theory of priming, summarizing his work across time. Following an introduction, the next section briefly reviews five of Iyengar's experiments on agenda-setting and priming, giving an overview and conclusions for each. The final section, a…

The proposition advanced by media critics John Fiske and John Hartley, that television provides the experience of "defamiliarization" (the demand that viewers "negotiate" a response to the ideological frameworks that television presents), is considered by the Russian Formalist critics and the structuralists who elaborated and…

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)

Defines pornography, the aspect of sexuality which evokes most attention from the media, and discusses findings of the President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography and of psychologists who have recently found that exposure to a portrayal where violence and sex are coupled does increase subsequent aggression toward a female. (MBR)