Arguing that the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) decision abolishing the Fairness Doctrine rested on unquestionable and untestable ideological assumptions, this paper asserts that the FCC has pursued broadcast deregulation with inadequate consideration of either social scientists' knowledge about the news media and their audiences, and…

Discusses the findings of recent surveys of viewing habits and attitudes toward programing and concludes that television is basically a vehicle for light entertainment. (KS)

Residents in a southern California city were surveyed by telephone about their attitudes toward the telecast of the motion picture "Academy Awards" presentations. Of the 141 respondents, 71 had not watched the telecast, 42 had watched some of the broadcast, and 28 had watched all of it. Less than one third of the survey questions were specifically…

Investigates the demographic characteristics of the audiences that indicate a preference for programs in one of these six public radio formats: top forty, beautiful music, middle of the road, live progressive rock, automated rock, and all news. Multiple discriminate analysis is used to weight the potency of various demographic indices. (JVP)

A descriptive mail survey extended two earlier studies done in the 1970s on "all-news" stations (or "news radio") and compared characteristics of stations using all-news with those of stations using extended news or news/information formats. Specifically, the previous studies were updated by exploration of how the following…

A study compared the organizational styles of television station program directors (PDs) against indicators of market and department size, personnel stability, job satisfaction, and productivity. Researchers used the four types of management styles used by Likert: exploitative authoritarian, benevolent authoritarian, consultative, and…

Research in broadcasting has increased substantially and can be used to aid in a variety of broadcast-related decisions. This paper focuses on audience analysis, an area of knowledge necessary for deciding analysis, an area of knowledge necessary for deciding special-program content, format changes, and aspects of news programming. Topics…

Data from a 1976 election study were used to compare the effects of different types of television watching (daytime, evening entertainment, news, campaign programing, presidential debates) on voter turnout and to compare these effects with those of other media (radio, magazines, newspapers). After controlling for the effects of the traditional…

Based on case studies of 15 all-news radio stations, this report isolates major factors contributing to the all-news format's frequent failure and assesses its potential for success. The history of the News and Information Service (NIS), which the NBC radio network operated between 1975 and 1977, serves as a backdrop for the information presented…

A study was conducted in which half-hour segments of prime-time network dramatic programing were tabulated for such violence-related items as: the seriousness and significance of violence, the number of violent actions in the program, and the duration of violence. Other factors considered were: audience size, share of audience, program duration,…

This investigation demonstrates the applicability of Stephenson's Q-Methodology, a psychological instrument, for gathering qualitative data concerning television news audiences. A questionnaire consisting of statements describing a possible news format was distributed to the viewers of three commercial television stations in Baton Rouge,…

A look at some of the research that was done to establish a basic teaching strategy for The Electric Company". (AK)

Investigates patterns of college-student reactions to local television newscasts. Finds that significant audience adaptation does not occur during a 30-minute newscast and that there was no relationship between segment placement and level of viewer interest. Suggests that the audience rebound phenomenon overcomes the audience adaptation phenomenon…