Empowering children for a critical and judicious use and consumption of media is a main objective of media literacy. This paper aims to examine the range of television programs available for children in Portugal through a comparative analysis of the programming for children broadcast by the four Portuguese terrestrial channels (RTP1, RTP2, SIC and…

Survey results revealed a curious paradox: people who saw both the debates between local candidates and the presidential debates were more influenced by the local debates and perceived the local debates as more informative; however, they also saw the presidential debates as more interesting and influential. (PD)

Describes results of a survey of 225 parents that assessed patterns of television-related interaction, viewing habits, and perceptions. Topics include motivations and implications of mediation versus coviewing; and a typology of mediation patterns that includes nonmediation, optimists, and selectives. (Author/LRW)

Uses discriminant analysis to investigate the relationship between television non-viewing and a set of variables reflecting "life style." This study agrees with previous ones in finding that the nonviewer is not easy to categorize. (MER)

Discusses the availability of research on the makeup of audiences for public television as well as the need for and uses of such data. The public television audience is characterized as generally the well-educated, affluent minority. (JMF)

Discusses programs of the New Christian Right, an evangelical group which applies pressures designed to affect censorship and to cause boycotts of products advertised on "offensive" television programs. Methods used in current censorship activities are highlighted. References are provided. (EJS)

Investigates the effects of various programing strategies, commonly employed by the television networks, on program popularity for children. Strategies include counterprograming by type, block programing by type, inheritance effects, starting time, program familiarity, and character familiarity. Confirms the effects of starting time and program…

Deals with an open-government innovation that many cities are adopting: television coverage of city council meetings. Survey data show that less-educated, lower-income, and minority individuals watch the coverage at least as much as the more-advantaged segments of the community. Reasons for television viewing are explored. (PD)

Data analysis from television-viewing surveys suggests that people are not "glued to the box." Rather, the level of repeat-viewing of television--about 60 percent--suggests that television fills the gap between other activities and that the reason people watch television is that they have "so much time to kill." (PD)

Explores differences among Black adults in their attitudes and behavior toward television and the social processes accounting for these differences. Indicates that variation in attitudes and behaviors toward television is systematically related to differences among Black adults in their exposure to the medium, subjective orientation, and…

Questionnaires were given to second, third, and fourth graders examining relationships between television viewing habits and prosocial behavior. Results indicated the fewer programs watched and the more prosocial their content, the more likely a child was to exhibit prosocial behavior. Each variable accounted for about one percent of the variance.…

Explores the psychological origins of media gratification by examining how pertinent psychological variables help explain television viewing motivation. Finds that parasocial interaction, anxiety, creativity, sensation seeking's disinhibition dimension, and television affinity and exposure, helped to predict viewing motivation. (PRA)

Reports that commercial television stations generally provided a greater percentage of public-interest programing in 1975 than in 1973, and that, while most stations meet Federal Communications Commission standards of 5 percent informational and 10 percent total nonentertainment programing, nearly 14 percent did not meet the 5 percent local…

Discusses the capabilities of three qualitative television rating systems and possible application of resulting data by public television. (JMF)

Questionnaires distributed to adults in a midwestern city provide the data for this analysis of television viewing purposes and life-styles. The 12 viewing uses identified were factor analyzed separately from the 14 life-styles, and canonical correlation analysis was used to determine relationships between the two factors. (SW)