Interviews were conducted with 721 students in fourth, sixth, and eighth grades to study whether children's perceived reality of television would affect the relationship between pro-social and anti-social television content and pro-social and anti-social behavior. Social behavior variables, a perceived reality index, and television exposure…

Recent literature on television and behavior is reviewed, synthesized, and assessed in this report, the first of two volumes. Questions of television's impact on viewer functioning are addressed for the general reader, for the purpose of elucidating research findings and their implications for public health and future research. The focus of this…

To some degree television is the current inheritor of anxiety over the effects of communications from outside the home, and is not alone among mass media in presenting sizeable amounts of violence. However the accessibility, pervasiveness, and very character of television make it the ultimate mass medium, and hence a cause for concern. Television…

Discusses a study designed to explore children's television viewing patterns and their perceptions of the media, and offers an evaluation of television's impact on the young child's lifestyle. (MH)

Although the coverage that the press gave of the Surgeon General's report on television and social behavior was confused and indefinite, few papers ran follow-up stories that might have explained the ambiguity. (KS)

Pairs of preschool children saw television commercials that varied in formal features (high versus low perceptual salience) and placement in a television show (dispersed through the program versus clustered at the beginning and end). Sixty-four subjects (32 female and 32 male) from a university preschool participated in the study. (Author/RH)

Evaluates the pattern of celebratory activities in United States homes that accompanied television viewing of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games. Finds that those watching the Olympics were more likely to be in a group, to have visitors, to plan their viewing, and to pay close attention to the television. (MS)

Suggests that television's effects on children are mediated by age-related differences in comprehension and evaluation. (MH)

The TV viewing situation involves an active transaction between the child, the TV, and the TV viewing environment. The TV viewing transaction is a blend of passive and active cognitive activities. Children begin to watch TV systematically at around 2 1/2 years of age because at that time they have the cognitive ability to aappreciate the meaning…

Reports research that investigated whether children use television commercials in family viewing situations to initiate, control, and manipulate social interaction with other family group members, especially their parents. Observational data are presented and discussed. (Author/JD)

Results of a study conducted with 721 fourth, sixth, and eighth graders were not supportive of the assumed role of children's perceived reality of television in determining the impact of exposure to television on children's social behavior. (GT)

Assesses television's potential to influence both prosocial and antisocial behavior in children and cites supportive investigative studies. (MH)

This study examined the ways in which the spontaneous imaginative play and other social behaviors of 3- and 4-year-old children are affected by the frequency and patterns of their television viewing. The subjects were 141 children from predominantly white middle class homes. Pretesting was done to get an estimate of IQ (Peabody Picture Vocabulary…

During March 1972 the Subcommittee on Communications of the Committee on Commerce of the U.S. Senate held hearings on the Surgeon General's Report by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior. The complete text of those hearings is presented here. Included in those who testified before the committee were the Surgeon…

The evidence in behalf of the power of parents and others to modify TV's impact is, in fact, evidence that educators have an equally great--or even greater--role to perform. (Author)