Indicates that television news coverage of unemployment in early 1983 contained few explicit explanations. Reveals a diversity of thematic structures that (1) revealed the societal frameworks within which television journalists constructed their stories, and (2) raised question as to whether television acts as a disseminator of a "dominant…

Concludes that more than half of the stories on network newscasts contained anonymous source attributions. (FL)

Concludes that intelligence scores are consistently lower for adults who are heavy television viewers. (FL)

Relates political candidates' television advertising to voters' emotional reactions and voting behavior. Suggests that television campaign advertising elicits emotion along three continua: pleasure-displeasure, arousal-nonarousal, and dominance-submissiveness. Suggests that emotional response to such advertising is systematically related to voting…

Concludes that (1) the message structure of highly creative television commercials tends to differ from that of television commercials from the general population of television advertising and (2) there is a difference in the message structure of highly creative commercials across cultures. (FL)

Children's attention to television, measured by visual attention and by self-reports, varied in this study depending on the comprehensibility of the content. Results suggest, however, that comprehensibility may be of limited value in explaining older children's active television viewing. (PD)

Investigates whether size of broadcast market is associated with the variety of information broadcast by television stations in a community and describes what each station within a market contributes to a community's information with respect to unique news stories. Concludes that the larger the market, the more unique stories broadcast. (FL)

The Federal Communications Commission is currently considering modifying or eliminating existing media ownership rules. Children's advocates are concerned that any changes to these rules could negatively affect the already limited amount and types of programming available for children. Children Now conducted the first study to examine the…

This study involved a content analysis of 25 episodes of "Barney and Friends," a popular children's television series by the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). The study examined the literacy elements of "Barney and Friends" through the perspectives of emergent literacy theories. The purposes of the study were: (1) to find out…

Following a content analysis, 85 children's programs were assigned a pacing index derived from the following criteria: (1) frequency of camera cuts; (2) frequency of related scene changes; (3) frequency of unrelated scene changes; (4) frequency of auditory changes; (5) percentage of active motion; (6) percentage of active talking; and (7)…

A look at how the Pennsylvania PTV Network polled Pennsylvania on public television programing. (Author)

Investigated local television programs that devote regular time to "soft news"--features on ordinary people, lifestyles, and the arts. Observed that these programs portray the arts and ordinary people as upbeat and interesting but, at the same time, as fragmented and having little relationship to political or economic issues. (PD)

Describes an experiment in which 4 qualities of screen image from the same educational television program were presented to groups of school sixth-form students. Results show that picture quality is a significant influence on short-term recall. (Author/JJD)