Examines the complex nature of pretense as portrayed in a popular UK children's television puppet show. Argues that animality of puppets is rendered opaque as their identities as children are linguistically accomplished, leading to a piece of representational art structured by moral and behavioral dictates typical of conventional adult-child…

Investigates the amount of science portrayed by terrestrial television in the United Kingdom and the public comprehension of that science as shown on television. Concludes that the lack of comprehension of the scientific basis of many advertisements is indicative of the lack of relevance of science education to people in modern society. (Author/LM)

Investigates the visual attention of children (ages 3.5 to 6.5 years) to short segments of the television program "Sesame Street." Finds an early increase in attention to random segments, suggesting an attempt to deal with difficult but seemingly accessible content. Finds a quick decrease of attention to segments with incomprehensible…

Explores the interface between ego-involvement and the third person effect. Finds (1) that partisan viewers (pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian) believe that news coverage causes neutral viewers to view their side unfavorably and their antagonist more favorably; and (2) that news coverage did not significantly affect neutral subjects' attitudes. (SR)

Uses a content analysis of U. S. network television coverage of South Africa from January 1982 through May 1987 to determine the impact of varying degrees of censorship on the amount and kind of reporting from South Africa. Finds that press censorship intensified rather than reduced coverage of South Africa. (MM)

Examines how females and minorities are represented on children's Saturday morning television commercials, focusing on how often they are present, settings in which they are portrayed, and types of White-minority interactions. Finds that more women and minorities are present in advertisements than earlier studies indicated, but that White males…

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)

Examines the relationship between development of story schema skills and strategies children adopt for attending to and remembering television narratives. Finds advanced story schema skills were related to reduced processing effort, increased memory of central story content, greater flexibility of allocation strategies, and better coordination…

Investigates the cultivation hypothesis by testing two cognitive processes hypothesized to allow viewers to construct television-biased beliefs. Finds the basic cultivation result replicated, but neither process hypothesis was supported. (SR)

Evaluates reactions of students exposed to a video presentation with or without a laugh track. Finds those in the laugh track group exhibited significantly more mirth behavior, but did not evaluate the stimulus as significantly funnier. (MS)

During the week of September 16-20, 1990, commercials promoting drugs and alcohol outnumbered the networks' news stories, documentaries, and public service announcements (PSAs) about illegal drugs by a ratio of almost 39 to 1. Considering the commercials alone, promotion of drugs and alcohol outnumbered the antidrug promotions by a ratio of almost…

Investigates whether audio/video redundancy improves memory for television messages. Suggests a theoretical framework for classifying previous work and reinterpreting the results. Suggests general support for the notion that redundancy levels affect the capacity requirements of the message, which impact differentially on audio or visual…

States that television has been a "single-station medium" in Israel since 1968, and that cable television is a recent innovation for that country. Describes an experiment that compared houses with cable to ones without, and found that houses with cable had markedly different viewing habits. Concludes that these findings suggest a…

Examines college students' responses to the program "Cops" to better understand how viewers construct meaning and pleasure from the televisual texts of reality-based programming. Finds that humor guides the viewers' interpretations of the text and is a major source of pleasure, but the audience's search for the comic both deviates from…

Compares different theoretical approaches to the study of international news. Finds many comparative studies of the foreign news output of national broadcasters and few studies analyzing the actual flow of television news between actors at the wholesale level and the flow between wholesale and retail level. Suggests a better framework for the…