Investigated the kinds of judgments young children make about television "reality." Thirty-one children negotiated ways of sorting a given number of programs into those they thought were more realistic or true-to-life and those they thought were less so. Revealed several criteria or cues the children used in making these reality…

A study of 240 TV viewers who watched or listened to and watched news stories showed highly significant differences in their recorded perceptions of the information. The spoken narrative was responsible for the perception of violence in the stories. Discussion of the results also touches on the subject of verbal violence. (14 references) (CP)

Examines four individual differences--sensation seeking, religiosity, hostility, and family cohesion--as correlates of drug use and television viewing, to test four corresponding models of addiction: medical/disease, moral, compensatory, and enlightenment. Concludes that models emphasizing personal control and responsibility are more appropriate…

Analyzes television viewing behavior in a naturalistic setting, investigating channel changing and other commercial avoidance behaviors. Finds that channel changing is stimulated more by commercials than by programs and that 90% of channel changers click the switch during commercial breaks, raising serious questions about program and station…

Analyzes the double or mirrored scene of the Centers for Disease Control's AIDS education campaign and the responses to that campaign, basically, the dominant, heterosexual, televised discourses' defensive erasure of those semiotic objects that represent illicit and nonreproductive sex. (RS)

Addresses some of the fundamental assumptions of an information processing approach to mass media effects and the contributions it brings to mass communication. Traces the conceptual and methodological innovations of an information processing perspective as they have been applied to the study of television since the 1980s. (SR)

This study was a replication of one that investigated sex-role stereotyping of occupations and behaviors of music video characters shown on MTV (Music Television) in 1987. It employed a random sample of 91 MTV music videos broadcast in 1993, and found a continuation of male and female characters shown in sex-typed jobs. Contains 56 references.…

Discusses the Cook Islands experience in acquiring television and how highlighting push, pull, and temporal factors accounts for the creation and maintenance of dependency relationships. Demonstrates how the dependency relationships cannot be reduced to "natural" market forces but rather a range of strategies which Television New Zealand…

Applies an interpersonal approach to understand gender differences in television use--males are socialized to be instrumental in communication while females are socialized to be focused on relationships. Finds limited support that males had an instrumental TV viewing style. Finds females had a relationship-oriented approach to television similar…

Reports an exploration of the effectiveness of different types and sizes of samples for content analyses of television network news. Compares simple random, monthly stratified, and quarterly/weekly stratified sampling, using annual "populations" of network newscasts. Finds that the most efficient technique was two random days per month. (SR)

Argues that the influence of televised, general election, presidential debates on prospective voters' perceptions of participating candidates may be larger than previous research suggests. Finds that two sources of debate effects have gone largely undetected to date: those based on candidates' relational communication, and those which are…

Investigates the nature and extent of violence contained in television programming that targets children aged 12 and younger. Notes that the violence itself is just as likely to be glamorized in children's as in nonchildren's shows, but it is even more sanitized and more likely to be trivialized. Documents five subgenres of children's programming…

Investigates the possibility that television can evoke presence by showing 65 undergraduate students examples of rapid point-of-view movement from commercially available videotapes on a television with either a small or large screen. Finds that participants watching the large screen television thought the movement in the scenes was faster, enjoyed…

Examines actual use in television news broadcasts of video news releases (VNRs). Finds that all sizes of markets were likely to use VNRs. Finds that the most common use was as a voice-over story in an early evening newscast, and that VNRs associated with children and their safety or health got the greatest number of uses. (SR)

As universities gain access to satellite delivery systems, faculty are asking questions about how information processing varies between print versus television delivery systems. A study compared 68 undergradaute adults' information processing activity when the same message is presented in print vs. on television. Results reveal little differences…