Predictors of Social Television Viewing: How Perceived Program,Media, and Audience Characteristics Affect Social Engagement With Television Programming

This study investigated social television viewing by introducing the social engagement construct. Three categories of factors, television program related perceptions, social media characteristics, and audience attributes, were proposed to predict the social engagement experience. This investigation tested 10 audience motives for using social media to engage with television content. It was found that social engagement is a complex process driven by multiple factors, particularly, program-related variables such as affinity, involvement, and genre preferences, as well as individuals' innovativeness trait.     

Feeling Connected via Television Viewing: Exploring the Scale and Its Correlates

Contextualized in television program viewing, the current study seeks to develop a new scale that captures individuals' feelings of being connected to others via media consumption. Literature on general human motivation and media consumption motivation sheds light on social relatedness in television experiences. Data suggest a three-factor structure of the focal concept of feeling connected via television viewing (FCTV): (1) a perception of shared viewing among one's immediate social circle and anticipation of subsequent communication as aided by television programs, (2) a sense of global community enhanced by shared television experiences, and (3) communication with distant unknown others. A stronger sense of FCTV predicts a greater tendency for an individual to watch a program when it is first released, and to watch it together with one's friends, as well as a higher level of general involvement with television. Further, we differentiate the focal concept of feeling connected to other television viewers via television viewing from the related concept of parasocial interaction with television characters. Relative to parasocial interaction, FCTV better predicts collective viewing and first-run viewing.     

The Roles of Different News Media Use and Press Freedom in Education Generated Participation Inequality: An Eight Country Comparative Analysis

This eight-nation comparative study adopts a multi-modal analytical approach in investigating education driven stratification in political participation and the simultaneous roles of various media (print newspaper, television, radio, and social media) and press freedom in influencing this inequality. The findings suggest that informational use of social media, print newspaper, and radio increases the likelihood of participation, but consuming television news inhibits participation. Furthermore, social media use, like radio and television use, exacerbates education-generated inequality. Press freedom as a socio-political factor reinforces the role of the television, print newspaper, and social media in participation inequality. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.     

The Collaboration Between Homeless Shelters and Public Libraries in Addressing Homelessness: A Multiple Case Study

Public librarians are not always able or willing to embrace their role as providers of social and institutional capital for homeless patrons. Yet their position as gatekeepers impels them to do so. Through focus-group interviews with staff of homeless shelters in eight urban communities in one Midwestern state, this study explored the collaboration and communication between homeless shelters and public libraries. Findings indicate that homeless shelter staff recognize the value of public library services for their residents but do not engage in coordinated efforts to capitalize on it. Suggestions for enhanced collaboration between the two institutions are included.     

Internet and Television Are Not Substitutes for Seeking Political Information

Internet news consumption is growing and television news viewership is decreasing; however, online news is not a substitute for television news. This study found motives for seeking political information from television and the Internet to be information-seeking, entertainment, civic duty, and social utility. In seeking political information, audiences use Internet and television in conjunction as supplements or complements, rather than as substitutes. Multiple regression analysis showed that information-seeking and social utility predicted television use, and information-seeking and civic duty predicted Internet use.     

Reconstructing the Remote Television Memory Test: Measuring Individual Differences in Long-Term Memory

Memory plays a role in many communications theories; however, few studies consider individual differences in memory. The results are reported here for two original studies designed to reconstruct a previously validated measure for television memory constructed to assess how people forget information over time. The remote television memory test assesses recognition memory for the titles of broadcast television programs canceled after a single season. Results from two studies show that the measure is reliable across repeated administrations among independent samples, exhibits a forgetting curve over time, is uncorrelated with total television viewing, appears to be approximately normally distributed, and predicts social reality estimates typical of the cultivation effect independently from total viewing. More work is needed to further assess the construct validity of the measure. Practical implications of administration also are discussed.     

Nurturing Authority

When considering the role of local journalism in a networked media environment, it is crucial to examine how audiences attribute news with the power to define social knowledge. In particular, television news programs need to appeal to audiences by reinforcing a sense of local journalistic authority to assert the parameters of who and what is worthy of coverage. This article presents the findings from interviews with a range of commercial television news viewers in Sydney, Australia. It positions viewership in the context of people’s wider engagement with news, and in relation to their interpersonal and digital social interactions. The paper argues that local audiences have conflicting attitudes to the role of television news, both contesting and re-inscribing the programs with the power to demarcate social, political, and cultural knowledge. It traces how local audiences challenge the ability of news to convey boundaries within the community through processes of exclusion, connecting the contestations to the lived experiences of the individuals. It identifies that television news programs nurture journalistic authority in terms of their local relevance, and it contributes insights on the significance of local news by engaging with the means by which audiences themselves attach social power to journalism.     

浅谈出镜记者在电视现场报道中的作用

本文从电视节目编排结构、电视媒体的实力彰显、电视节目形式的突破,以及信息传播等方面阐述了出镜记者在电视现场报道中的作用。     

Television news in Bangladesh: intersection of market-oriented journalism and perceived credibility

The television medium has occupied a dominant place in Bangladesh. With the unprecedented expansion of the television industry, questions are being raised about a palpable rise in market-oriented journalism (MOJ) in the country. This article examines the theoretical and empirical relationship between MOJ and credibility of TV news. Three surrogate factors of MOJ including independence, social role, and objectivity, along with TV news credibility are analyzed for insights. The findings suggest that there is a complex relationship between the two constructs. To improve the perception of credibility of TV news, our findings suggest an important role of public journalism as an alternative to MOJ.     

Correlations of Media Habits Across Time,Generations, and Media Modalities

This study investigates media uses and preferences across two generations and across television and video games. Path analyses using data from 335 families show that the number of hours of television viewed by the first generation (parents at age 30) positively predicts the amount of television use by their offspring in the second generation 18 years later, as well as their own amount of television viewing at that time. The analyses also show that the amount of video game playing among offspring is significantly related to their own as well as their parents' concurrent TV use. While there is no similar longitudinal correlation between a preference for violent television by parents at age 30 and that of their offspring 18 years later, parents' violent television preferences at age 48 are positively correlated with their offspring's concurrent preference for violent television content. Additionally, the violent television preferences of offspring are positively correlated with their own preferences for violent video games. These effects were found while controlling for SES, intellectual achievement, and offspring gender. These results suggest that the amount of time devoted to media use and preferences for violent media generalize across media modalities and are transmitted across generations.     

How Do We React When Our Favorite Characters Are Taken Away? An Examination of a Temporary Parasocial Breakup

This study examined reactions to a temporary parasocial breakup situation during the television writers’ strike of 2007–2008 when many television shows stopped airing new episodes. Past research on parasocial breakups and uses and gratifications theory was used to predict emotional and behavioral reactions. Questionnaire results revealed that participants with stronger parasocial relationships experienced greater distress—even after controlling for the number of favorite programs that went off the air. Moreover, those with greater television affinity reported greater distress when their favorite show was disrupted, although television viewing motives also played a role in this process. Finally, when their favorite shows were no longer airing new episodes, viewers primarily replaced television viewing time with other media exposure rather than increasing nonmedia activities such as social interaction. However, a number of these activities varied by gender.     

THE SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF CABLE TELEVISION: RESTRUCTURING CONNECTIONS WITH SELF AND SOCIAL GROUPS

The present study deals with the social implications of cablebroadcasting and explores the possible links between the spreadof global media and the development of individualistic and globalisticorientations. The study examined the function of televisionin strengthening individuals' cognitive and affective connectionswith their own selves, with social groups such as primary andethnic groups, with their society (the nation-state), and withthe global community. The beginning of the cable era in Israelcreated a unique situation which made possible the comparisonof two research populations, subscribers and non-subscribers,which were similar in all background variables, yet differentin their television supply. The main conclusion of this studywas that there are differences between the two groups in termsof their assessments of gratifications obtained from television,and concerning the strengthening of their connections with varioussocial groups and with their own selves. Moreover, there isa clear difference in the structure of the assessments of thetwo groups as presented graphically in two SSA maps-among thesubscribers there is a well defined region of variables relatedto the connection with the global community, while among thenon-subscribers these variables are scattered among variablesrelated to connections with other social groups. In addition,our data suggest that the gratifications obtained from televisionfor the self are complimentary to the gratifications relatedto connections with the global community.     

Family Television Viewing and Its Alternatives: Associations with Closeness within and between Generations

Audience research on family television viewing flourished in the 1980s and 1990s. These studies highlighted watching television as a family as a valuable family routine, structuring the rhythm of daily life and generating family harmony. Ever since, we have witnessed changes in both family structures and media structures, which have affected the ways television is consumed within the household. This begs the question whether earlier findings considering family closeness still hold up. Therefore, this study conducted a cross-sectional survey among a sample of 691 Belgian individuals, nested in 288 families. Drawing upon insights from literature on family rituals and media generations, the results of this study indicate that despite a robust prevalence of family viewing, alternative social patterns emerge coinciding with the appropriation of screen technologies beyond living room television. Further analysis reveals that deviations from family viewing are associated with lower closeness between generations. However, younger generations watching together do report higher levels of closeness with their generational counterparts.     

When Empathy is Not Enough

Journalism that humanizes marginalized communities can advance social justice by appealing to collective solidarity. News reporting, however, often encourages audience empathy instead of solidarity by representing social injustice as individual problems. This paper examines mechanisms of empathy and solidarity in two news outlets that participated in The San Francisco Homeless Project. The San Francisco Homeless Project was a collaborative journalistic effort in June 2016 that called for attention and action to address homelessness. The San Francisco Chronicle’s coverage represents homeless people as beset with individual problems, which encourages empathy, and its accompanying solutions journalism suggests expanded individual services to address these problems. On the other hand, AlterNet emphasizes shared conditions that homeless people endure, which situates homelessness as a social injustice and invites solidarity against systemic factors that produce and maintain homelessness. This distinction is important because strictly evoking empathy for individuals places journalism on a trajectory to suggest individualistic remedies to an issue like homelessness, whereas inviting solidarity charts a course for large-scale social change.     

Television Co-Viewing in Mexico: An Assessment on People Meter Data

Television co-viewing is a frequent behavior with important social and economic implications. This study proposes a measure of co-viewing on people meter panel data, tests it on a data set in Mexico, and uses it to explore co-viewing. Individual differences in psychographics, program genres and co-viewing of the lead-in programs were discovered as antecedents to co-viewing. Results indicate as well that co-viewing leads to increased watching time and reduced channel browsing, and this effect interacts with group composition. These findings provide further support for the social uses of television theoretical framework, and shed light on the inheritance effects in continuous programs.     

An Evaluation of the Federal Communications Commission's 2007 Report on TV Violence

At the behest of 39 members of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce, in 2007 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a report that addressed the effects of violent television on children, the constitutionality of various strategies for regulating children's exposure to violent television content, and the viability and benefit of a congressionally developed definition of excessively violent television programming. This review evaluates how well the FCC carried out the tasks assigned to it by Congress, particularly in regards to the FCC's assessment of the social scientific research on the effects of exposure to televised violence.     

When TV and Marriage Meet: A Social Exchange Analysis of the Impact of Television Viewing on Marital Satisfaction and Commitment

Although several studies have examined the association between television viewing and romantic relationships, differences in theoretical grounding, methodology, and findings have produced a picture that is decidedly unclear. Furthermore, past research has been directed primarily toward general relational attitudes and hypothetical relational behaviors without considering potential effects of viewing on existing, long-term relationships. This study sought to address these issues by drawing on the theoretical traditions of cultivation analysis, uses and gratifications, and social exchange theory to explore the associations among relationship variables and measures of both television viewing and belief in television portrayals by analyzing data collected from 392 married individuals. Results revealed that both heavier viewing of romantically themed programming and greater belief in television's portrayals of romantic relationships were associated with lower marital commitment, higher expected and perceived costs of marriage, and more favorable perceptions of alternatives to one's current relationship.     

FROM FEAR OF TELEVISION TO FEAR FOR TELEVISION

New media technologies are often met with political and public ambivalence, as they are perceived to threaten established activities, values and institutions, as well as bring progress and improve political, cultural and social life. Taking the Norwegian history of television as an empirical case study, this article relates to an international research agenda focusing on the cultural political debates in the early phases of broadcast media. The article is structured according to five key conjunctures where significant new media and technologies were introduced with corresponding political debates: the introduction of television (1940s–1950s), of colour television (1960s–1970s), of satellite, cable and commercial television (1980s), of digital distribution (1990s–2000s) and the expansion of television to new platforms (2000s). The article addresses the key arguments and dividing lines in these political debates, as well as the change in the perception of television when the medium is no longer new, but has become an integrated part of people's everyday life.     

Examining the Library as a Site for Intervention: A Mixed-Methods Case Study Evaluation of the “Innovative Solutions to Homelessness” Project

Abstract

This study examined a project that delivered social work services to homeless individuals. A mixed-methods case study was conducted using quantitative and qualitative data from 93 library employees and the project’s Homelessness Prevention Outreach Worker (HPOW). There was an increase in the number of clients accessing community supports during the project, and the HPOW was integral to the provision of support and resources to homeless individuals. Staff training was associated with significantly greater knowledge, comfort, and skills in working with homeless individuals. These findings can inform the delivery and implementation of similar programs for homeless individuals.     

Reaching a Moving Target: How Local TV Stations are Using Digital Tools to Connect With Generation C

Local television in the United States is experiencing dramatic changes due to shifts in viewership and digital technologies. This study examined the extent to which a sample of local television stations in the United States are meeting the demands and needs of Generation C/Millennials through the use of social media, mobile technology, and other online communication tools. The major finding of this study was that television stations have a growing repertoire of social media and other connectivity tools with which to engage their viewers, but that stations in larger markets are making fuller use of interactive technologies.