Prosocial effects of entertainment television in India

The study examines the prosocial effects of Hum Log (We People), India's first long‐running television soap opera. Hum Log was a prosocial television programme that was designed to promote women's status in Indian society. Regression analysis was used to measure the degree to which exposure to Hum Log affected viewers' (1) awareness of certain prosocial beliefs promoted by the series, (2) level of television dependency, (3) involvement with the characters of Hum Log, and (4) adherence to three prosocial beliefs promoted by Hum Log. Exposure to Hum Log was positively associated with viewers' awareness of the programme's prosocial messages, television dependency, and involvement with television characters in the series. Viewers who were more exposed to Hum Log were also more likely to believe in women's equality and women's freedom of choice, but not in family planning. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of present and future research on the use of prosocial television programmes for development in Asia.     

Children's expectations for television entertainment vs. television news events

Young children's limited ability to recognize and defend against commercial messages has led to numerous concerns about advertising that targets child‐viewers. Industry self‐regulation of child‐oriented advertising content is one response to those concerns. With the demise of the National Association of Broadcasters Code in 1982, guidelines maintained by the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the National Council of Better Business Bureaus comprise the only industry‐wide self‐regulation. This study evaluates the extent of compliance with the CARU standards across a sample of over 10,000 ads directed to children. The results indicate a high overall rate of adherence to the guidelines. Two problem areas emerged which accounted for most of the violations observed: ads that featured premium offers, and ads for recorded telephone message services. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the child audience.     

Antisocial behaviors in television entertainment: Trends and profiles

This study replicates the content analysis of antisocial acts on entertainment programming conducted by Greenberg and his colleagues in the mid 1970s. Our purpose is to determine if the frequency of antisocial behavior has changed. We found an overall rate of 42.1 antisocial acts per hour which is very similar to Greenberg's rate of 40.8 acts per hour. However, we found that the rate of verbal aggression had increased, especially on situation comedies and action/adventures programs.     

Love is all you need: A content analysis of romantic scenes in Chinese entertainment television

A large sample of entertainment television programs that were aired on 28 channels in China in 2004 was analyzed for romantic and sexual content. Romantic scenes, typically portraying men and women already in committed relationships, appeared in 80% of the 196 programs analyzed. The analysis suggested that, according to Chinese television in the early part of the twenty-first century, emotional love was more important than physical sexual interaction in romantic relationships. More than half of the 1112 romantic scenes analyzed depicted love between the partners without any discussion or display of physical sexual behavior. Only 8% of scenes included discussion or depiction of sexual behavior (e.g., touching, kissing, and intercourse) without some sense that the partners were in a loving, committed relationship. Sexual intercourse was implied or depicted in fewer than 2% of the romantic scenes. Findings are discussed in light of the Chinese government's periodic regulation of sexually suggestive media content and attempts to filter Internet content. The extent to which such content may affect young viewers' perceptions of romantic relationships and sexual behavior is also discussed.     

Deregulation of television broadcast in India: Cultural and informational impacts

Satellite broadcasting in India can be seen as a metaphor for an integrated national agenda, but the newly deregulated marketplace appears to be setting new agendas for satellite broadcasting by government‐controlled Doordarshan. This qualitative analysis argues that moving to total free market may lead to too little development communication. On the other hand, controlled information may lead to cultural domination ('internal media imperialism') over either one of, or both, rural and urban societies. Diffusion of information may work for rural areas, while urban audiences can afford to spend more time on mass entertainers. There is a need to redefine ‘modernization’ in a non‐global context, and that definition should lead a government towards developmental media policy goals. Further, media policies should be bifurcated to address different developmental goals.     

Some effects of American television programs on children in Formosa

A national mail survey of commercial television sales managers was conducted to determine whether and how managerial, organizational, and market factors vary by infomercial clearance practice. Results suggest that infomercial clearance is influenced by certain managerial, station, and market factors, with different factors affecting different clearance practices.     

Program audience duplication: A study of television inheritance effects

Inheritance effects, especially high levels of audience duplication between adjacent programs, are a widely observed but little understood feature of audience behavior. This study places inheritance effects within a theoretical model of television program choice that attributes the general phenomenon to underlying patterns of audience availability. The absolute level of audience duplication between adjacent programs broadcast on the same network is determined by the rating of each program, the structure of available program options, and similarities in program type.     

Communicating deviance: The effects of television news coverage of social protest

Past research raises concern that media coverage may unfairly bias the audience against social protesters by portraying them as deviant. Furthermore, negative treatment of protest groups may discourage protest as a form of democratic participation. To examine whether such concerns are indeed warranted, an experiment was conducted exposing 266 subjects to one of two television news stories about the same protest. Results indicate that subtle differences in the news stories led to significant differences in subjects’ perceptions of the protesters and police, but no differences in perceptions of the utility of social protest in general.     

Commercial television in Japan

Broadcasting trade papers in recent months have devoted an increasing amount of attention to the rapid strides being made by commercial television in various nations abroad. In this issue of the Journal, Richard Friedman presents an intensive analysis of commercial television in Japan, the result of several months' research in that country recently.     

Public relations in educational television

This is the report of a limited inquiry into public relations activities of educational television stations, showing how educational broadcasters have at least one problem in common with their commercial brethren —namely, the need to publicize their efforts.     

Violence on television in Asia

Tan Yew Soon and Soh Yew Peng The Development of Singapore's Modern Media Industry Times Academic Press, Singapore 1994, pp. 263     

Diversity in local television news

This study was designed to determine if VCR satisfaction, VCR use, and interpersonal communication about VCRs are related to three functions: home entertainment, displacement, and social utility. A survey of VCR households yielded 338 responses. Differential patterns were found across the three functions.     

对电视娱乐节目发展趋势的思考

中国电视娱乐节目的出现与发展 ,是社会转型期精神需求与价值重建过程的必然结果 ,经历了快乐 -真情 -游戏三种模式 ,呈现出大众性、平民化与商业化的发展趋势 ;娱乐节目在强化突出娱乐消遣功能的同时 ,不能忽视社会效益 ;娱乐节目应力求创新 ,早日实现本土化 ,推进娱乐向纵深发展     

Formal features in children's science television: Sound effects,visual pace,and topic shifts

This study analyzes the auditory, visual, and information‐presentation pace of children's science television programs. These half‐hour programs averaged more than 19 sound effects per minute, 14 visual changes (cuts, wipes, and fades/dissolves) per minute, and more than 27 topic shifts per program. These results indicate that the current crop of programs presents content at a pace that may reduce their effectiveness.     

Employment outlook in radio and television

Excerpts from “Employment Outlook in Radio and Television Broadcasting Occupations,”; a 16‐page reprint extracted from the Occupational Outlook Handbook, 7957 Edition, of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, pp. 554–64. The reprint was issued as the Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin No. 1215, 1958, and is available upon request from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D.C.     

Directions in television and aging research

Following from a summary review of television and aging research studies, methodological difficulties of past investigations and needed directions for future mass communication and aging research are discussed.     

Doctoral dissertations in radio and television

The perceived social realism of television series featuring families with children and adolescents was studied. For the two family series they watched the most, 460 2nd, 6th, and 10th graders indicated the percentage of real‐life American families they believed were like the television family on 13 different characteristics. Findings suggest that perceived social realism judgments are sensitive to content, as are developmental patterns in judgment. They further suggest that disparate findings among previous studies of age changes in perceived social realism may be explained by age, the content judged, the realism criterion used for judgment, and familiarity with both the content and its real‐life referents.     

The selectors of television programs

Difficulties in indexing the degree of motivation or attention to television by people in the same room with a “live” television set have long been recognized. One element of this problem has been the question of determining which member of the household actually makes the selection of specific program or channel, and whether there are differences between types of households or socio‐economic classes that are related to different patterns of channel or program selection.