NCJ Number
148976
Editor(s)
G A Comstock,
E A Rubinstein
Date Published
1972
Length
551 pages
Annotation
This first volume of five volumes of technical reports from a broad scientific inquiry into television and its impact on the viewer focuses on the content and control of television programming aimed at children and the prime-time viewing audience.
Abstract
One study analyzes 1 week of fall prime-time and Saturday morning television programming in 1969. It compares the results with the researcher's similar analyses for 1967 and 1968. The study focuses on the quantity and characteristics of the violence portrayed. Another study examines the violence in television programming since it emerged as a major medium in 1953. It also documents violence during various time periods in movies, television news, newspapers, and a family magazine. Results are matched against various measures of environmental violence, such as the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, to test the frequent argument that violence reported and portrayed in the media mirrors violence in the real world. A third study had television critics and members of the public rate television series according to their violent content, thus obtaining data on what viewers perceive as violent. The fourth study interviews producers of children's television programs, with a focus on the factors that influence their selection of content for children's programs. Also on the basis of interviews, another study reports on how the top professionals who produce adult drama perceive their role regarding violent content, the place of violent content in television drama, and efforts to control the frequency and character of violence on television. In the concluding paper, four researchers report on television programming and production, with attention to violence, in the United States, Great Britain, Israel, and Sweden. Tabular data and footnotes accompany the studies.