The study uses content analysis research technique to find parenting behaviors in family-oriented, prime-time television programs.  To collect data for the study a sample family-oriented prime-time television programs were selected, videotaped, and coded, using a technique that groups clips together.  The population for the study included all family-orientated television series.  Prime-time television included between 7:00 and 10:00 pm.  The study uses the coding units instrumental, expressive, neutral, authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, neutral, positive, and negative.  The results of the study were that the demographics of the families observed in the television programs being coded include seventeen dual parent families, twelve single parent female-headed families, twenty single parent male headed families, and eight ‘other’ family types.  Overall, the study found about twenty parenting behaviors were observed per program and thirty per hour of programming.  The study also found that more male parental role expressions were observed than were female expressions.  More child responses occurred when there was an interaction between a father and child than a mother and child.  There was no significant difference found in the children’s responses to fathers due to the parental role that fathers have. The study did find a difference when it was the mother.  The study shows that there is proof that television is a major source of messages about life.  An interesting fact is that the study found a large number of single parent male headed households being presented on television.

Dail Paula W. and Wendy L. Way. 1985. “What Do Parents Observe about Parenting from Prime Time Television” Family Relations(34)(4) National Council on Family Relations. 491-499. 

Taylor is testing three hypothesis. First, to see individuals who view sexual television content will have more permissive sexual attitudes and beliefs than individuals who do not. Secondly, testing to see if individuals who view sexual television content as realistic are more likely to have sexual attitudes and beliefs than those who view them to be less realistic. Lastly, Taylor is testing to see if individuals who read sexual television content will have more permissive sexual attitudes and beliefs than whose who view similar behaviors visually. Taylor does this through 188 undergraduates who are taking an introductory communications courses. They were then divided into two control groups and an experimental group. The experimental group received stimulus materials, whether watched or read, randomly. The first control group received paragraphs from magazines and the second received nonsexual television content. After viewing, participants were asked to measure sexual attitudes and beliefs in a survey. To test sexual attitudes and beliefs, Taylor used a Premarital Sexual Permissiveness Scale. This includes a five-item measure of statements that include sexual intercourse on the first date, casually dating, serious dating, and so on. Sexual beliefs were measured by asking to estimate how many males and females were sexually active. When viewing clips, they were asked to indicate on a scale from one to five (five being realistic). For the first hypothesis, it was found that there was no significant difference between sexually permissive attitudes, estimates of sexually active male peers or female peers. For the second hypothesis, there was a difference between different kinds of sexual content and how realistic it is. Lastly, viewing had an effect on sexual beliefs with those with are higher in perceived realism. An interesting find was that gender played a major affect on beliefs about a females sexual activity.

Taylor, Laramie D. 2005. “Effects of Visual and Verbal Sexual Television Content and Perceived Realism on Attitudes and Beliefs”. The Journal of Sex Research (42) (2).Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 130-137.

The study is seeking to answer four questions relating to finding out whether: children invest more mental effort in reading than watching television, books being perceived to have made higher demands than television, children thinking that are more capable of learning from television than from books, and looking at television and how the perceived self-efficacy is negatively correlated to mental effort. The study was conducted with sixth-graders from five middle-class elementary schools in the Netherlands. To test the amount of invested mental effort, the individuals being tested had a four-point scale to see how hard they try to understand nine books and television programs. Through this, they are utilizing reports of acts. To test perceived self-efficacy individuals used a four-point scale to test how easy it would be for them to learn ten topics from books and television programs. To test perceived demand characteristics individuals were tested in two ways. First, on a five-point scale, they had to report on how lifelike television and books are and how important it is to know who the producer or author is. Second, on a to a four-choice questionnaire, they were asked why a hypothetical child did or did not completely understand a book or television program. The questionnaires were done in each of the subjects classrooms. A result of this study was that unlike the Salomon study they did not find an alpha value for the questions about how real book and television are. An interesting find from this study was that there was a negative correlation when testing the perceived demand characteristics between books and television programs. Overall, since the study is collecting reports of acts, the study could have collected the data through interviews.

Beentjes, Johannes W. J. 1989. “Learning from Television and Books: A Dutch Replication Study Based on Salomon’s Model”. Educational Technology Research and Development. Vol. 37. No. 2. 47-58.  

All three of the authors look into the role of the perceived gender of an infant and the gender of an adolescent on ratings of the infant.  To do so, thirty-six junior high students; eighteen boys and eighteen girls; will view a photo of a 3-month-old infant.  The students will receive a name for the infant or not.  The names that are received will either be Larry or Laurie.  The students will tan rate the infant on a scale of firm/soft, big/little, strong/weak, hardy/delicate, well coordinated/awkward, and beautiful/plain. The scale that will be used is 1-5.  For example, for big/little 1 would be big and little would be 5. The same scale was used for each pairing. It was predicted that both the name that was given to the infant and the students’ gender would affect the ratings.  The study was motivated by how sex-stereotyped perceptions of infants change during the time of adolescents.  Another prediction is that males and females will rate the infant differently regardless of the name given.  Lastly, it was predicted that the effect of the infants’ perceived gender depends on the adolescents’ gender.  If they find that the results are what they predicted than the generality of sex-stereotyped perceptions of infants will be extended to adolescents.  One limitation they find is the use of only one photograph of one infant of a specific age.  An interesting aspect of the study is that they expect to find girls to rate infants more beautiful than boys do.  I think that the study may find challenges in how the setting in the photo will affect the perceptions of the infant. 

Degelman , Douglas , Veronika Dvorak, and Julie Ann Homutoff. 2010. “Effect of Infant’s Perceived Gender on Adolescents’ Ratings of the Infant.” Vanguard University of Southern California. Accessed March 12, 2017. http:/www.vanguard.edu/psychology/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/proposal.pdf. 

The study conducted by Kouider Mokhtari , Carla A. Reichard, and Anne Gardner investigate how internet and television use impacts a college student in terms of their recreational reading and academic reading.  A hypothesis was that the internet created a change in how students would spend their time. The authors wanted to find if the trend in American reading less, having low reading skills, and that these declines impacted a negative civic, social, and economic implications was true for college students.  The questions that the authors asked included: How much time do college students spend on recreational and academic reading? What influences do internet and television use have on students’ reading habits and practices?  To find out these answers they performed a time-diary survey with a random sample of 4,500 undergraduate college students who attend a highly selective midwestern university.  The respondents received an email to voluntary participate in the survey.  Those who more likely to respond were female, full-time students, and their age was twenty-three or younger.  They found that students reported spending their time more on the internet than they did on academic reading, television watching, or recreational reading.  Also, found that a majority of respondents performed other activities while recreationally reading, academically reading, television watching, and using the internet.  An interesting find was that students spent significantly more time using the internet on Mondays and they did on Saturdays. Overall, I think the study showed a reality of how college students engage in recreational reading, academic reading, watching television, and Internet use.  I think it would have interesting to see if the study would have similar results if it was done in a public college rather than a highly selective midwestern university.

Mokhtari, Kouider, Carla A. Reichard, and Anne Gardner. “The Impact of Internet and Television Use on the Reading Habits and Practices of College Students.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 52.7 (2009): 609-19. Jstor . Web. 18 Feb. 2017. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/20468414>.

The article by Gene H. Brody, Zolinda Stoneman, and Alice K. Sanders researched the effects in family interactions while viewing television.  Through an observational study, the researchers viewed twenty-seven middle-class families for twenty minutes.  For the first half families would watch television. With the time remaining, they would play with their children.  The families were selected from a family center located in a community in northeast Georgia. The families were observed in a living room setting through a one-way mirror.  The authors went through this research asking two questions: How do family interactions that characterize television-viewing influence cognitive, language, and social development? and Could it be that television is such a powerful attention-getter that it decreases both verbal and nonverbal communication within the family system? What they found through observing the children was that they talked less and tended to be less active when playing with their family.  They were more likely to touch their mother than father when the television was on.  Through observing the mother they found a large amount of physical contact between them and their children when the television was on. Observing the father they found that they were less likely to smile, talk, and look at their children while the television was on.  An interesting find was that the television was seen as a stimulus for the fathers and children. It also served to change the interactions of the family members to each other.  It would have been interesting if the authors viewed families with different backgrounds instead of focusing on Caucasian middle-class families to see if the interactions differed or stayed the same. 

Brody, Gene H., Zolinda Stoneman, and Alice K. Sanders. “Effects of Television Viewing on Family Interactions: An Observational Study.” Family Relations 29.2 (1980): 216-20. Jstor . Web. 12 Feb. 2017.

“Voters’ Attention, Perceived Effects, and Voting Preferences: Negative Political Advertising in the 2006 Ohio Governor’s Election.” by Jennette Lovejoy, Hong Cheng, and Daniel Riffe question how an individuals political interest is influenced through campaign news, advertising, and negative advertising. The authors conducted a statewide survey and found that individuals who stated that they paid attention to advertisements and negative advertisements experienced effects on themselves and others.  The authors conclude that this finding probably comes from the election race itself.  The authors state the two research questions being asked: Does candidate preference predict attention to political ads in general and to negative political ads in particular? and How well do candidate preference and attention to political ads in general and to negative political ads in particular predict beliefs about the effects of those ads? To gain this information they phoned randomly selected numbers and conducted surveys/questionaries through the demographic of Ohio. The respondents were given a five-point scale, one being not interested at all to five being very interested to show their interest in the governor’s race. They were also asked about the issues that the candidates spoke about and were given a scale to one meaning that they paid no attention to five meaning that they pay a lot of attention.  Lastly, they were asked if they pay attention to political advertisements on television using a scale from one being not at all to five being a great deal. The authors found that political interest was related to whether or not an individual pays attention to political advertising and negative advertising.  An interesting finding was that negative advertisements did not influence a decrease in individuals coming to elections. I think this study illustrates at a shallow level how an individuals political interest is influenced through the media. 

Lovejoy, Jennette, Hong Cheng, and Daniel Riffe. “Voters’ Attention, Perceived Effects, and Voting Preferences: Negative Political Advertising in the 2006 Ohio Governor’s Election.” Mass Communication and Society 13.5 (2010): 487-511.

In the article, “The Interplay Between Media Use and Interpersonal Communication in the Context of Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors: Reinforcing or Substituting?” by Chul-Joo Lee, Lee explores how media exposure and interpersonal communication effect and impact healthy lifestyle behaviors. Lee found that healthy lifestyle behaviors are heightened among people who talk about health issues with their family and friends less often. Which is interesting considering that most people who talk about what they are interested in and it is reflective in their life. The question that Lee is after in this article is whether or not there is a relationship between how the media uses health information and what is the effect of it on people in terms of a healthy lifestyle.  To find this information out Lee tested a sample size 2,107 United States citizens who were noninstitutionalized that were age eighteen and older. To test his question Lee conducted surveys asking about how often exercise, smoke, drink, and how much vegetables and fruits they eat.  For the testing the media Lee asked to rate from one (being not at all) to four (a few times a week) for how often you use print media, television, and internet for health information. Interpersonal health communication was measured the same way.  Lee’s research examines whether not a relationship exists and I think that the approach of this was done affectively. Lee focused on four aspects that are related to health but I think the study could have improved with other aspects of health like sleep habits. I think an interesting part of this study is that print media use did not interact with interpersonal health considering that print media is the original form of media.  This makes me think that digital media is taking quickly making print media obsolete.   

Lee, Chul-Joo. “The Interplay Between Media Use and Interpersonal Communication in the Context of Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors: Reinforcing or Substituting?” Mass Communication and Society 13.1 (2010): 48-66.