Children's Television Viewing: An Examination of Parent-Child Consensus

Abstract

This study examines parental control over children's television viewing, as reported by parents, and as reported by the children themselves. The general survey results reveal a significant pattern of parental exaggeration. Parents claimed significantly lower viewing by their children, stricter household rules governing viewing, more co-viewing with children, greater parent-child interaction, and lower susceptibility to commercials than the children themselves reported. Parental exaggeration was also found to increase with social class, suggesting that a social desirability bias underlies the general pattern of idealized reporting of television control by parents. Much attention has been focused on the effects of television on young viewers. No matter what the allegation-whether it concerns violent programs, seductive commercials, or simply excessive time spent in front of the set-a frequent defense by spokespersons for the television industry is that parental control is an available safeguard. However, two decades of research have yet to establish the extent to which parents do in fact exercise control over their children's television viewing. With the exception of one study (to our knowledge), the evidence on parental control has been derived from parental self-reports. Doubts as to the validity of parental reports are raised by the existing evidence. Survey estimates of fanmily viewing based on adult self-reports consistently yield lower figures than those obtained by Nielsen audimeter records (Steiner, 1963; Lyle, 1971). Although