Traditional Television Research Articles

With malice toward all?: the media and public confidence in democratic institutions

Preface Crisis of Confidence Erosion of Confidence The Question of Causality Media Influence on Confidence Design of the Studies Media Depictions The Print Media's Contribution The Effects of Traditional Television News The Effects of Television Programming The Effects of Political Talk Radio Conclusions Bibliography Index

Exploring the role of media uses and gratifications in multimedia cable adoption

As new technologies prompt a convergence of content and delivery modalities, traditionally distinct media are now beginning to compete for audiences, program inputs and advertising dollars. The present study explores audience demand components for enhanced (multimedia) cable service in the context of uses and gratifications theory. Results reveal positive relationships between perceived motives associated with the use of both traditional television and emerging multimedia cable modalities. This finding is consistent with other work which negates the displacement function of online services over traditional mediated communication use.

Home and Away: Television Discourse in Transition

Television in Europe is going through a period of transition. The 'second age' of broadcasting was the age of television: the new, or 'third age' is a television age of a different kind, as Europeans move into a multi-channel environment. The new multi-channel environment underpins a fragmentation of the audience into smaller viewing groups than those which traditional television could command. In addition, this environment has the power to destabilise the experience of individual viewers, who may become less sure than before of what they are watching, who is talking to them and when, and where the broadcast is originating from. The new viewing environment can produce juxtapositions which are unplanned in any production process. The kinds of juxtapositions which are of most importance in coming to terms with the new TV world are those which affect phenomenological stability, namely the parameters of space and time. Those new temporal and spatial relations, which viewers must engage with in constructing te...

Designing courses for the Internet. A conceptual approach.

One current higher education paradigm shift is the movement from traditional classroom settings and interactive television satellite transmission to course and program delivery via the World Wide Web (WWW). The authors describe the experiences of faculty in reconceptualizing and redesigning course and program delivery via the Internet. An electronic "template" has been collaboratively developed by multidisciplinary university partners to facilitate this work. The template incorporates an advanced nursing practice conceptual framework based on American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) core educational essentials for advanced practice combined with a continuum of electronic course tools. Strategies, tools, and applications are discussed.

Implications of Home Technology for School Decision-Making

Surveys at a midwestern middle school showed that most students have much greater access to computer technology than previously predicted, including such sophisticated accessories as graphics packages, scanners, fax, and modems for e-mail. Both students and teachers reported the need for learning and using computer technology the way adults use it in the workplace. While students want the hardware and software to produce original, professional-looking documents, teachers want both traditional television hookups and cutting-edge instructional tools. The ongoing controversy about computer placement in labs versus classrooms appears to be a function of shortage within a technology vision balancing equity and efficiency. Teachers are virtually unanimous in wanting all teachers to have at least one computer in their classrooms while concurring in the need for grouped computers for instruction in some classrooms. Reliable, empirical information about students' and teachers' exposure to and application of computer technology outside of schools is essential when school personnel struggle with the decision-making that accompanies the spread of technology in education.

Aspects of Testing in Modern Television Systems

In the past 50 years, methods of testing television systems have progressed from the use of general purpose oscilloscopes to a well-defined set of measurements using television-specific instruments. Introduction of digital techniques into the traditional analog television system, over the past 15 years, has increased the range of specifications to be evaluated but has not changed the basic testing paradigm for video, indirect measurement using test signals. Although there are many useful compression algorithms, MPEG-2 appears to be the most universal, along with its widely accepted system definition for the transmission of additional data encountered in multimedia applications. Introduction of practical video compression techniques has added a whole new dimension to video measurement methods, the need for instruments to directly measure picture quality. The MPEG-2 transport stream, with its small packets, was developed for transmission systems and can be used to carry all types of data. This paper outlines a layered model for systems and testing analogous to the open systems interconnection (OSI) model for communications systems. Methods of picture quality measurement are discussed followed by a description of the MPEG-2 transport stream and test methods for its analysis and generation.

Tabloid and Traditional Television News Magazine Crime Stories: Crime Lessons and Reaffirmation of Social Class Distinctions

In recent times, critics have charged that tabloid news emphasizes and sensationalizes criminal behavior - thereby violating the journalistic ideal of providing objective information to the citizens of a democratic society. Yet, these claims have not been subjected to systematic investigation. This study compares tabloid and traditional broadcast news magazine programs in terms of their emphasis on crime and the content of their crime narratives. Results indicate that tabloid shows are more likely than traditional shows to feature crime stories. Both types of programs give crime stories similar prominence, and the content is relatively similar. However, tabloid shows are more likely than traditional shows to present the criminal as belonging to the middle or upper class. By contrast, traditional shows are more likely to present the criminal as belonging to the working class.

A study for interactive TV via satellite

AbstractThe digital compression revolution will offer the possibility of receiving hundreds of TV channels from the same orbital location. Only some of them will be dedicated to traditional television services. The largest part will be utilized for specialized services that will require user interaction. Interaction requires a “reverse channel” from the user site to the service provider premises. In this paper we study the feasibility of such a reverse channel via satellite. After discussing some system options, we focus on the simplest and most attractive one: where the users have the capability of sending information back to the service provider directly through a satellite link. For this solution, we provide a system outline and we present a coding and modulation scheme based on pragmatic‐coded non‐coherent orthogonal M‐FSK concatenated with shortened Reed‐Solomon codes which is able to meet the transmission requirements. Next, we address the problem of symbol‐timing and carrier frequency offset open‐loop estimation for short burst TDMA transmission with non‐coherent M‐FSK modulation. Finally, we discuss some particular network aspects of such a reverse channel.

Marginal Body and Bourgeois Cosmology1: The British Acrobat in Reference to Sport

While watching the performance of travelling circuses in Britain in the late 1970s, an outsider would have been struck by the similarity between circus acrobatics and performances within gymnastics' halls. The circus trapeze performance bears great resemblance to gymnasts' rings and trapeze exercises. Likewise, the circus trampoline act is similar to the gymnast's trampoline routines; wire walking in the circus (especially low wire walking) is similar to balancing on a beam; the circus spring board act is similar to gymnastics; and the tumbler's tricks in the circus are similar to the gymnast's ground exercises. Apparent as these similarities have seemed to an outsider's eye, they were, however, entirely irrelevant to the local public seated in the circus tent. For them, circus and sport are worlds apart. Sport has long been a serious matter in Britain. Thousands of people take part as amateurs, and millions as spectators. Its part in the total consumer expenditure is constantly growing (Hargreaves, 1986: 132), as is the amount of newspaper space and time on radio and television devoted to sports (Hargreaves, ibid., chs. 7, 8; Mason, 1988: 46-58). For many people, sport is of the central, if not the central source of identification, meaning and gratification in their life (Dunning, 1986: 205). is different. The circus performance itself is confined to isolated, esoteric travellers, and is not regularly practiced by others. The circus is hardly presented in newspaper columns and only seldom on television programs. A circus show will be attended perhaps once a year when it comes to town, and is watched in the already traditional television program on Christmas morning. That a circus performance can sometimes be combined with elements of sport is known to the public from their acquaintance with Eastern European performances. athletes and acrobats visited London in 1979, and other Eastern European gymnastics on television also integrated some circus elements. However, these hybrids were considered and experienced as alien. The circus' prominence is indeed in children's book and toys and is a subject of folklore as well as a metaphor in daily language. is considered as irrelevant to sport not only by the public in the circus tent, but also by the circus travelers themselves. In the Brown Circus with which I travelled, sport was not considered a threat. The circus performers were sure that they were playing to a different public. In addition, there was not even one case of a circus losing a performer to sport and no sportsperson trying to join performing circus travellers in the late 1970s. Given the similarities between acrobatics and sport, what is it that makes circus acrobatics so distinct and apart from sport in the eyes of the British public, and what is it that differentiates the world of the acrobat from that of the gymnast? And, given the variability of circus framings (e.g., the Russian example), what are the wider contextual conditions in terms of which the separation of circus acrobatics from sport and from the rest of society in Britain can be understood? The first purpose of this paper is to contribute to a long-ignored field of circus etnography and the analysis of the significance of circus body presentation. I illustrate most of my argument through one acrobatic act presented in Jimmy Brown's in Britain during the late 1970s. Sport (the body engaged in gymnastics in particular) is suggested as a comparative reference due to similarities in performance. Beyond a description of the acrobating body and its uniqueness, this paper alludes to body presentation as a perspective for its context, that is, the codes and processes by which its significances are reproduced. An attempt at approaching context through circus has been suggested by Stally-brass and White (1986). Drawing on Bouissac (1976, 1982) and on Bakhtin (1984), circus is interpreted within Bakhtin's concept of the world of the marketplace and the carnivalesque (and see also Featherstone, 1992). …

Differences in the consumption of traditional broadcast and VCR movie rentals

Focus groups, mail surveys, and in‐home observations were used to examine traditional television viewing and VCR movie rental viewing. Viewing preparation, activities during viewing, and eyes‐on‐screen were measured to determine if differences exist with regard to the way television services are consumed. Results indicate that consumers structure their viewing environment to accommodate the different forms of programming and that VCR movie rentals are associated with more active viewing.

History on Television: the Open University series, ‘Britain and America‐‐some visual evidence‘

Abstract Conventionally, television history programmes are made by first settling on a story line, then looking around for visual material to illustrate it, without any attempt to analyse what is being seen on the screen. Visual evidence is in itself of great value in historical study; television programmes should concentrate on those areas where there is a richness of visual source material and should be built up, outwards as it were, from that source material. This is the principle underlying the series of eight Open University programmes entitled Britain and America: some visual evidence, which is an integral part of the new history course Comparative Themes in British and American History. Some of the programmes concentrate strongly on the problems and techniques involved in the critical analysis of different types of visual source; others concentrate almost exclusively on bringing out the value of particular visual sources in making a special contribution to an important historical problem. The programmes invite critical responses from students who require material in the programmes to deal with assignments set elsewhere in the course, and direct analysis is provided by an academic seen clearly in vision. While it would never be possible to deal comprehensively with any historical topic through television alone, nonetheless history could be presented on general television in a more authentic way if the conventions and cliches of traditional television production were jettisoned in favour of a recognition of the potency of visual sources properly and critically handled.

Recognition of Sex-Role Stereotypes in Prime-Time Television

While traditional television characters have typically been portrayed as sex-stereotyped, recently, more unstereotyped characters have been introduced into programming. We proposed that college-age participants, when presented with prime-time characters that have been prerated as examples of stereotyped and unstereotyped portrayals, would perceive the differential stereotypes as represented by ratings of sex-typed traits. Attractiveness and liking ratings were also taken for each of the characters, and sex differences in all of these ratings were explored. Results showed that male and female television characters were rated at the male and female extremes of the scale. Means for the unstereotyped characters were between the masculine and feminine extremes of the stereotyped character means. There was a significant sex of rater × trait interaction, whereby female participants rated the characters as more feminine on the female-valued traits than did male participants. Unstereotyped characters were considered more attractive and more liked than stereotyped characters. Implications for modeling of television characters are discussed.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ALTERNATIVE INSTRUCTIONAL MEDIA: A SURVEY*

This survey provides an overview of research on the effectiveness of alternative instructional media. The media discussed are traditional classroom instruction (TI), instructional radio (IR), instructional television (ITV), programmed instruction (PI), and computer-assisted instruction (CAI). The effectiveness of these media is examined from a reasonably macroscopic point of view; the psychology of pupil-teacher interaction or the 'content variables' of ITV, to take two examples, are at a micro-level not considered. Achievement test scores constitute the measure of effectiveness most frequently used in this survey though, where available, results concerning the affective impact of the various media of instruction are included. Achievement test data, in most cases, were collected only on an annual basis, so they reveal no fine-grained detail about the learning process. Since this survey is relatively brief and its scope broad, a few caveats are in order. First, where literature surveys are available, their results have been cited to the extent possible and, frequently, original sources remain unchecked. Second, available knowledge of the effectiveness of the various media varies considerably; much more is known about TI and ITV than about the others. For this reason a survey such as this is inherently spotty in its conclusions. The third warning, related to the second, is that many of the evaluations fall short of (or lack entirely) scientific standards of analysis and reporting. For this reason, it was sometimes necessary to attempt to cull conclusions from essentially journalistic accounts of projects. Fourth, it should be noted that this survey is limited to instruction within a school setting. Finally, the survey excludes information on costs. Before beginning the literature survey, we present a paradigm for measurement of effectiveness and then discuss several less desirable alternatives that have actually been employed. In the surveys of the individual methods where adequate prior surveys are unavailable, results from a representative sample of individual evaluations are discussed.

Traditional Theater and Modern Television in Japan

Not only does the art-culture relationship exist for all the arts; it exists in the present as well as in the past. The statements art makes about contemporary culture and values, therefore, merit consideration however much they may appear less clear, less tangible, or less susceptible of objective interpretation than the statements art makes about the past. One of the recognized facts of contemporary Japanese culture is the highly advanced technology it has achieved in a relatively short time: