Parent and Child Media Exposure,Preschooler Dietary Intake,and Preschooler Healthy‐Meal Schemas in the Context of Food Insecurity

Media exposure is correlated with child obesity, yet the family behaviors underlying this link remain poorly understood. Using data from a sample of U.S. parents and their preschoolers, this study assessed parent and child exposure to 5 different media along with child dietary intake. Child healthy‐meal schemas were measured with the Placemat Protocol, a novel play‐based pretend meal assembly activity. Child and parent commercial TV viewing predicted greater obesogenic dietary intake for children in food‐secure but not food‐insecure households. Child commercial TV viewing also predicted a greater proportion of energy‐dense to total foods in children's pretend healthy meals. Discussion focuses on food insecurity as a potential moderator of marketing effects and calls for continued research on child meal schema development.     

Television News and the Cultivation of Fear of Crime

Why has the public persisted in believing that violent crime is a widespread national problem in the U.S. despite declining trends in crime and the fact that crime is concentrated in urban locations? Cultivation theory suggests that widespread fear of crime is fueled in part by heavy exposure to violent dramatic programming on prime‐time television. Here we explore a related hypothesis: that fear of crime is in part a by‐product of exposure to crime‐saturated local television news. To test this, as well as related and competing hypotheses, we analyzed the results of a recent national survey of perceived risk; a 5‐year span of the General Social Survey (1990–1994); and the results of a recent survey of over 2,300 Philadelphia residents. The results indicate that across a wide spectrum of the population and independent of local crime rates, viewing local television news is related to increased fear of and concern about crime. These results support cultivation theory's predicted effects of television on the public.     

The Impact of Parents “Friending” Their Young Adult Child on Facebook on Perceptions of Parental Privacy Invasions and Parent–Child Relationship Quality

This study examined whether a parent “friending” his/her child on Facebook.com influenced the parent–child relationship and perceptions of parental privacy invasions. One hundred and eighteen parent–young adult child dyads were randomly assigned to an experimental group where the parent was asked to create a Facebook account, “friend” his/her child, and use the account over 2 months or a control group where the parent did not have a Facebook account. Having a parent on Facebook did not result in perceptions of greater privacy invasions, but was associated with decreased conflict in the parent–child relationship. When the parent and child had a more conflicted relationship prior to the parent joining Facebook, the parent's presence on Facebook also enhanced the child's closeness with the parent.     

Effects of Sexually Objectifying Media on Self-Objectification and Body Surveillance in Undergraduates: Results of a 2-Year Panel Study

This study used objectification theory (B. L. Fredrickson & T.-A. Roberts, 1997) to predict that the media's insidious practice of objectifying bodies socializes individuals to take an outsider's perspective on the physical self (i.e., self-objectify) and to habitually monitor their appearance (i.e., engage in body surveillance). To test these hypotheses, a 2-year panel study using an undergraduate sample was conducted. Cross-lagged path models showed that exposure to sexually objectifying television measured during Year 1 increased trait self-objectification (trait SO) during Year 2 for both women and men. At the same time, trait SO during Year 1 decreased exposure to sexually objectifying television during Year 2, suggesting that both male and female participants selectively avoided sexually objectifying television based on antecedent trait SO. Moreover, exposure to sexually objectifying television and magazines increased body surveillance for men only. The discussion focuses on the process by which the media create body-focused perceptions.     

Engaging in Violence on American Television: A Comparison of Child, Teen, and Adult Perpetrators

This study examines the perpetrators of violence on American television in terms of their chronological age. In particular, the content analysis compares the amount and nature of violence committed by child and teen characters to that committed by adult characters. The results suggest that younger perpetrators are depicted in several ways that pose risks for the child viewer. Compared to adult perpetrators, child perpetrators are more often portrayed as attractive, are less likely to be punished for aggression, and engage in violence that results in fewer negative consequences to their victims. In addition, these younger characters are disproportionately featured on the very programs and channels that are targeted to the child audience. The findings are discussed in terms of children's attention to, and social learning from different types of characters on television.     

Involved,Transported, or Emotional? Exploring the Determinants of Change in Knowledge,Attitudes, and Behavior in Entertainment‐Education

This study examined how 3 constructs—involvement with a specific character, involvement with the narrative (Green and Brock's construct of transportation), and viewers' emotional reaction to the narrative—produce entertainment‐education (EE) effects. A pretest/posttest survey of 167 regular viewers measured the effects of exposure to a lymphoma storyline on a television drama, Desperate Housewives. Transportation or involvement with the narrative was the best predictor of change in relevant knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. Although involvement with a specific character has been hailed an important direct predictor of EE effects, a structural equation model indicated that character involvement may be more important for its ability to heighten transportation and emotion, which, in turn, produce changes in viewers' knowledge, attitudes, and behavior.     

What I Watch and Who I Am: National Pride and the Viewing of Local and Foreign Television in Israel

This study examines the relationship between various measures of exposure to and preference for Israeli television (as opposed to imported foreign programs) and the degree of national pride. Survey results ( n = 408) show that over and above strict demographic, ideological, and general television viewing control measures, viewers who preferred Israeli channels and news programs did not feel more proud of being Israeli. However, the proportion of Israeli favorite television characters did predict national pride. Furthermore, evidence of a relationship between favorite programs and pride that is mediated through favorite characters was indicated. Results are discussed in the context of measurement of television exposure, social effects of media, and television globalization.     

Implications of cognitive and affective involvement for channel changing

In this study I focused on channel changing as an aspect of the selectivity dimension of audience activity, and explored the influence of cognitive involvement (attention to and mental engagement with a television program) and perceived affective reactions (positive and negative) on channel changing. Questionnaires were completed by 222 adult respondents who owned remote control devices. Pearson and partial correlations provided preliminary support for the study's hypotheses. LISREL analysis also revealed partial support. In general, the results point out that channel changing while watching a television program is both a reflection of lack of interest and an avoidance behavior. When viewers are not mentally engaged with the program, and are experiencing negative affective reactions to the content, channel changing increases. The discussion links the study's findings to selective exposure research and notes implications for media effects.     

Encountering “Difference” in the Contemporary Public Sphere: The Contribution of the Internet to the Heterogeneity of Political Discussion Networks

This study explores the intersection of media use, political discussion, and exposure to political difference through a focus on how Internet use might affect the overall heterogeneity of people's political discussion networks. Advanced and tested herein is the inadvertency thesis, which theorizes that limitations of selective exposure processes combined with weakened social boundaries found in the online environment suggest that people may be exposed to at least some additional political difference online, if only inadvertently. Hierarchical regression and mediation analyses confirm that online political discussion (directly) and online news (directly and indirectly) bear small yet significant relationships to the overall heterogeneity of political discussion networks, and that partisanship moderates the relationship between online political discussion and political discussion network heterogeneity.     

Predicting exposure to and uses of television violence

The uses-and-gratifications tradition posits that individual needs for stimulation and for information vary systematically. These needs may affect what media sources and other stimuli are accessed by individuals. In this study we sampled adolescents and college students to examine (a) the relation between sensation seeking and exposure to violent and nonviolent television, and (b) the subsequent role that violent television may play among high sensation-seeking adolescents in their exposure to risky behaviors. Two sensation-seeking dimensions, disinhibition (positively) and experience seeking (negatively), related to adolescents' exposure to violent television. In addition, among sensation seekers, those who exhibit risk-taking behavior were not similar to those who watched violent television, making it unlikely that the two sets of behaviors can compensate for one another. We discuss implications and directions for future research.     

Please Your Self: Social Identity Effects on Selective Exposure to News About In‐ and Out‐Groups

Hypotheses were tested in a secondary data analysis of an experiment on selective exposure to positive and negative news articles about same‐ and differently aged individuals. A sample of 178 young (18–30 years) and 98 older adults (50–65 years) browsed an online news magazine while reading times were logged by software. Younger individuals (high status, high uncertainty) generally focused their reading on same‐aged individuals, with a preference on positive news about this in‐group. Older recipients (low‐status, low uncertainty) were more likely to select negative news about young individuals than positive news about this out‐group and negative news about older individuals. Furthermore, exposure to negative news about younger individuals bolstered older recipients' self‐esteem.     

日本数字电视地面传输标准背景分析

介绍日本数字电视地面传输标准发展过程,重点就其产生背景进行讨论分析。     

Planning considerations for domestic replacement satellites

Several domestic satellite systems have been more than 10 years in operation. During this time, the world has experienced a dramatic growth in communication. While the demand for more telephony and data circuits and television channels is still on the rise, new methods of signal transmission and circuit compression have been developed which may balance or reduce the need for more satellite trunk capacity. And while whole national networks are converting to digital transmission, new transmission media like optical fibre, are finding application, and may take over some of the heavy traffic routes previously carried by satellite. On the other side, business data communication between roof-top terminals, thin route traffic to remote users, television distribution by direct satellite broadcasting are becoming more popular and satellite land mobile communication may soon be a reality. Thus the domestic satellite's role appears to be slowly changing towards thin route and mobile traffic and DBS-type distribution and perhaps even radio position determination. System planners are adapting to the new trends in satellite communication and are trying to accommodate the various service payloads on a single satellite. This article discusses some aspects of the emerging multi-purpose domestic satellite, which carries fixed and mobile services, TV direct broadcasting and radio position determination, in view of network digitalization, network expansion, circuit compression, synchronization. The discussion centres on transponder supply and demand, satellite replenishment, K_u-band vs. C-band for TV direct satellite broadcasting, choice of modulation/multiple access for mobile communication, and expected accuracy in radio position determination.     

Bottom‐Up Technology Transmission Within Families: Exploring How Youths Influence Their Parents' Digital Media Use With Dyadic Data

This study investigated the bottom‐up technology transmission process in a country with varied levels of technology diffusion, such as Chile. It explored to what extent children teach their parents how to use digital media and proposed a typology of factors related to this process. By relying on a mixed‐methods design—which combined interviews with an original survey—and dyadic data, it found that the transmission occurs for all the technologies investigated, although children's influence should not be overstated. This process was more likely to occur among women and people from lower socioeconomic status, and it was also associated with less authoritarian parents and more fluid parent–child interactions.     

Young Females' Images of Motherhood in Relation to Television Viewing

This study explored the relationship between television viewing and young females' images of motherhood. The respondents were 166 Dutch adolescents (age 15–17) and young women (age 20–22) with various educational backgrounds. None were mothers. We examined the young females' self-image and ideal image of motherhood and explored the extent to which television viewing and viewing motives were related to these images. It was not the total amount of television exposure, but the exposure to certain sitcoms and soaps that appeared to be related to girls' and young women's images of their future motherhood. Sitcoms and soaps that portrayed mothers with a more traditional orientation were associated with young females' anticipation of a traditional motherhood image. Motives for television viewing, indicating a ritualized viewing style, were also related to a traditional view of motherhood.     

Journalism,Poverty, and the Marketing of Misery: News From Chile's “Largest Ghetto”

Research on the news coverage of poverty has largely overlooked the agency of the actors involved. This study addressed this gap by combining ethnographic fieldwork in a poor neighborhood with an analysis of television news about the neighborhood and interviews with the journalists who produced this news. The analysis shows a relationship between journalists and poor people significantly more complex than the relationship described in previous research: Journalists and poor people marketed the neighborhood's misery collaboratively. They shaped news in ways that could be stigmatizing, but that served their converging interests. By acknowledging that structure and agency presuppose each other, this paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of journalism, as well as to efforts to address poverty's symbolic injustice.     

Overrepresentation and underrepresentation of African Americans and Latinos as lawbreakers on television news

We conducted a content analysis of a random sample of local television news programming in Los Angeles and Orange counties to assess representations of Blacks, Latinos, and Whites as lawbreakers and law defenders. 'Intergroup' comparisons of perpetrators (Black and Latino vs. White) revealed that Blacks and Latinos are significantly more likely than Whites to be portrayed as lawbreakers on television news. 'Interrole' comparisons (lawbreakers vs. law defenders) revealed that Blacks and Latinos are more likely to be portrayed as lawbreakers than as defenders, whereas Whites are significantly more likely to be portrayed as defenders than as lawbreakers. 'Interreality' comparisons of lawbreakers (television news vs. crime reports from the California Department of Justice) revealed that Blacks are overrepresented as lawbreakers, and Latinos and Whites are underrepresented as lawbreakers on television news compared to their respective crime rates obtained from the California Department of Justice for Los Angeles and Orange counties. Interreality comparisons of law defenders (television news vs. county employment records) revealed that Whites are overrepresented, Latinos are underrepresented, and Blacks are neither over- nor underrepresented as police officers on television news compared to employment reports. We speculate on the psychological effects of exposure to these intergroup, interrole, and interreality differentials on television news viewers.     

The (Non)Violent World of YouTube: Content Trends in Web Video

In this content analysis, we examined violence in Web‐based entertainment. YouTube videos (N = 2,520) were collected in 3 different categories: most viewed, top rated, and random, with additional comparisons between amateur and professional content. Frequencies of violent acts and the context of violence (e.g., characteristics of perpetrator and victim, justification, consequences) were compared both between these categories of YouTube videos and with existing research on television violence. The results showed far less violence as a percentage of programming on YouTube than there is on television. Moreover, the violence that was present showed more realistic consequences and more negative context than television violence. Post hoc comparisons illustrated several differences in the presentation of violence between make and category of video.