Robert Abelman

Religious television uses and gratifications

The study approached viewers of religious television as an active audience as defined in uses and gratifications research, and considered the interrelated nature of television motives, and relationships among viewing motives and patterns. Recent religious television programming research suggests an expansion of the conceptual distinction between ritualized and instrumental secular television use. Canonical correlation identified reactionary television use as a third viewing pattern among 210 adult viewers of religious television. Dissatisfaction with secular television, rather than motives associated with religiosity, contributed to this type of use.

What viewers watch when they watch TV: Affiliation change as case study

The investigation reported here lends further support to the interrelated‐ness of television use motives, the identification of instrumental and ritualized patterns in how television is used, and the generalizability of these patterns to times when local television stations change network affiliation. By augmenting traditional measures of viewing affinity and viewer perceptions, this study expands the known parameters of television viewer uses and gratifications and identifies three major viewer archetypes‐medium‐oriented viewers, station‐oriented viewers, and network‐oriented viewers. Implications for theory building and television network audience maintenance and generation strategies are discussed.

The Institutional Vision of Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have been subjected to harsh criticism within the higher education community. A common theme is that the shared and archaic mission of these institutions compromises academic standards and keeps individual schools from effective leadership and competing for financial resources and quality students. A content analysis of the mission and vision statements from HBCUs was performed, and key linguistic components found to constitute a well-conceived, viable, and easily diffused institutional vision were isolated. The prevalence of these components in comparison to other types of academic institutions is discussed, and ways in which this information can be used to address the current challenges facing HBCUs are presented.

The Influence of Network Branding on Audience Affinity for Network Television

ABSTRACT The ongoing proliferation of programming sources greatly diversifies network-viewing choice and may present a basis for viewer confusion in markets where stations switched affiliation. This study explores the influence of affiliate realignments on viewer attendance to and loyalty toward local stations. Perspectives on audience uses and gratifications are applied to viewership data collected from 836 viewers selected from four regions across the United States. The major theoretical assumption tested is whether viewing motivations, awareness levels, and viewing patterns will be interrelated. Results provide mixed support for our model, as prediction equations for audience affinity and awareness measures provide useful models that should help guide network promotions.

The Institutional Vision of Community Colleges: Assessing Style as Well as Substance

Providing an accessible and adaptable education has become an increasingly daunting task for community colleges. Administrators must formulate adaptive strategies as well as purposefully articulate them. A content analysis of the mission and vision statements from a nationwide sample of community colleges was performed, and key linguistic components found to constitute a well conceived, viable, and easily diffused institutional vision were isolated. The prevalence of these components in comparison to other types of academic institutions is discussed.

Fighting the war on indecency: Mediating TV, internet, and videogame usage among achieving and underachieving gifted children

This investigation explores the level, type, and extent of household mediation of television, the Internet, and videogames employed by parents of achieving and underachieving, intellectually gifted children in light of the recently declared “war on indecency.” It examines various child‐rearing practices and perceptions as well as salient child‐oriented attributes and their contribution to how the industry ratings and content‐blocking technologies are adopted into household mediation strategies. How much intervention occurs, what form it takes, and which electronic media are targeted for parental mediation were found to be largely contingent on the childs academic ability, age, and gender. Patterns of media consumption were also found to be significantly different among academically average, underachieving, and achieving gifted children.

What Children Watch When They Watch TV: Putting Theory Into Practice

If advertisers and programmers are to keep pace with the rapid structural and contextual changes in broadcast and cable television, and maintain their young audiences, they must gain a better understanding of childrens viewing motives and viewing patterns. The authors assess the interrelatedness of television use motives and viewing patterns, and investigate perceptions of viewer loyalty network and station identification, and the generalizability of these perceptions to times when local television stations change network affiliation. This study profiles the child televiewing audience and expands the known parameters of television viewer uses and gratifications by identifying three distinctive viewer archetypes-medium- oriented viewers, network-oriented viewers, and station-oriented viewers.

Children's Awareness of Television's Prosocial Fare Parental Discipline as an Antecedent

This study examines the parental disciplinary practices under which childrens awareness of prosocial TV portrayals are likely to be maximized and minimized. Two types of enduring parental styles of discipline—induction and sensitization—were extracted from the literature on childrens moral development and applied to social learning from television. Data were gathered from a field survey that employed mother-child pairs. Results indicate that children of parents who are primarily inductive had a greater awareness of televisions prosocial fare and demonstrated a greater propensity for prosocial solutions to conflict than did children whose parents were primarily sensitizing. These findings are significant in regard to the increasing body of research on the social intervention of the relationship between children and television.

Preaching to the choir: Profiling TV advisory ratings users

This investigation examines parents’ use of the MPAA television advisory ratings in their decision‐making and the manner by which ratings information is incorporated into rules and regulations about television in the home. The parents most likely to utilize TV ratings information, an expected small proportion of the sample, tended to employ a highly inductive (communication‐oriented) style of child rearing and a highly evaluative (discussion‐based) method of TV mediation. They believed that television can have significant positive and/or negative effects on children, and were more concerned with cognitive‐ and affective‐level effects. Interestingly, these parents had children who tended to need mediation the least: average‐to‐high academic achievers who were low‐to‐moderate consumers of television. The possible ramifications of these findings with regard to the new content‐driven ratings campaign and forthcoming V‐chip technology are discussed.

Child giftedness and its role in the parental mediation of television viewing

This study investigated the role of intellectual giftedness in influencing parents’ perceptions and mediation of the television/child relationship. Three hundred sixty‐four gifted children and their parents and 386 traditional children and their parents comprise the sample. Findings suggest that intellectual giftedness and, to a lesser degree, the quantity of childrens television consumption, influence parents’ perceptions of the possible impact of television on their children and the type of mediation strategies they employ. The level of parental mediation remained unaffected.