ERIC Number: ED149396
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1977-Dec
Pages: 17
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Selective Exposure to Discrepant Entertainment and News/Documentary Television Programs.
Surlin, Stuart H.
This study tests the hypothesis that discrepant information will receive greater exposure and will reach the desired audience when presented within the context of a news/documentary television program (task-oriented programming) instead of televised entertainment (non-task-oriented programming). After 134 college students completed a scale that measured them for authoritarianism, they rated their desire to view each of four program concepts described as either congruent or discrepant with their personal attitudes. The study's results tend to support the hypothesis: low-authoritarian (open-minded) television viewers tended to prefer to receive discrepant information from news/documentary rather than from entertainment programs; to a lesser degree, this same pattern held for high-authoritarian (close-minded) television viewers. The study concludes that prior knowledge of program content affects one's desire to watch. (RL)
Publication Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: N/A
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Note: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association (63rd, Washington, D.C., December 1-4, 1977)