A test instrument was developed for analyzing the ability of various kinds of viewers to predict what will happen next in various kinds of films. The test instrument was based on the standard verbal cloze procedure, but it was adapted for nonverbal material. The test was validated by showing that it could detect differences in (1) entropy patterns…

The Maine Public Broadcasting Network (MPBN) presented a "television simulation" to make the citizens of Main more aware of 1) environmental challenges, 2) the process of reconciling problems, and 3) the importance of the individual in the process. In the simulation a fictitious town, Freeboro, was faced with a decision regarding a new…

This report, the first in a series of four, describes part of a national study commissioned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to investigate audience awareness of public television, level of viewing, and reaction to programming and on-air fund raising. Specifically, this segment investigated the level of awareness of public television,…

Three different applied media anthropology projects are described. These projects stem from the broadcasters' legal need to know about the community (community ascertainment), the broadcasters' need to know about the station audience (audience profile), and the broadcasters' desire to change a community (action projects). (Author)

Shifting emphasis from the finished paper to the process of composition can result in better, more honest student writing.

Suggests use of questions as instructional tools. Provides guidelines for devising effective questions and handling responses to questions. To evaluate the program, the author advises the trainer to consider content, methods, presentation, time, and atmosphere. Also reviews self-evaluation techniques and forms. (CSS)

Suggests the value of a prewriting sheet which asks remedial students to specify an occasion, audience, and purpose for each of their one-paragraph papers. (DD)

Reports the findings of an analysis of the impact of a major criminal event on the size of the total broadcast audience, on media-switching behavior, and on station-switching behavior. (GW)

Reports results from an experiment conducted to discover relationships between theatre audience members' information processing abilities and their responses to performed plays and to the characters in the play. (MH)

Claims that most television research ignores the connections between its symbolic and economic influences. Argues for an integrated approach that views television as both a commodity and an artifact. Describes five analytical categories that researchers could use to provide information illuminating these relations to the public. (JD)

Analyzes the appeal of horror films. Develops a model that finds that important factors in the horror film's appeal are the audience's desire to experience the satisfying resolutions and to see the destruction usually found in these films and the sensation-seeking personality traits of audience members for these films. (NKA)

Examines the audience experience with home video cassette recorders (VCRs) from the perspective of the active audience concept. Finds the orientation of Israeli VCR owners to VCRs is selective, somewhat involved, and generally productive of gratifications. Also finds the kinds and levels of activities associated with VCR use are moderately…

Explores agenda-setting implications of indexing news content by topic instead of by salience cues. Suggests significant differences in news topic exposure on equivalently concentrated patterns of readership in two versions of a newspaper. Readers evaluated the indexed newspaper negatively, but a reader core liked the indexing. (NKA)

Analyzes Walter Fisher's work on the "narrative paradigm." Considers Fisher's definition of narrative too broad and advocates a more limited definition. Rejects Fisher's view that there is an independent standard of narrative rationality distinguishable from the "rational world paradigm," and his idea that the role of the…

Offers suggestions for textbook writing and observations on subject, publishers, prospectus, advances, approach, reviews, audience, and deadlines. (MS)