![]() ![]() So what he did in his study was compare groups that are almost identical except for their television viewing habits. There is no way of looking at innate cheeriness." If television is not there obviously people will be gloomy for a great number of reasons. ![]() The Gerbner theory of causation is that it's a three-legged stool. "Every human behavior has multiple causes. Is television prompting the fear? Perhaps people who are already depressed and paranoid stay home more, thus watching more television.īut Gerber defends his finding that heavy television watching contributes to a "mean-world syndrome." Of the women who watch less than two hours of TV a day, three out of eight are afraid of their neighborhood streets at night - but nearly five out of eight women who watch more than four hours of TV a day are scared. Of those who watch more, better than three out of 10 fear their streets at night. Two hours of viewing daily isn't that much - the national average is nearly two and a half hours a day.Īmong American men who watch less than two hours of television a day, two out of 10 say it isn't safe to walk on their neighborhood streets at night. And one woman out of four who watches at least two hours of TV a day fears that very serious threat. Such paranoid visions spinning from TV are contagious, according to research released in December by Gerbner.Īmerican women who watch two or more hours of television daily, for instance, are more than twice as likely to perceive a "very serious" threat to their personal safety as women who watch less than two hours a day, Gerbner has found in his polling. Even me, I know it's distorted, but nevertheless I don't have another compelling, competing reality." ![]() "I think even those of us who know that TV is not reality, end up relying on the TV version of reality because we don't have another. "One of the reasons why I'm connected to the media is to be aware of what's threatening to me out there," explains Professor Sandra Ball-Rokeach, a professor of communications at the University of Southern California who has spent more than a quarter century studying television. "A Matter of Justice" racked up dynamite numbers as the fifth-most-watched show of the week. ![]()
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