Children's television programming frequently uses interactive characters that appear to directly engage the viewers. These characters encourage children to answer questions and perform actions to help the characters solve problems in the televised world. Children readily engage in these interactions; however, it is unclear why they do so. To…

The availability of educational programming aimed at infants and toddlers is increasing, yet the effect of video on language acquisition remains unclear. Three studies of 96 children aged 30-42 months investigated their ability to learn verbs from video. Study 1 asked whether children could learn verbs from video when supported by live social…

Examines the effect of violence advisories and MPAA ratings on parent-child television viewing choices and verbal interactions while making those choices. Parents mainly made negative comments about the advisories and restrictive ratings whereas children, especially older children, were more likely to make positive comments. The presence of an…

Examines differences among groups of listeners to political talk radio using data from a survey of adults in San Diego, California, from the perspective of Grunig's situational involvement model. Among more active audience members, limited motivational data suggest that political talk radio served a mix of needs, including seeking political…

This report discusses research commissioned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in order to evaluate prototypes of digital public television programming. There were two phases of research, the first using exclusively linear demonstrations of interactive public television, and the second demonstrating computer simulations of three digital…