Television's role within the familial setting is the subject of a research program being conducted at the Universities of Hartford, Texas, and Utah, proceeding on the premise that television functions within a variety of environmental influences, all of which act in varying combinations to produce a wide range of effects within viewers. The approach combines the inductive models of ethnology and the deductive models of hypothetical studies, and is directed toward two goals: the development of a library of case studies relating the process of television use within the family setting, and the interrogation of these for communalities and covering statements which can be predictive of certain classes of outcomes of viewing by individuals. Major classes of variables to be studied include normative and baseline data on television within the family structure, television as an agent of consumer socialization, and television's role in affecting family members' values. The following outcome descriptions have been established: the circumstances of television use by individual family members; the functions of television within the family structure; the motives, purposes and consequences of television viewing; and television as an agent of consumer socialization. (DF)