Background and overview; Television and reading skills; Television and cognivite development; Television and other leisure activities; Television-viewing patterns and use of other media; Television and sex-role attitudes; Television and children's aggressive behavior; Television and adults: thinking, personality, and attitudes; Summary. conclusions, and implications.

Do antisocial acts portrayed on television lead to antisocial acts in viewers? The long-standing debate on this important questions has, up to now, been conducted in something of a vacuum- a vacuum caused by the lack of crucial experimental evidence. This book reports a pioneering study in which the experimental variable- the content of television programming itself. Through the cooperation of a major television network, the investigators were able to produce and air three versions- with differing antisocial content- of an episode of the popular prime time program, Medical Center. They then carried out a series of highly original field experiments designed to assess the effects of the antisocial elements in the programs on the subject population. This book is a clear and reasoned report of the history, design, and results of this research. The book will be of great interest and value to social psychologists, sociologists, mass communications and media researchers, those professionally involved in broadcasting, and many others.

As entertainment becomes a trillion-dollar-a-year industry worldwide, as our modern era increasingly lives up to its label of the "entertainment age," and as economists begin to recognize that entertainment has become the driving force of the new world economy, it is safe to say that scholars are beginning to take entertainment seriously. The scholarly spin on entertainment has been manifested in traditional ways, as well as innovative ones. Representing the current state of theory and research, Psychology of Entertainment promises to be the most comprehensive and up-to-date volume on entertainment. It serves to define the new area of study and provides a theoretical spin for future work in the area. Divided into three basic parts, this book: *addresses the fundamental mechanisms and processes involved in orienting to and selecting entertainment fare, as well as receiving and processing it; *explores the mechanisms and processes by which we are entertained by the media messages we select and receive; and *provides an opportunity for the application of well-established as well as emerging psychological and psychobiological theories to be applied to the study of entertainment in ways that seldom have been utilized previously. Psychology of Entertainment will appeal to scholars, researchers, and graduate students in media studies and mass communication, psychology, marketing, and other areas contributing to the entertainment studies area.

Abstract: A comprehensive report summarizes the past 10 years of research activities and findings concerning the effects of television viewing on child behavior and development. Approximately 90% of all research publications on this topic appeared during this period, representing over 2500 titles. The report is presented in 2 volumes, a summary report and technical reviews. The technical reviews comprise overall, comprehensive, and critical syntheses of the scientific literature on specific topic areas, developed by 24 researchers in this area. The topic areas address such issues as cognitive and emotional aspects of television viewing; television's influences on physical and mental health; television as it relates to socialization and viewer's conceptions of social reality; and television as an American institution. The overall orientation of the report is toward research and public health issues.