Some Personal and Social Influences on Telecast Viewing

A study of the relationship between information gain from telecasts & various S-cul factors showing 3 matched telecasts constructed of news stories to 4 groups of viewers (N= 198) representing a wide variety of soc, cultural, & personal characteristics. The news stories represented the following content areas: idolatry, accidents & disasters, pol, war, soc problems, sci, spectator sports, picturesque, & mechanical. Results indicated that low age, high educ, low religiosity, & low newspaper readership independently lead to information gain, while high age, low occup'al level, & high newspaper readership independently lead to high interest in the telecasts. I. Taviss.