Social conflict and television news /

This groundbreaking study of the effects of television news is a harbinger of a new and needed global approach to mass-communication research. TV newscasts and audience response to televised social conflict in the US, the UK, West Germany, Israel, and South Africa were studied from 1980 to 1984. By studying five cultures and using a combination of methodologies to test hypotheses from both the "critical" and the "uses and gratification" schools the authors avoided the restrictions of a single approach to mass-media research and transcended the limitations of single-nation studies of TV use. They examined presentation of social conflicts in news broadcasts, audience perception of the conflicts, and how the audiences related "media reality" to "factual reality." Given the difficulties of carrying out such a complex study, the authors are both clear and properly cautious with their analyses and interpretations. They found that TV newscasts in all five nations were remarkably similar despite variations in government control and media competition; that TV coverage of social conflicts was not overly simplified or overly sensationalized; that audiences in all countries were more dependent on TV news for perception of foreign conflict and were more likely to accept television's presentation of it as "reality" than TV coverage of national and local conflict. Inevitably, this study has shortcomings. For example, because only students in vocational and university schools were questioned, applicability of results is severely limited. Nevertheless, this study gives a new direction for modern media research. R. Cathcart Queens College, CUNY