Date of Award

Summer 1994

Document Type

Thesis - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Communication

First Advisor

Ksobiech, Kenneth

Second Advisor

Turner, Lynn H.

Third Advisor

Hakanen, Ernest A.

Abstract

Technological innovations are having a tremendous impact in the 1990s on what was once known as the viewing of regular broadcast television shows. One medium, the VCR has experienced a rapid period of growth in the past ten years, that is projected to exceed cable and pay-TV adopters. In a technological generation the videocassette recorder has changed audience viewers' patterns by allowing them the ability to select, tape and view programs at their own personal convenience. Media no longer controls the viewer. The viewer is now a proactive user of media, selecting not only what is viewed but how it is viewed and when. The following study was designed to examine the rapid period of growth VCR technology has experienced and the effects on sixth grade students' viewing patterns. A literature review also was executed covering four specific areas: Uses and Gratifications, VCR History and Uses, Audience Activity and Television Use and Family Rule Making. To explore how the adoption of the videocassette recorder has affected a child's viewing pattern, a survey was implemented. This survey probed student's on current VCR use/patterns, parental control/rule making and requested personal history of respondents' families currently using the medium.

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