The Influence of Television Viewing on Family Interactions

Abstract

A contextual framework for studying the influence of television viewing on family interactions was described. Family interactions in this context are hypothesized to vary as a function of program salience for each family member. Salience is determined by a combination of person and context variables. The person variables are information-processing skills, role expectations, state and emotional factors, and the interest of the viewer in the program content. The context variables are competing activities, arrangement of physical milieu, persons present, and perceptual program features. Salience of the television program is hypothesized to have an impact on amount of family interactions in the spouse, sibling, and parent-child family subsystems. To the extent that a program is judged to be salient, lower levels of contingent responsiveness are expected between family members within and between subsystems. Low levels of contingent responsiveness are expected to depress amounts of family interaction.