DOCUMENT RESUME. ED 122 279 CS 202 O84 AUTHOR Leckenby, John .D.'; Su'rlin Stuart 0. : 'TITLE incidental Social Learning Among Black and White Viewers in Relation to luthorit rian s Characterizations in Pripe-rise ntertaiiment . Programmidg. PUB DATE 75 4 NOTE 25p.: Paper presedted at th nnual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism (Ottawa, Ontario, August 1975) 0 'EDRS PRICt 3?-$0.83 5C$1.67 Plus Postage DESCiIPTORS Adult Learning; *Authoritarianism; Caucasian Race; *Incidental Learning; sass Media; Negro Attitudes; Observational Learning; *Racial Attitudes; Social ittitudes; Social ?actors; Social Influences; *Social Values; Television Research; Television Shrveys; *Television Viewing IDENTIFIERS All in the Family; Sanford and Son ABSTRACT The nature of incidental social learning in 'television viewers in the Fasily" and "Sanford and Son" was the focus of this invLigation. Seven hundred and eight-one racially and'econosically AO-Zed respondents fro. Chicago and Atlanta provided the data source. Telephone interviews attempted ta-assess viewer opinions of the reality of characters po rayed and racial' attitudes assumed, entertainment value of the progTa sing, and presende of a moral lesson. Frequency of viewing, identi ication with a.specific character, and levels of cultural estrang sent, powerlessness, and meaninglessness Were also assessed.:Pindin ggest that high frequency viewers of both programs find the programming t b t . entertaining and revealing of actual behavior of the-gro s 'portrayed. These individuals are inclined to agree with the authoritarian views of the major characters in the two prograps4 ,"Fred" and "Archie." In addition, a'high correlation existed between high4frequency viewing and viewer self-perception of alienation and estrangement from the outside world. The researchers perceiVe frequent viewing of these programs to be influential inAetermining authoritarian attitudes, and suggest further investigation of media effects AM social learning. (KS) *********#************************************************* * Documents acquired by ERIC include many informal unpublished *C. * materials not available fros other sources. ERIC sakes every effort * * to obtain the best copy available. Nevertheless, items of marginal * * reproducibility are often encountered and this affects, the quality * t.of the microfiche and hardcopy reproductions ERIC sakes available * * .via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (ERRS). EDRS is riot , * responsible fdt the quality of the original document. Reproductions * * supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made fro the original. *, *****************************$***************************************** US De PAR TRIG Ni OP NE ALTN EDUCATION A ',VELA ARE NATIONAL INSTssuse OP EDUCATION *() DOCUMENTeghs.,""P RE ORO- ov<E0 ExACToi Afe RECE+vE0 TROY t E PE RSON 0* OROANOZATIONOR/GoN. A' t110 .1 Poikenov,E,v ORooet vleoOONOTPSVCVSSAR itAVDef SE0014)(.A4 174001,,.64/171E Qs EV/CDt004 00$.1.004OR 00..,CV INCIDENTAL SOCIAL LEARNING AMONG BLACK AND WHITE VIEWERS 1 AiRELATION TO AUTHORITARIAN CHARACTERIZATIONS IN PRIME-TIME ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMMING* 1,7 by SSCce Icktfraf.%41 j John D. Leckenty kc;'n Oft..saseo g.. John D. LecktOY College of Communications iMatiLlia5atin E Ah3OnGL"-ZAIldt University of Illinois M D ari.VE VEN'TpA" :st,'41, E,,e,A;c1'S to...4 atAix:e at Urbana-Champaign D..,"SDTrT 2vaiS c Pe c Urbana, Illinois 61801 .£ : and Stuart H. Surlin School of Journalism University of Georgia Athens, Georgia30602 7.; Paper P6sented to Minorities and Communication Diviston Association for Education in JonrnaliageOnvention Ottawa, Canada August 1975 *The authors wish to thank the University of Illinois Research Board, the Survey Research Laboratory, University of Illinois, and the Uni- D versity of Georgia for financial aid and jechnical support of this project as well as students in the' Pall 1974, Mass Communicatiouje- 'earth class at the University of Georgia. -. ! p F. a INCIDENTAL socIAL LEARNING AMONG BLACKAND WHITE VIEWERS - IN RELATION TO AUTHORITARIAN CHARACTERIZATIONS IN PRE -TIME ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMMING ' I 4 INTRODUCTION PrOblem There has recently'beengan increase of interest in.studying the in- cidental social learning effects,of family entertainment television pro 1 gramming. This interest can be traced toithe introduction of,programs which are concerned with racial comment and which portray at least one '. I . highly dogmatic .character. Concern about the potential social learning lk . 1. viewers may receive from such progrSms#418 displayed both by those within 4 .. ) , the television industry and those not directly connected with theindustry.,' ,N . t . The white performers in "All in the Family" such as Carroll O'Conner,, Z -- -. who plays the charactet of "Archie" as a highly dogmatic father and.hus- band are concerned about their characterizations. O'Conner admitted . that he dislikedbeing approached by viewers who identify with "Archie" and thank him "for telling thetruth for a change."2Redd Four, the black 4omedlan who,portrays "Fred," the highly traditional and dogmatic fatherlin"Sanford and Son," recently stated that "the scripts were slowly 1' but surely leaning toward Uncle Tom'and Amos Apdy.."3 A black writer Of another Tandem Productions black oriented comedy, "Good Times," gives some insight into the conflict facing him, "t . Lear 1 . i shows are looked at in only twOLways--qs th t really what blacks are like?' . i c and 'That is nop really what blacks are 1 e!'"Speaking about "Good Times," . " "-\., 3 2 a . : this show is not the image'lbf black people. We don't claim to be representative of all black people -- that's too much to be and it's not my responsibility.", . The producer of these programs,-Norman Lear, feels differently about the nature of his programming concepts. He feels that he has moved the viewing publicbeyond the "vast wasteland" of previous television pro- . ramming whichhandles non-controversial topics in a non - controversial manner, In hisprograms he emphasizes that, ". intelligent adults are entitled tohave the problems of intelligent adults. Several 0 social critics, however) disagree, with L:earlaassessment of his program- . mini approach. 7 John Slawson observes that, "As citizens, it,;is our responsibility to curb the influences, that produce bigoted attitudes and,discriminatory 0 ' . behavior, but we should not condone their expression'even if it be by . implication.,And this-is what 'All,in the tamilys unwittingly does. It-has the potential of producing a 'halo affect.'It's in our blood. 6 We all seem tO,heye it in one form or another; so what?" A Newsweek article denounced"Archie" as ". the confluence of 7 everything that fear'and ignorancecan do to a man." The New York Times. wrote, "The most tircde has emanated frotiLaura Hobson Whose 1947 novel, "Gentlemen's Agreement," dealt with anti-Semitism. Hiss Hobson is furious over the notion'that Archiels likable,,even lov- a-, able. r . Nies Hobson whatd her bigot to betotally hateful,so the ' message iwclear: hate me, hate my dogma.'8 . 'With such emotional comment as a backdrop, it seems clear 'that It 4 V. 3 would be desirable tounderstandthe extent to which social lesrning inr cidentally occurs among newers of such programs; further,, it would be . , desirable to understand the nature of such social learning. 1. Previous Research' With respect to "A11 in Family," two researcrs have studied the question of prejudice reinforcement by examining r attltudei to- ward the program. Vidmar and Rokeach (1974) examined selective perception' of the program in relation to dogmatism of the viewer, It is argued th t selective perception leads people who are highly 'dogmatic to pay atten ' ,tion to those messages expressed by "Archie" which are congruent with their beliefs and attitudes toward minority groups. These individuals -.may utilize the program to reinforce their prejudice and stereotypfag.. theirstudy of Canadian adults ind'U.S. teenagers, Vidmar and Rokeach / found a significant relationship between high scores on a ethnocentrismi - ' , , . , . ' , - ' , scale, Watching "All in the,Family"'and liking "Archie." . Surlin (1974)..examined, in a maner'similar to the study described. above, the relationship between dogmatism of the viewer an4 liking and , . sgreeiig with "Archie." 'his study showed, consistent with the results shown by Vidmer and Rokeach (1974), that highly dogmatic individuals did agree with "Archie significantly more than did individuals low in dogma--; tism. In addition, this study showed that low dogmatics agreed more with t "Mike," "aIoria," and "Edith"-than with "Archie." The viewers' . Surlin were adults residing in, the Southeastern-United States. l glirther evidence of the generalizability of the findings of the above studies 1s'provided by a study of comparable samples of Americans and . 5 .,.--anadians as reported by Tate and Surlin (1975). This study involved cross-national comparisons relating to dogmatism and liking/agreeing fitith'' AP "Archie.". There were no significelt demographic differincevbetWeen the two cross-national groups as had been thecase in the American-Canadian comparisons shown by Vidmar and Rokeach (1974).There was also no sig- nificant difference between the two-groUps in terms of dogmatism. The findings showed again th4 thObe high in dogmatism were significantly a - higher in liking and agreement with "Archie" than those low in'dogma- . tism. Leckenby andSuilin (1975) Studied the relationship of viewer char-