DOCUMENT RESUME ID 187 776 UD 020 448 AUTHOR Wright, William D.; And Others TITLE "An Investigation of*the Special Impett of Television on Blacks." Tecknical Report. INSTITUTION 4Cablecommunications Resource Center/west, Palo Alto, Calif. SPONS AGENCY ,National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C. 'PUB DITE , 29 Dec 76 GRANT NSF-APR-75-01757 NOTE 1 209p.; Sole sections may be marginally legible. Not available in paper copy due to reproduction quality of original. Crosstabulatioh tables heve been deleted due to reproducibility factors. EDRS PRICE MF01 Plus Postage. PC Not Available from XDRS. DESCRIPTORS Adults; *Black Attitudes; Black Community; Blacks: *Programing (Broadcast); *Television; Television Research; Television Surveys; *Televiiion Viewing IDENDIFIERS California (San Friancisco) * ABSTRACT\ Adults in 1,500 hquseholds in San FrancisCo's Western Addition were interviewed to gather information about black's use of and attitudes toward televiiion. Findings indicette;(1) few persons expressed favoritism about existing shows that feature blacks:' (2) the average reported viewing time per day was four hours: (3) viewing of news programs was reported.to be high; (4) most respondents 3, indiCated having watched the Belva Davis shop (a black oriented program originating in the Bay Area) but expressed no great affinity toward it;(5) less than 45% of'reipondents indicated having ever watched the two other local black oriented programs; (6) over 221 of respondents indicated the desire'for cultural, news, and educational /shows for the black community; (7) the average respondent reported teadin4 a newspaper four days a week;(8) very little reliance on television for-infopnation about.the black community, politics, and elections was repoeted; (9) most respondents were not impressed by alleged progress television has made recently in treating blacks faibly in local neis and entertainment progr mming;.(10) better educated blacks in San Francisco view televi ion less, rely on television less. for news of the black commun ty, and think less of "Sanford and Son" than do less well educated blacks. (Author/MK) *****Jp***************************************************************** * Reproduc.tions supplied by EDRS are.t.he best that can be made *- r from the original document. * * ****************************************************!o****************** krft1 4844414) CABLECOMMIJNICATIONSRESOURdE CENTER/WEST 1. ri0211 WICON IPb TECHNI9AL REPORT 11, fr INVBSTIGATION OF THESPECIAL:IMPACT OF TELEVISION ONBLACKS" NSF GRANT 1/APR-15-01757 DR. AVON JACKSON 1735 Woodland *6 Palo Alto, CA 3ze, 2-1Z,. tsz DECiMBER.29, 1976 WILLIAM D. WRIGNT PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR '0 "v. d'PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS S OSPAR ENT OP HEALTH. MATERIAL HAS SEEN GRANTe) sv IIDUCATI N WILRAFIS NATIONAL NSTITUTS OF IOU ATION THIS DOCUMENT AS BEEN REPRO. DUCE() EXACTLY S RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON dR ORANIZATION ORIGIN- ATINO IT POINTS 0VI OR OPINIONS san.4.4412 44t STATED DO NOT CESSARILY REPRE. Alf SENT OFFICIAL N "NAL INSTITUTE OF . 11° 'TO THE EDUcATIONAL RE8OURCIS4. EDUCATION P051 N OR POLICY INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." 806 Welch Road Sillily 218 Palo Alto, c',1iifororo9,64 .V:15) 3294)1(Vi I v 0,4 4 1 N, PERSONS PARTICIPATING'IN THEOPERATION OF THE STUDY ,Willi D. Wright A Principal Investigator Director of Research J. .Ca'rl 0. Wor& Research Aisociate Richard L. Allen Research Associate Zamon A. Jackson Research Associate Beverly Mint Parks Field Supervisor. SunnyBradiord Research Assistant . I. Steven M. Mill er Rbsearch Assistant Joyce Reeves Consultant Abiena Richardson Secretary Dewain A. Timmons/ Secretary q Roi Andre Dupre SiteConsultant % Thomatra Scott Site Consultanp z I. V. V a A 4 , 4 ' TABLE OF COrTENTS .10 Methodology e/ .....1 . TabIe of U.S.. Census, 19701.Black areas in Sin Francisco: EducatiOn and incoMes Map of areaisampled for present study .. ,. 4tummary'statisacs: Demography of the sample.. , V demographics "k\ Amount of TV viewing Co, Favorite ppogram preferences , The popuiarity'of various telex4.!1on programs .. News and public affairs viewing . Viewing."Black TV programing" Viewing Black news/public aftairs programing General reasons for watching "Bl'ack"shOws" on,TV '.Attitudes towards TV's tr.patment of Blacks . Interet in Politics .... 3 Political alienation 1 Sources of Information about politics_ . 4 s . Politics.and the media ! Interpersonal communicationab9Wt polltics Natlonal political knowledge . 006441.4 Local politicgl knowledge " Knowledge of non-local.Black politidians .... Political participation. Introduftion to the Bivariate 9nalysis section ivaluations of th black situation coMedies Main source.of information about Blacks and the BlaCk communitir' ReliailICe on TV for4news.,/of the Black community..... , Desire fbr more BXack programing on TV .4.... 'The Belva Davis Show ....... Who watches local, national news, and current . events shows? 4 A V. 1 TABLE OF COrENTS(coni.t.) Trusti9:teliVision General interest in,polikics: summary correlatiolal findings e The demographics of interest inpolitics Primary-sources of information aboutpolitics AWI,D (publicidlevision) , . .. Appendices to the bivariateianalysis section . s , CompUter'codes: variable names % Pearson correlationalCoefficiept's:taples.. ,C9sstabu1ations:tables . 'Health r Tables 4 1 . Percent of polulation withpreventive care . examination6 within pAst two years. Assessments of health-stptus. Radio OOOOOO Li) Magazine reading Reading of .daily metropolit4 newspapers Alienatibn from white newsp ers a Black newspapers 'Sports viewing ...%.... References and bibliography .tt 21$ A METH6DOLOGY THE SETTING . " San FranciscO's "Western. Addition" is one of two large Black communities within the Oity. The selection of this particular site for the 1976 .research on television usage was based bn t several criteria. Perhaps the foremost one was that the approximate1y.35,000 Black people in the arearepres4tas broad a spectrum is is possible on most of,the social and aemographic lioriables which were ofinterestIo.ts. An' addi-. ' tional factor, whith distinguishes this centrally, located community frome say,. Oakland (which Li( much-larger) and the SanyFrancfsco Huntet's Point area, ds that it contilins sub/.. stantial,numbers of persons from other ethnic minoritielki e.g., the Japariese,community. Further, all ofthetperimetet: sectioris .the Western Addition are either residential or.mixtured of imall .retail business and residential areas. Most of these . surrounding neighborhoodsare predominantly white; * 4 The one other major selection rea'son was that the chosen area. is, because of the other characteristics, quite obviously a community in the social-organi*ational sense of the word. Cabaecommunications Resourte Center holicited and was able to obtain the support of important persons in the community hierarchy'for purposes of skAffing the field operiltion, conducting t Ipapp4ng and "locator" phases within theSampling,plap), and for atimuiating the cooperatioil we ultimately found among ,the persons , 4 who fell into.the sample. 4 The final point behind deciding to conduct the'reaearch in the Western Addition was plat it' composes part of Caligornia's , , 6 17th Assembly District7 tip incumbent during'the research was Willie Brpwn; a Bladk attorww1Who'first took officein the, /AsseMbly during 1965: (There are, of coursew-other. districts in the, Bay area which have Blacks as electedofficials.) Our 'rationale for wanting to'study people who lived in such an or' ,area'was that in anationareaection year it presented an interesting complex of-political allegiances and/of alienation symptoms. On top of the poiz n. cited above, this wasiufgicient to fix our foCus firmly on the San 'Franciscocentral'city area( as a research site. THE INTERVIEW It is generally'accepted as a fact oflife in ,contemporary social'scienoe that interviewingAmere6ans becomes pore 4. .difficult as each year passes. All, of the obstacles that we could conceiNie of.eventually presented tp,mselvesduring the course of this research. Overlying'the-general antipathy ^ ; bred of Watergate, revelations about federal invasions of -people's privacy, and the specific "welfare'investigatpr" syndrome that pervsdes all urban areas, weencountered several problems unique to San Francisco. Perhaps the most bothersome one-was the six-week, completeshut-down of the city's public transportation system. This strike started during the first week of our Wave 1 interviewing. In a compact, densely popul'ated area like,the western Addition,perking one's private automobile on the street isProblematical. Iriterviewers, however, were faced With either that or the less pleasaht.alternative...walking from interview, to interview. Even thodgh assignments'were made by sub-areas, the issue of large numbers of non-contacts(over 1,500 attemptp to contact were made in order toComplete the 324 Wave 1 interviews) was a 'hardship we had to.copewith. do" Another coincidental sittiption added to the naturallevel of . te. ,x reluctance that one 4Xpecti to find.in trying to conduct in-home interview in urban areas. Duiing the time we were in the field \), solicitors for Viacom Gable Corporation were circulating materials 'and were mtking personal contacts where possible in order to . ' promote subscription to the newly .available cable TV service Offered by their.company.'Since our,interviewers were using& the names'of both.the'Booker T. Washington Foundatit and Cabieconinur4.ations Resource Center, more than a few respondents , concluded t