The Dimensional Structure of Children's Perceptions of Television Reality

Abstract

Children's awareness of the dramatic and unreal nature of most of television (perceived reality) has been proposed as playing an important part in children's responses to television, although there is some disagreement as to just what that important part is. More basically, however, perceived reality has been assumed to be a unitary concept measurable by widely varying questionnaire items and experimental manipulations. Based on an explication of perceived reality that proposed a division into a variety of subdimensions, questionnaire items were constructed and responded to by children from nursery school. first. third, and sixth grades. Factor analyses revealed a basic important distinction between the degree to which children believe they are viewing either ongoing life or drama (Magic Window reality), and the degree to which they believe television characters and events do or do not match their expectations about the world (Social Expectations). An "adult discount" with age was found only for Magic Window reality; Social Expectations reality either increased with age or followed curvilinear trends. Given the breakdown of perceived reality into its component parts, further research should be much better equipped to examine its potential as in intervening variable in television effects.