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Television and the Quality

of Life: How Viewing


Shapes Everyday Experience
COM M UNICATION

A series o f volumes edited by:


Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant

Zillmann/Bryant • Selective Exposure to Communication

Beville • Audience Ratings: Radio, Television, Cable, Revised Edition

Bryant/Zillmann • Perspectives on Media Effects

Goldstein • Reporting Science: T he Case o f Aggression

Ellis/Donohue • C ontem porary Issues in Language and Discourse Processes

Winett • Inform ation and Behavior: Systems o f Influence

Huesmann/Eron • Television and the Aggressive Child: A Cross-National


Comparison

Gunter • Poor Reception: M isunderstanding and Forgetting Broadcast News

Olasky • C orporate Public Relations: A New Historical Perspective

Donohew/Sypher/Higgins • Communication, Social Cognition, and Affect

Van Dijk • News Analysis: Case Studies o f International and National News
in the Press

Van Dijk • News as Discourse

Wober • T he Use and Abuse of Television: A Social Psychological Analysis


of the Changing Screen

Kraus • Televised Presidential Debates and Public Policy

Masel Walters/Wilkins/Walters • Bad Tidings: Communication


and Catastrophe

Salvaggio/Bryant • Media Use in the Inform ation Age: Emerging Patterns


of Adoption and Consum er Use

Salvaggio • T he Inform ation Society: Economic, Social, and Structural Issues

Olasky • T he Press and Abortion, 1838-1988


Botan/Hazleton • Public Relations Theory

Zillmann/Bryant • Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Considerations

Becker/Schoenbach • Audience Responses to Media Diversification:


Coping With Plenty

Caudill • Darwinism in the Press: T he Evolution of an Idea

Richards • Deceptive Advertising: Behavioral Study of a Legal Concept

Flagg* Formative Evaluation for Educational Technologies

Haslett • Communication: Strategic Action in Context

Rodda/Grove • Language, Cognition and Deafness

Narula/Pearce • Cultures, Politics, and Research Programs: An International


Assessment o f Practical Problems in Field Research

Kubey/Csikszentmihalyi • Television and the Quality of Life: How Viewing


Shapes Everyday Experience

Kraus • Mass Communication and Political Inform ation Processing

Dobrow • Social and Cultural Aspects of VCR Use

Barton • Ties T hat Blind in C anadian/A m erican Relations: Politics of News


Discourse

Bryant • Television and the American Family

Cahn • Intim ates in Conflict: A Communication Perspective

Biocca • Television and Political Advertising, Volume 1: Psychological Processes

Welch • T he Contem porary Reception o f Classical Rhetoric: Appropriations


of Ancient Discourse
Page Intentionally Left Blank
Television and the Quality
of Life: How Viewing
Shapes Everyday Experience

Robert Kubey
Rutgers University
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
University of Chicago

Routledge
R Taylor & Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First Published by
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
365 Broadway
Hillsdale, New Jersey 07642

Transferred to Digital Printing 2009 by Routledge


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Copyright © 1990 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. N o part o f the book may be reproduced in
any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other
means, without the prior written permission o f the publisher.

L ibrary o f Congress C ataloging-in-Publication Data


Kubey, Robert William, 1 9 5 2 -
Television and the quality o f life: How viewing shapes
everyday experience / Robert Kubey, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
p. cm .— (Communication)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0 - 8 0 5 8 - 0 5 5 2 - 4 . — ISBN 0 - 8 0 5 8 - 0 7 0 8 - X (pbk.)
1. Television audiences. 2. Television— Social aspects.
I. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. II. Title. III. Series:
Communication (Hillsdale, N.J.)
H E 8700.65.K 82 1990
302.23'45— dc20 8 9 -3 8 6 7 9
CIP
Publisher’s Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint
but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent.
For Joan and Sid
— RK

and Isabella
— MC
Page Intentionally Left Blank
Contents

Preface xi

CHAPTER 1 A Way to Think About Information


Reception 1

CHAPTER 2 The Problem of Leisure 12

CHAPTER 3 The Limits of Television Research 23

CHAPTER 4 Charting a New Course: The


Experience Sampling Method 42

CHAPTER 5 The Use and Experience of


Television in Everyday Life 69

CHAPTER 6 Television and the Quality


of Family Life 108

CHAPTER 7 Viewing as Cause, as Effect,


and as Habit 119

CHAPTER 8 The Causes and Consequences


of Heavy Viewing 149

CHAPTER 9 A Brief Review of Major Findings:


Reclaiming the Idea of Media Effects 171

CHAPTER H Television and the Structuring


of Experience 181

Appendices 223
References 244
Author Index 269
Subject Index 277
Page Intentionally Left Blank
Preface
By current estimates the first hum an beings em erged on Earth approx­
imately 2 million years ago. In this vast stretch of time, approximately
100,000 hum an generations have lived and died, and yet ours are
am ong the first to live in a world where much of daily experience is
shaped by widely shared, instantaneous mass communication. Foremost
am ong the mass media is television.
T he A. C. Nielsen Company (1989) currently estimates that people in
the United States view upwards of 4 hours of television each day. Given
the likelihood that such estimates are inflated, let us assume a m ore
conservative estimate of 2 lA hours of television viewing per day over the
period of a lifetime. Even at this m ore conservative rate, a typical Ameri­
can would spend m ore than 7 full years watching television out of the
approxim ately 47 waking years each of us lives by age 70— this assuming
an average o f 8 hours of sleep per day.
Such a figure is even m ore striking when we consider that Americans
have about 5*/2 hours a day of free time, or approximately 16 years
available for leisure of the same 47-year span. From this point of view
and based on a conservative estimate, Americans are spending nearly
half of their available free time watching television.
Still, the num ber of hours spent viewing continues to creep upward
by a few minutes each year, and people throughout the rest of the world
seem every bit as attracted to the medium as do Americans. In fact,
television is growing in popularity in almost every country on the globe.
Programs such as “T he Cosby Show” and “Dallas” are viewed by enor­
mous audiences throughout the world— “Dallas” has aired in over 90
countries— and have caused the desertion of cafes and movie theaters,
and forced public events to be rescheduled during broadcast hours. At a
1988 international meeting of television program buyers and sellers in
Cannes, one estimate set U.S. television program sales to Europe at $2.7
billion for 1992, a 1,200% increase since 1983 (Miller, 1989). So great is
the attraction of television that the East Germ an city of Dresden experi­
enced a crisis in labor supply when many residents moved closer to the
western border to watch program s being broadcast by stations in West
Germany (Cantor & Cantor, 1986).
Suffice it to say that television has become our species’ preferred and
most powerful means of mass communication. But although television

xl
x li PREFACE

continues to grow in popularity, there is much we still do not know about


why people watch as m uch as they do or how the m edium affects them.
Nor are we at all certain about television’s larger cultural impact.
Methodological and theoretical limitations make it difficult for social
scientists to adequately assess the impact or value of any form of leisure
or m edium of communication. Some may prefer this state of affairs,
seeing no purpose in understanding leisure and entertainm ent experi­
ences that are often idiosyncratic, and which, one could argue, are best
left hidden from the probing interests of the behavioral scientist. Certain
m oments o f esthetic rapture, athletic excellence, or theatrical tru th are
transcendent; they defy analysis and are best understood in term s of
personal meanings. Nonetheless, we still believe that there are im portant
lessons yet to be learned about leisure, television viewing, and the condi­
tions that prom ote optimal functioning and hum an growth.
It is also our belief that television viewing, like other cultural habits,
would be ideally studied and evaluated in the widest possible context.
H um an activities are generally quite complicated and they often occur in
complex social settings. Nor, in evaluating leisure and media activities,
can one paint with a broad brush. Most things that people do are neither
entirely good nor entirely bad. A simple comic strip may provide benefit
to certain readers under certain circumstances, while not a few great
esthetic works o f art and religion have produced m uch conflict and
resentm ent.
T here is no longer enough inform ation left to tell how m uch good, or
how m uch harm was done to Byzantine society by the seemingly patho­
logical fascination with chariot racing o f the citizens of Constantinople.
Similarly, we can only speculate about the positive or negative effects of
the interm inable erudite debates, favorite pastime of the Florentine u p ­
per classes of the 17th and 18th centuries. Did they sharpen a partici­
pant’s faculties, were they largely a form of escape, or did those ritu­
alized disputations prolong that society’s survival? And what about the
famous Mayan ballgames, or the Roman circuses? Did they strengthen
the commonweal, or sap its energies?
It is unlikely that we shall ever be able to answer such questions. Some
of the facts that m ight help are lost beyond recall, and even then to
answer such questions would require the ability to m easure and assess
elusive cultural practices and their complicated interactions and conse­
quences. Even when a living culture is still before us for study, there is no
certainty that our interpretations will be correct.
We are hardly any less helpless when trying to understand a contem ­
porary cultural phenom enon such as television viewing. But at least
some o f the pieces o f the puzzle are at hand. With their help, we endeav­
or to assemble a m eaningful picture. For despite the thousands of arti­
PREFACE X lll

cles and books on the effects of television, we still do not fully under­
stand how television is used and experienced in everyday life. And it is
certainly the case that we lack a broad enough perspective from which
such understandings can be reasonably and usefully evaluated.
To what realistic alternatives is television watching being compared?
W hat social and psychological costs do those alternatives have? Only an
integrated view of hum an activity that considers a broad range of alter­
natives and consequences will make an understanding of television view­
ing possible.
In writing this book, we were exposed to the ideological pressures,
pro and con, that the discussion of television inevitably engenders.
Nevertheless, there is one safeguard built into this volume. T he research
m ethod underlying our findings was not designed to test a particular
hypothesis about television. Rather, it was designed to provide a picture
o f the way people feel as they move through everyday life, from leisure
to work, from eating meals to driving their cars— and of the way they
feel when they are watching television. T he experience of television
viewing is studied in its natural context, em bedded in its everydayness,
and much of what we say about the quality of that experience is in
comparison with the other daily activities that comprise the rest of life.
In addition to showing how television viewing fits into people’s time
schedules, the m ethod has perm itted us to assess how people feel when
watching television in comparison with how they feel when they eat,
work, or converse with their friends. W hen are people most apt to report
that they are concentrating hard? T hat they are happy? T hat they want
to do what they are doing? By m apping out thousands of events against
each other on such dimensions, we can begin to assess in a comparative
m anner the nature of the cultural practice we call television viewing.
But before we examine the findings, we first attem pt to create a
conceptual and historical context in which they might be m ore m ean­
ingfully interpreted. This is our intent in the first two chapters.
Chapter 1 presents a theoretical model by which the inform ation
value of any activity, including television viewing, can be assessed. In
chapter 2 we place television viewing in the context of other leisure
activities. Few would claim that television is good because it strengthens
the body, or because by watching it we will find eternal happiness. But
television viewing may be an excellent way to relax and recuperate and
may therefore be an optimal form of leisure. In fact, in a recent large-
scale national survey it was found that m ore Americans reported getting
pleasure from television than from sex, food, hobbies, religion, m ar­
riage, money, or sports. So far so good— But what is leisure?
Many o f the great thinkers of the past, from Aristotle to Marx, have
set forth their opinions on what leisure and its role in hum an life should
x iv PREFACE

be, and we believe it is im portant to address these ideas before assessing


television’s relationship to the quality of hum an experience. Are rest,
relaxation, and pleasure what we want from our leisure activities? If not,
why not? Is having m ore time available for leisure a wise goal either for
the individual or for society?
These questions are not at all easy to answer, and involve assumptions
that are inevitably value laden. Readers will have to decide w hether the
values we ultimately argue for are also theirs, or indeed w hether they are
appropriate to the questions at hand.
C hapter 3 turns directly to what is known and theorized about the
use, experience, and functions of television viewing, setting the stage for
chapter 4, in which the research methodology is presented.
In chapter 5 this m ethod is used to provide a close look at when,
where, with whom, and in what combination of other activities television
is viewed, and how the experience of viewing television compares to
experiences associated with other daily activities. We then examine
w hether the experience of television varies among dem ographic groups
or am ong groups from outside the United States. We also look at how
different television content is experienced and consider how the VCR
has altered the use and experience of the medium. T he chapter con­
cludes with a discussion of some of the psychological properties of
viewing.
C hapter 6 focuses on how television viewing is used and experienced
in the family context. We examine whether television is a boon to family
life, or w hether viewing interferes with the quality of familial exper­
iences.
T he next chapter clarifies what occurs before and after people view,
and what happens when television is viewed for longer periods of time.
We examine some of the motives that underlie viewing and what viewing
itself causes. We also consider whether viewing might help people adapt
to daily life and un d er what circumstances it may interfere with optimal
functioning. C hapter 7 concludes with a further discussion of what hap­
pens psychologically when people watch TV, and considers some of the
possible biological underpinnings of the viewing experience. We also
consider how the television industry creates program s that produce in
people the kinds o f experiences that have been described and which fit
the model set forth in chapter 1. Finally, we present a model o f optimal
experience that helps explain some of the basic structural features of
different activities, and why television and other activities tend to be
associated with particular kinds o f experiences.
C hapter 8 presents a behavioral and psychological portrait of the
heavy viewer. In so doing, we describe how dem ographic characteristics
interact with particular personality characteristics that drive heavy view­
PREFACE XV

ing. We also consider what the long-term consequences of heavy viewing


might be, and whether viewing itself might help perpetuate these same
personality characteristics.
C hapter 9 summarizes the major findings, and suggests why we think
some o f the theories that minimize the effects of television are
problematic.
In the final chapter the findings and their implications are in­
terpreted within the broad contexts of history and contem porary social
formations. We consider how a society, and the forms of leisure it
spawns, contribute to or detract from the developm ent of hum an
potential.
Although we have employed an unusual m ethod that has proved
extremely useful in studying hum an behavior, we nonetheless recognize
that, as with any m ethod and with any study, there are limitations to what
can be done and the questions that can be asked and answered. We have
not studied, for example, how people interpret what they see on televi­
sion, or focused on the role of narrative in absorbing the viewer’s in­
terest, or its potential to inform and enrich experience. Nor have we
spent a great deal of time analyzing television content.
No m ethod will explain everything that there is to know about what
happens when people watch television. And, although our measures
were chosen for a reason, and fit a particular conceptual approach to
understanding behavior and experience, they are quite simple. Still, they
have proven quite useful, especially considering that the research pre­
sented here is one of the very first attem pts to m easure in a systematic
way how people actually feel while watching television in their homes.
No doubt other measures can and will be developed. But for now, we
believe we have developed a revealing portrait of how and why people
use and experience television in everyday life, one that we hope will
inspire furth er research and debate. If it does that, we will be satisfied.

ACKNOW LEDGMENTS

In any long-term enterprise few people work alone and we are no excep­
tion. T he research that m ade this book possible was supported by many
people, institutions, and foundations.
Robert Kubey especially appreciates the support of the National In ­
stitute o f Mental Health, the Richard D. Irwin Foundation, the Rutgers
University Research Council, and the McGannon Communication Re­
search C enter for the Study of Issues in Policy and Ethics at Fordham
University, which helped make possible many of his studies on television
as well as the data analysis and much of the writing presented in the
xvl PREFACE

pages ahead. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi gratefully acknowledges the aid of


the U.S. Public Health Service and the Spencer Foundation, whose sup­
port for his studies on flow and optimal experience contributed to the
developm ent o f the Experience Sampling M ethod (ESM).
Institutional assistance came from T he Committee on H um an Devel­
opm ent at the University of Chicago, T he Program in Social Ecology at
the University of California at Irvine, and the School of Communication,
Inform ation, and Library Studies at Rutgers University.
We are also indebted to a great many friends and colleagues. We wish
to express our appreciation to N orm an B radburn, Larry Chalip, Erika
Fromm, Paul Hirsch, Bill Merrick, Tom Trabasso, and Marvin Zonis of
the University o f Chicago; Dick Budd, Stan Deetz, Vince Fitzgerald, Ed
H artm an, M aureen McCreadie, H artm ut Mokros, Dennis Mumby,
Brent Ruben, Jorge Schement and Lea Stewart of Rutgers University as
well as the first fellows o f Rutgers’ Center for the Critical Analysis of
Contem porary Culture. We are also indebted to Elizabeth Noelle-Neu-
m ann as well as to Ted Glasser and Horace Newcomb, each o f whom
com m ented on the m anuscript at different stages.
Thanks also to Jennings Bryant and Dolf Zillmann, our series editors.
A great many colleagues have been of invaluable assistance either in
making available or helping prepare ESM data for this book. Ron G raef
was especially helpful with the database of American workers on whom
most of this book is based and provided encouragem ent through the
early stages of research. Reed Larson of the University of Illinois has
long been an irreplaceable colleague to both of us, and we are indebted
to him for his assistance in preparing the Canadian data that we examine
in chapter 5 and for perm itting us to analyze and discuss findings from
other ESM databases that he has collected. We are also indebted to Roger
Mannell and Jiri Zuzanek at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, for
making the Canadian data available and to Fausto Massimini and Gianni
Moneta of the Medical School at the University of Milan for providing
and preparing the Italian adolescent data that we present in chapter 5.
Ju d ith LeFevre and Maria Wong helped prepare data for this same
cross-national comparison. Thanks also to Stefan H orm uth and Marco
Lalli o f the University of Heidelberg for responding to our request for
an analysis of ESM data from their Germ an subjects. Sharafuddin Malik
of the University of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia perm itted us to analyze his
ESM data collected from African and American graduate students, and
M arten deVries o f the University of Limburg in T he Netherlands pro­
vided us with findings from his research.
Alan Barnett created the com puter graphics for all of the figures and
was a great pleasure to work with as was our extremely thorough editor,
Robin Marks Weisberg. Gary Radford and Nancy Dimeo helped with the
PREFACE x v if

index. Tom Herzberg of Chicago provided the cover art. Enthusiasm


from Larry Erlbaum and his associates, particularly Jack Burton and Joe
Petrowski, helped fuel our final efforts.
We also owe a special debt of gratitude to the many research subjects
who have perm itted us to become involved in their lives. W ithout their
cooperation this book would not have been possible.
Last, but certainly not least, our wives Barbara Lewert Kubey and
Isabella Selega Csikszentmihalyi, deserve special recognition for their
encouragem ent, patience, and daily support.

Robert Kubey
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Page Intentionally Left Blank
CHAPTER 1

A Way to Think About


Information Reception

What we need to explain are not objects but experiences.


— Kohak (1978)

T h e people of the world spend upwards of 3.5 billion hours watching


television every day. Some scholars explain this enorm ous expenditure
of time and mental activity by stressing that viewing television involves a
transfer of inform ation that enriches the viewers’ store of knowledge.
O thers emphasize that television provides viewers with much needed
entertainm ent, relaxation, and escape. To what degree these and other
things happen when people view television is the cause for much debate.
Part of the uncertainty is due to the fact that we are still only in the early
stages of developing theories and methods by which to m easure or eval­
uate what people do with televised inform ation, or what happens in the
hours or days after reception. Nor have there been many attempts to
study how viewers actually report experiencing television.
Theorists have developed models that help explain how inform ation
is received, coded, processed, stored, and retrieved. And there are m od­
els for describing how certain kinds of inform ation effect people emo­
1
2 CHAPTER 1

tionally. To develop such a model involves stepping into the controver­


sial area o f making qualitative distinctions, and those who study infor­
m ation processes scientifically are often understandably reluctant to do
so. Yet, taking hum an values and goals into account is necessary if we
wish to assess the value of information, or television, for it is difficult to
place the act of viewing in any kind of m eaningful perspective without a
model that explicitly recognizes qualitative distinctions in hum an experi­
ence. T he aim of this chapter is to propose such a model.
A great num ber of theoretical and disciplinary approaches can be
applied to understanding hum an activity. Television viewing is no excep­
tion. As the reader will soon see, we draw on a breadth of ideas from
psychology, psychoanalysis, and psychobiology as well as from com m u­
nication, sociology, anthropology, political science, history, and physics.
But here at the beginning we present a relatively simple and general
model. It by no means explains all communication and inform ation
phenom ena, but we think it is a useful model to keep in mind, and we
refer back to it from time to time— in the conceptualization of our m ea­
sures, in the interpretation of the results, and in the final chapter where
television’s broader role in the developm ent o f the individual and society
is discussed.

MENTAL ENERGY A N D INFORMATION

We start with a few working principles that have inform ed our thinking.
Inform ation can be thought o f as anything that produces changes in
consciousness— a perception, a sensation, an emotion, a memory, a
thought. Odors, sounds, the slanting rays of the sun coming into a room,
the words lined up on this page, all contribute bits o f inform ation to a
person’s consciousness.
For inform ation to become meaningful, signs must pass through at­
tention. If you stop paying attention to these words, they cease to have
m uch inform ation value. Attention, then, can be thought of as a general
resource for cognitive processing (Hasher & Zacks, 1979) or the energy
added to a structure that permits processing of inform ation through
that structure, the structures in question being links of previous infor­
m ation such as perceptual and semantic codes (LaBerge, 1975).1
T he im portance of attention can hardly be overestimated. As Zucker-
m an (1988) has written:

T he most vital aspect o f consciousness is attention, for without an adequate


mechanism for focusing mental effort and an adequate program o f pri­
A WAY TO THINK ABO UT INFORM ATION RECEPTION 3

orities we cannot learn, communicate, or adapt to the changing contingen­


cies o f the environm ent, (p. 173)

As im portant as it may be, it is crucial to recognize that attention is


also limited (Broadbent, 1958). Nobody knows how much inform ation
can be processed at any given m om ent,2 but most everyone will agree
that it is quite difficult if not impossible to do m ore than one thing well at
the same time and that one’s ability to attend is finite. Hence, “T he limit
on attentional capacity appears to be a general limit on resources . . . the
total am ount of attention which can be deployed at any time is limited”
(Norman, 1976, p. 71).
A lthough 100 years ago William James (1890) clearly recognized how
im portant attention was in hum an psychology, the implications of his
insights have not been fully explored in the intervening years and “there
has not been program m atic growth in research on attention” (Reeves,
Thorson, & Schleuder, 1986, p. 251). H erbert Simon (1978), who has
done m uch to keep the theoretical interest in attention alive, reached the
following conclusion: “I am not aware that there has been any systematic
developm ent of a theory of inform ation and communication that treats
attention rather than inform ation as a scarce resource” (p. 13).
Since Simon m ade that observation, O rrin Klapp (1986) has given
considerable thought to how any individual’s ability to construct m ean­
ing from inform ation is limited relative to the speed of inform ation
creation and dissemination. He has concluded that “T he weakest link in
a vast chain of communication is often the hum an brain, because, for all
its powers of abstraction, it is severely limited in channel capacity” (p.
100).
Because attention is needed to process inform ation and to keep order
in consciousness, and because attention is limited, we have found it
useful to think of it as “m ental” or “psychic energy.”3 And because atten­
tion is necessary to make conscious mental operations possible, how one
invests attention over time will determ ine the content and will influence
the quality of a person’s life.

ORDER A N D COMPLEXITY

To account for the qualitative dimensions of communication, we dis­


tinguish two broad characteristics of information: its order and its com­
plexity.4 It is im portant to stress that for our purposes these variables do
not apply to objective characteristics of a message, but to the experience
4 CHAPTER 1

o f the receiver. W hat counts most is not the structural order or complex­
ity o f the message, but how the message is processed. We believe in the
utility o f taking the subjective reality of the recipient as the starting point
for our model.*
Order, then, refers to a subjective state in which a person experiences
no substantial conflict am ong the elements of consciousness. Inner o rder
is constituted by desires organized around a hierarchy of needs or goals.
These hierarchies differ from person to person, but their main struc­
tural lines tend to be quite similar, at least within the same culture and
historical period.5
W hen something appears to decrease the probability of achieving our
goals, it will produce conflict, and therefore, disorder in consciousness.
D epending on the nature o f the goal that is im peded, the disorder will
take the form o f a unpleasant emotion such as anger, sadness, loneliness,
guilt, or anxiety. But when we make progress in reaching a goal, or
obtain the goal itself, o rder is restored in experience and so we feel joy,
happiness, or a similar pleasant emotion.
W hen any new bit o f inform ation (a perception, sensation, memory,
feeling, or idea) enters awareness, it potentially affects the dynamic bal­
ance in consciousness either by increasing o rd er— if the inform ation
supports our goals— or by increasing disorder—if it implies a frustra­
tion o f the goals in awareness. O f course quite often inform ation has
little or no bearing whatsoever on what we desire, in which case it leaves
the balance of o rd er unaffected, and our experience and m ood u n ­
changed.
Thus, each piece of inform ation can be thought to possess a negative
entropy, or negentropy quotient (NQ), depending on the am ount of order
it produces in consciousness. T he concept of entropy as posited in the
Second Law o f Therm odynam ics refers to the inability of a system to do
work, or to the loss o f energy. Entropy is also a m easure of the degree of
disorder in a system.
We are certainly not the first to use concepts from physics or the

*Klapp’s (1986) exam ple o f “museum fatigue” well illustrates the importance that must
be placed on the individual’s subjective experience o f information:

A person visits a museum with the best intentions o f seeing it all with deep apprecia­
tion within an hour or so. But, to his surprise and embarrassment, for all his
enthusiasm, his fatigue mounts, legs tire, and eyes glaze after seeing only a few halls
full o f treasures. . . H e suffers from an overload o f information, a boredom result­
ing from the am ount and variety, not the quality, o f the information he tried to
assimilate in a limited time. (p. 123)
A WAY TO THINK A BO UT INFORM ATION RECEPTION 5

second law to understand hum an behavior.* In inform ation theory, the


concept of entropy has often been used to refer to the am ount of ran ­
domness contained in a message (see for example Ashby, 1956; Beniger,
1986; Garner, 1962; Ritchie, 1986; Ruben, 1972; Shannon & Weaver,
1949; Wiener, 1961). Negentropy, on the other hand, describes the op­
posite state: the capacity of a physical system to do work, or for a mes­
sage to convey inform ation or reduce uncertainty.7
However, we are quite dubious about inform ation theories of entropy
such as Shannon’s that focus on the message and neglect the state of the
receiver, or that assume that attentional capacity is unlimited, or that
message entropy and the entropy of the receiver are somehow identical
(e.g., Watt & Krull, 1974).
In the model we are developing, entropy refers to states in which a
person experiences conflict between goals, or between feelings, thoughts,
and goals, and states that therefore reduce that person’s capacity for
sustained productive action. T he order of one’s experience is also very
much dependent on internal physiological processes that themselves
enter consciousness as information. This is because entropy, or the loss of
energy, keeps breaking down the harm onious integration of mental pro­
cesses. Every few hours the sensation of hunger intrudes into the
thoughts o f even the most exalted genius, and unless the person eats, he
or she will not be able to marshal the mental energy required to think or
maintain order.
Conversely, negentropy describes states in which the inner contents of
experience are in relative harmony, and the person is in greater control
of his or her mental energy; consequently he or she is generally in a
positive mood and capable o f productive action. T he negentropy quo­
tient of inform ation, then, is its capacity to decrease conflict in conscious­
ness.
To a girl struggling to do arithmetic homework, the rules for long

*Einstein’s observation on the broad applicability o f the classical laws o f ther­


modynamics is o f interest here:

A theory is more impressive the greater is the simplicity o f its premises, the more
different are the kinds o f things it relates and the more extended its range o f
applicability, (see Miller, 1971, p. 46)

For Frederick Soddy, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, the laws o f thermodynamics neces­
sarily explain all activity, including hum an activity: the laws “control, in the last resort, the
rise and fall o f political systems, the freedom or bondage o f Nations, the m ovements o f
com m erce and industry, the origins o f wealth and poverty, and the general physical welfare
o f the race” (Rifkin, 1980, p. 8). See also W iener (1961) and Beniger (1986) in this regard.6
6 CHAPTER 1

division potentially have a high NQ, because they will allow her to solve
problems with m uch less effort and frustration. To a m an who wants to
bake a birthday cake, the recipe for a chocolate torte m ight have a high
NQ. For someone who has suffered a series of personal tragedies and is
at the end of his rope the “message” of the Gospels could have the
highest NQ, because it allows him to re-order experience around new
goals, thereby making m ental energy available again.
T he model implies that the quality o f inform ation is best evaluated in
term s of individual goals. Because people have different and multiple
goals and therefore different and multiple needs, the value o f a message
is necessarily relative.8
At the same time, the im portance of some goals is shared widely
enough to make messages relevant to them have a nearly universal and
predictable NQ. This is true both for the kinds o f extremely basic inter­
nal inform ation our bodies generate (we all need to eat and sleep with
some regularity in ord er to prevent disorder in experience) as well as for
inform ation that comes from outside. For example, the piece of infor­
mation: “You have ju st won $1 million in a sweepstakes, tax free,” if
coming from a credible source, will make most people happy, because it
offers a solution to many goals that previously could not be reached—
buying a house, paying long overdi^e bills, or sending one’s children to a
better school. On the other hand, the message: “You have a term inal
disease,” if coming from a medical authority and if true, will obviously
alter most any person’s plans, and has a low NQ or a high entropy
quotient.
A lthough few messages have either as high or as low a potential for
negentropy as the two examples above, it can be useful to consider all
acts of communication as lying on a continuum between these two ex­
tremes, depending on whether they produce harm ony or conflict in
consciousness.9 And of course, there are other much m ore common
forms of inform ation that can either disrupt or help provide ord er to
experience, forms o f inform ation that we normally take for granted and
that we even help produce unconsciously as we make our way through
life. T h e inventions o f the “days of the week” and “the hours o f the day,”
as ju st two examples, have enorm ous influence on structuring when we
sleep, eat, work, play, or watch television, and thus help provide order
and regularity to our existence.
People are also constantly taking in inform ation about their environ­
m ent and, if this inform ation is suddenly quite different from what one
normally expects, one experiences disorder in consciousness. In other
words, without regular reassurance that the world is as we think it is, it
would become impossible to pursue our goals. T he penchant for o rder
also helps explain why people talk so m uch about their environm ents,
A WAY TO THINK A BO U T INFORM ATION RECEPTION 7

about themselves, and the people around them (Berger & Luckmann,
1967). People talk about these things, in part, to help maintain assurance
in their world as they know it— they engage in “reality-maintenance”
work. Indeed, the constructivist approach in communication theory (De­
lia, O ’Keefe, & O ’Keefe, 1982) and much psychological research provide
num erous examples of how the hum an mind goes about seeking and
providing order for itself.
So, although people are attracted by novelty and complexity, they also
very m uch seek familiarity and order. And television is capable of
providing inform ation anywhere along the continuum that we have just
described. Although it is certainly rare, there are people who first
learned directly from television that they had won $1 million or that a
loved one had died. And as with the rest of everyday life, most television
inform ation obviously falls somewhere between these two extremes in
terms o f its potential to create order or disorder in experience. Indeed,
am ong its ordering functions may be the very kind of everyday reality-
maintenance work that we have just described. One of our tasks in the
chapters that follow is to consider where on the continuum most televi­
sion viewing falls and why it falls where it does.
But to know the value of a bit of inform ation or its ability to create
o rder in experience, is not enough to know whether it makes a person
happy here and now. It is also im portant to know whether the message
has the potential of being used in a m ore complex fashion in helping the
person become better able to cope with new situations that might arise in
the future.
If consciousness processed only simple, redundant inform ation it
would be unequipped to handle difficult tasks. Learning means to pro­
cess inform ation that stretches one’s present capacity to assimilate it.
Thus, complexity defines another particularly relevant dimension of com­
munication. Generally, a complex message is one that requires mental
energy to encode and to decode. T herefore, each message has a certain
complexity quotient, or CQ, depending on how m uch effort it will take to
process it.10
Complexity without order typically leads to confusion and anxiety.11
But when o rder is also present, complex messages are m ore likely to
result in positive experiences that also lead to learning and growth. In
fact, in chapter 7 we illustrate this relationship (see p. 143) between
order and complexity and show why experience high in complexity and
high in order often leads to personal growth.
But given the fact that both order and complexity depend on mental
energy, or attention, which is a scarce resource, communication that will
perm it enjoyable, growth-prom oting experiences is likely to occur less
frequently than other forms of communication. Instead, much comm u­
8 CHAPTER 1

nication may be used simply to preserve the status quo and will be rather
red u n d an t and boring, or low on complexity.12 Next in frequency m ight
be the state of affairs in which CQ and NQ are both average.
A nother implication of the model is that to tu rn a confusing message
into one that will produce learning, attention m ust be invested into it
until the inform ation is integrated into an existing way of thinking (cog­
nitive structure) or until a new way of thinking develops that can accom­
m odate the message.13 In fact, many learning experiences start in anx­
iety and confusion and have value or can be enjoyed only after enough
attention has been invested in the inform ation to decode the message.
Indeed, because people tend to avoid inform ation that increases entropy
they will sometimes change information, deny it, or virtually not process
it if it contradicts what they already believe. Instead, they may prefer to
seek out inform ation that confirms what they already know (Carter,
Pyska, & G uerraro, 1969; Festinger, 1957; Freedm an & Sears, 1965).14
Similarly, to transform a boring condition into an enjoyable one, the
person m ust also invest attention to make the inform ation m ore com­
plex. Portions o f a long car trip can be m ade enjoyable if the passengers
attend closely to the scenery, or use surplus attention to make plans, play
games, listen to music, or talk to each other.
Both these changes, from confusion to enjoyment or from boredom
to enjoym ent require the allocation of scarce mental energy to the infor­
mation at hand. T he same extra investment is needed to tu rn a pleasur­
able experience into an enjoyable one.
Pleasure, for o ur purposes, is different from enjoyment. Pleasure gen­
erally comes from processing “messages” that our genetic inheritance
has m ade congruent with the biological goals of the body, such as the
sensations we get from eating when hungry, from sex, from the relish we
take in a healthy body. These messages may tem porarily produce o rder
in consciousness, but not psychological growth. Enjoyment requires a dif­
ferent form o f active involvement to produce a positive inner state.
But although we have begun to develop a model that will help explain
the reception o f inform ation, whether it be from scenery, from a book,
or from television, it is clear that the attem pt to find an unequivocal,
absolutely objective standard must eventually be doom ed to failure. We
have suggested that televised inform ation, like any other inform ation,
will be valuable to the extent that people can use it in the service o f their
goals. W hether an instance o f television viewing creates order or disor­
der in consciousness depends on what the person wants and needs and
what other options he or she has. As the patterns of goals vary, so does
the potential value of television. Ideally, then, the value of the viewing
experience would be assessed in terms of the total psychic economy of
each viewer.
A WAY TO THINK ABO UT INFORM ATION RECEPTION 9

We cannot fulfill such an ideal. But because television viewing takes


place in a real world full of other predictable activities and dem ands, we
can begin by considering what people usually spend their time doing
and thereby provide a context in which television viewing can be m ean­
ingfully evaluated. Because television viewing is an activity that almost
invariably takes place during “free” time we must also give some thought
to what leisure is, and how it is used.

ENDNOTES

!O f course there are other ways o f thinking about attention. For exam ple, although
Kahneman (1973) would agree that attention is a capacity for arousal and the perform ance
o f mental work, he does not believe that it is a filtering mechanism.
2G eorge Miller (1967) claimed that people have difficulty discriminating am ong senso­
ry alternatives that exceed 7 in number.
3Our use o f psychic energy is similar to Freud’s (1900/1965) early use o f the term to
describe mobile attention. In later writings, Freud equated psychic energy with libido or life
force.
4T h e importance o f order and complexity as basic organizing principles has been
recognized for som e time. As early as 1920, Fry (cited in Berlyne, 1971) noted the impor­
tance o f both order and “variety” in organizing and stimulating the senses. George
Birkhoff (1933) also introduced complexity and order into his formula o f “aesthetic m ea­
sure,” although like many, he considered complexity and order to be features o f the object
o f perception rather than psychological phenom ena linked to stimuli. Bennett and Land-
auer (1985) asked whether order and complexity are the same thing and came to the
conclusion that they are not. T hese concepts are also discussed by Attneave (1954) and
Berlyne (1958, 1960, 1971). Additional contributions on com plexity have been made by
Rosenbleuth, Wiener, and Bigelow (1943), Walker (1973), and by H eyduk (1975) who
contends that the degree o f preference for an event is inversely related to the distance
between the event’s psychological complexity and the individual’s optimal or preferred
psychological complexity level.
R udolf Arnheim (1971) has also written on complexity and offered a critique o f the
inform ation-theory approach to the concept o f order. See Finn and Roberts (1984) for a
review o f the entropy concept in inform ation and communication research, and Ritchie
(1986) for an evaluation o f Shannon and Weaver’s (1949) m odel. See Arnheim (1971) and
Schwartz (1969) for broad reviews o f the entropy concept in hum an behavior.
M easuring order in television materials has received less attention than developing
com plexity indices (Rice, Huston, Sc Wright, 1982; Watt & Krull, 1974; Watt & Welch,
1983) that have been applied in studies by Rimmer (1986), Thorson, Reeves, and Schleu-
der (1985), Wartella and Ettema (1974), am ong others. T horson et al. provided a useful
review o f the television complexity literature.
5For Maslow (1954), needs that are low in his seven-tier hierarchy need to be at least
partially met before those above them can becom e important sources o f motivation or
themselves be met. T he hierarchy starts with physiological needs (hunger, sleep, and
thirst), then com e safety needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs (to achieve, be
com petent, gain approval and recognition), cognitive needs (to acquire knowledge and
understanding), aesthetic needs, and finally self-actualization needs (finding self-fulfill-
m ent and realizing on e’s potential).
10 CHAPTER 1

6A lthough Freud apparently never referred directly to the Second Law, his notions
about the “constancy principle” and tension reduction have led many to assume that his
thinking was influenced by N ewton and the prevailing mechanical principles o f the day.
David Riesman (1954) claimed that Freud “understood man’s physical and psychic behav­
ior in the light o f the physics o f entropy and the econom ics o f scarcity” (p. 60). Carl Jun g
also conceived o f the psyche as having the potential to combat entropy.
7A similar negentropy concept applied to inform ation processing has been developed
by Klapp (1986) who holds that entropy is the negative o f inform ation. Actually, Shannon
showed how a system high in entropy potentially conveys more inform ation than one low in
entropy. In this view, a bit o f data com ing from a highly diverse and disorganized system
may convey m ore inform ation than a bit o f data com ing from a hom ogeneous and orga­
nized system. (See Wright, 1988, pp. 8 7 -8 9 , for a simple explanation o f this.)
D epending on o n e’s point o f view, then, information can be equated with entropy or
negentropy. We have chosen to use the more accepted understanding that order helps
convey inform ation. It should also be noted that in a closed system, disorder m ight neces­
sarily be created at the same time that there is an im provem ent in order elsewhere. As we
are thinking about it, the psyche is an open system.
8Many research findings support this view. See Zillmann and Bryant (1985) for a review
o f som e o f the relevant literature. In a study by Pearson (1971), for readers with low needs
for arousal, stories on unimportant topics and those supporting the views o f the respon­
dents resulted in significantly m ore positive m ood change and greater overall preference
for continued exposure than those on important topics and those containing discrepant
information. For those individuals with high needs for arousal, m ore important topics
generated more positive m ood change and greater preferences for continued exposure.
But even for high need subjects, the need for arousal was exceeded when subjects were
exposed to discrepant inform ation, resulting in preferences for discontinuing exposure.
9T h e first two o f Zillmann and Bryant’s (1985) six propositions for a “theory o f affect-
depend en t stimulus arrangem ent” are relevant here:

1. It is proposed that individuals are motivated to terminate noxious, aversive stimuli


o f any kind and to reduce the intensity o f such stimulation at any time. It is further
proposed that individuals are motivated to perpetuate and increase the intensity o f
gratifying, pleasurable experiential states. . .
2. Based on this hedonistic premise, it is proposed that individuals are inclined to
arrange— to the extent they are capable— internal and external stimulus conditions
so as to minimize aversion and maximize gratification, (p. 158)

10We recognize that this is a simple way to conceptualize complexity. However, our
thinking is similar to som e o f the conceptualizations o f “cognitive complexity,” a concept
that dates in nam e at least to Bieri (1955) and Crockett (1965). See Streufert and Streufert
(1978) for a com prehensive review.
According to Walker (1973), people generally prefer m oderate com plexity to extrem e
com plexity or simplicity. Note, however, that as with order, complexity need not be “in” the
message itself. In this regard, Reeves and Thorson (1986) have shown that som e televised
messages that were rated as “com plex” in pictorial inform ation or verbal content were
easier to process than less com plex material. In explanation, they make a distinction be­
tween global and local complexity. For them, local complexity involves the intake o f m es­
sages. H ere, more com plex messages did require more effort by viewers. Global com plex­
ity, on the other hand, is related to m eaning and it is here, for them, where greater
com plexity may be m ore easily processed.
11Klapp (1986) drew a similar distinction between “good” and “bad complexity,” where­
A WAY TO THINK ABO UT INFORM ATION RECEPTION 11

in bad complexity is experienced as “boring and frustrating” and “contains maximum


disorder” (p. 90).
12Redundancy is critical to animals generally. E. O. Wilson (1975) concluded that redun­
dancy “characterizes animal com munication systems” better than any other single word (p.
200 ).
13T he Piagetian (1975/1977) terms o f assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration in
cognitive structures are relevant here.
14In this regard, Zillmann and Bryant (1985) have concluded that “exposure to infor­
mation may be sought not so much because o f expectations regarding particular excitatory
and hedonic reactions but primarily because they contain soothing, com forting inform a­
tion” (p. 182). We would note, however, that the word “soothing” would seem to connote a
hedonic reaction.

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