The purpose of this prolonged experiment was to evaluate the effects of exposure to television talk shows that deal with lesbian or gay male relationships, transsexuality, and tattooing. This study shows how television program formats make their way around the world and influence adolescents all over. If one type or genre of programming is successful or popular in one culture, another place will transform the topics to fit in with their viewing audience and sell it.

Talk shows exemplify these formats perfectly, although channels make an attempt to differentiate between them. By having a certain persona each talk show will appeal to different audiences. Despite these efforts to create a unique profile, topics discussed on these programs are similar. 60% identified privacy as the main topics (focusing on conflict situations in a family or partnership, while 34% of programs were personal relationships of guests, followed by 11% dealing with sexual or erotic issues, and 10% was lifestyle oriented. Audience data was compiled and showed that including sexual issues does not increase market shares, so why is it such a frequent piece of talk s

The independent variable in this single factor experiment was the content of talk shows. The experimental condition included five separate talk shows. The control group watched talk show programs containing material on fashion, beauty, celebrities, and personal future expectations. The dependant variables were adolescents' estimations of real world occurrences of problems, their estimation of public opinion, and their individual beliefs on the issues.

H5: Adolescents subjected to prolonged exposure to talk show content about lesbian or gay male relationships/transsexuality/tattooed persons will express less restrictive attitudes toward other issues than adolescents in the control group.

I believe that the study did an average job with their methods and that they did leave room for further research in this area. However it seems as though they left a lot of unanswered questions and two of their hypotheses were not supported at all through the research. If this is used in further studies new and thorough hypotheses need to be tested.

The study, hypotheses, and research questions all coincided with one another. They all lead into the next and were well presented. The questions and manipulations that were conducted and used as research were very appropriate, and so were the questionnaires that were used to discuss the viewer's opinions and viewpoints.

For hypothesis three, after participants were confronted with less restrictive positions on these issues would they then develop a less restrictive view themselves. For all issues discussed the respondents in the experiments group displayed a significantly less restrictive attitude. However, none of the four issues supported by hypothesis four and hypothesis five was rejected completely, as not one difference was found in the predicted direction.

H2: Adolescents subjected to prolonged exposure to talk show content about lesbian or gay male relationships/transsexuality/tattooed persons will perceive public opinion on lesbian or gay

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Approximate Word count = 1375
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)