Volume 33, Issue 4

In this study we analyzed to what extent partners who share the same household affect each other's exposure to television. With the use of linear structural equation modeling we analyzed data from a large scale representative survey in The Netherlands (n = 697 couples). Results indicate that both men and women influence their partner's exposure to television. When people spend much time watching television, their partners are also likely to spend a lot of time in front of the television. These influences on each other's exposure were of equal magnitude for both men and women. Finally, we found a strong socialization effect of parental viewing in the family of origin.

Research on parasocial interactions (PSI) and parasocial relationships (PSR) refers back to a tradition of 50 years. However, research on both phenomena still suffers from overlapping definitions and resulting measurements that do not distinguish between PSI and PSR. The present study presents a post-exposure measurement tool (the PSI-Process Scales) that aims to measure PSI instead of PSR. It is derived from a theoretical model that specifically focuses on PSI. Psychometric analyses indicate the tool's high usability. It is capable of displaying both the intensity and the dimensionality of PSI. It can be applied to measure both positive and negative PSI across all TV formats, without changing the item wording. In sum, the PSI-Process-Scales may offer a valuable alternative for researchers in the field, specifically if they want to assess parasocial processes that take place throughout TV exposure.

This article assesses online newspapers in Europe from a media evolutionary perspective, ten years after the introduction of the World Wide Web. Comparing print and online front pages of 51 newspapers in 14 countries in 2003, we argue that online newspapers complement print newspapers in modest ways. Online, publishers put more emphasis on service information, offer additional news items, that nonetheless report on similar topics in similar ways, and add personal interactivity, content selectivity and real-time news to the print news offering. One subset of online newspapers charges for services, and offers more content and personal interactivity. Another, partly overlapping subset offers more original news; in a short and anonymous format. Overall, however, online newspapers in Europe make up a heterogeneous group, suggesting that online newspapers still have to find their definite form and role in the European news market.

This article explores the implications of the emerging new players in the global arena of telenovelas. Latin American telenovelas have had phenomenal success in the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe. There has been an effort to localize the genre of telenovelas in some of those countries. The Croatian case emerges as a specific example because of its recent trend in the domestic production of telenovelas. Studying the political-economic aspect of this imported genre by examining debates surrounding the domestically produced Villa Maria could help us understand some of the logic of the global media flow. Given the commercial development of broadcasting and the subsequent rise of U.S.- and Latin American-produced fiction, this article is an analysis of the political-economic and globalization debates that emerged in the Croatian press around domestically produced telenovela Villa Maria.

Revenues from television spot-advertising can be viewed as a kind of indirect financing of editorial content. This applies still further to endeavours to incorporate advertising messages into programming. In order to identify problems associated with doing away with the separation principle, it is meaningful to adopt a perspective that brings together theories and findings which are genuinely embedded in economics and communication science. Such a perspective shows that appealing to the self-regulating forces of the market is nonsensical in a sector where market failure is the rule as opposed to the exception. And when it comes to media competence of television viewers, audience research and research on media effects indicates that expectations with respect to the advertising effectiveness of product placement are unlikely to be met.

This study explored in what way and to what extent people's occupational position corresponds with the consumption of news and the exposure to political content offered by the traditional mass media TV, radio, and newspaper, using survey data (N = 825). The influence of occupational position in general and perceived amount of public social capital (or: social network) on especially consumption of news as well as the exposure to political media content, was evident. Findings are in line with the central assumptions on ‘audience activity’ of audience-centered models in communication research in general and the ‘media use as social action’ approach especially (cf. Renckstorf and Wester, 2001, 2004). The subjectively perceived social context, indicated by occupational position as well as the subjectively held structure of relevancies is a central predictor of media use.