ABSTRACT
Since the early 1980s, communications researchers have increasingly recognized the family as an important context for understanding media behavior. When television first became widespread, there was much concern over the impact of the medium on family life (Maccoby, 1954; McDonagh, 1950). Researchers warned that television was stealing precious moments of interaction time between husband and wife and between parents and children. This interest in the family, however, was short-lived. As the public and press became more comfortable with the presence of the electronic stranger in the home, attention shifted to the “deleterious effects” of television content on susceptible individuals (primarily children) and on more narrow and multi-contextual topics (for example, the effect of violent television on aggressive behavior). The family as a context and mediating variable for individual exposure to television was all but forgotten.
