ABSTRACT
An uncomfortable question is often asked of those professing expertise in the field of mass communication: “Why, after all this research and public clamor about television effects, can't we say with greater clarity and certainty whether the medium does or does not affect the behavior of children and adults in harmful or beneficial ways?” An adequate answer to that question, as is usual in science, is uncomfortably complex. Even a partial answer must consider the following: the number and types of potential effects; the complexity of media stimuli; the special problems in documenting effects; the varying strategies of making inferences from evidence; and the peculiar history and current structure of the communication research field.
