ABSTRACT
While most of the research dealing with the mass media generally, and television in particular, has focused on direct or mediated learning from communications messages—from factual materials as such, or lessons and generalizations derived from fictional presentations—one of the more salient facts of media consumption has been overlooked. Most of the deliberate exposure of most people to TV is motivated less to seek information, as such, but in search of something generally referred to as “entertainment.” This cardinal fact is reflected with great consistency in audience ratings in the United States, in similar data from other countries, and in the perennial popularity of certain American and British programs across diverse foreign cultures. It is also reflected in some of the data contained in the “uses and gratifications” type of research wherein respondents are asked to reflect on why they use the medium. Although there is reason to suspect some of the data collected in the latter type of research—if anything they probably inflate the actual incidence of active information seeking and deflate the entertainment function—there is still abundant support for a significant incentive to be “entertained.”
