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Human Communication Research Vol. 10, No. 2, Winter 1983, 203-225

ADOLESCENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF SOCIAL CONFLICTS IN TELEVISION NEWS AND SOCIAL REALITY

AKlBA A. COHEN HANNA ADONI GIDEON DRORI

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

This study examined Israeli adolescents ’ differential perce ption of social conflicts in society and of their presentation by TV news, given the assumption that TV presents a distorted picture of real social conflicts along three dimensions: complexity, intensity, and solvability. It was hypothesized that age and degree of remoteness of social conflicts from one S life experiences will account for the main differences in an adolescent ‘s differential perception of social conflicts. The sample consisted of 492 9th-grade and 425 12th-grade Israeli adolescents. The data indicate that the older adolescents typically differentiate between the two realms of reality to a greater degree than do the younger adolescents. This is the case for three conflicts (school integration, labor disputes. and political terrorism) across the three dimensions. Moreover, the highest degree of differentiation between the two realms of reality was found for both age groups in the school integration conflict. with which the respondents were presumed to be most familiar, and the least differentiation for the conflict concerningpolitical terrorism. with which they were presumed to have had the least experience.

This study investigates the way Israeli adolescents differentially perceive social conflicts in society and the way they are presented by TV news. The differential perception of social phenomena and their symbolic representations may be considered as part of the process of the individual’s construction of subjective reality. The basic assumption

Akiba A. Cohen (Ph.D., Michigan State University, 1973) is a senior lecturer in the Communications Institute, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Hanna Adoni (Ph.D., Hebrew University, 1976) is a lecturer in the Communications Institute, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Gideon Drori (M.A. , Hebrew University, 1981) is a senior producer of documentaries at Israel Television.

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204 HUMAN COMMUNICATION RESEARCH / Winter 1983

underlying the concept of differential perception is derived from the phenomenological approach, which assumes that people have the ability to differentiate at the cognitive level between “common sense” reality of everyday life (that is, social reality) and its symbolic representations (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Schutz, 1967). This approach provides a stimulating conceptual framework for the study of the relationship between the perception of social reality and media reality.

This study focuses on social conflicts as the object of perception. The choice of social conflicts was prompted by several considerations: first, the ubiquity of social conflicts in society (Oberschall, 1973); second, their dominance as a theme of the news media (Galtung & Ruge, 1965; Gans, 1979); and third, the need of the individual to understand social conflicts, to relate to them, and to cope with them.

Experience of adolescents with social conflict can be direct, or mediated through various socializing agents. Scholars of political socialization have suggested four such agents: family, peer groups, school, and the mass media (Atkin, 1978; Dennis, 1973; Hyman, 1965, 1973-1974; Sears, 1969). Few studies on the role of the family as a socialization agent have found similarity of political attitudes between adolescents and their parents (for example, Blumler, 1975). On some issues, however, such as wars (Hyman, 1959), school integration, the holding of public office by communists, and freedom of speech against religion, dissimilarities were found between the attitudes of adolescents and their parents (Jennings & Niemi, 1968a, 1968b). These phenomena can possibly be explained by the relative lack of communication between adolescents and their parents, or attempts by parents to avoid political conflict issues when dealing with their children (Jaros, 1973). If, however, such communication does take place, then this can be explained by the tendency of parents to provide apolitical explanations for severe political problems of the day (Oren & Peterson, 1967).

The role of the school in the socialization process is mainly to provide information about the functioning of the society’s political institutions and thus to strengthen its political-ritual symbols (Hess & Torney, 1967; Newman, 1968; Morrison & Mclntyre, 1971). By their desire to ensure faith in the basic value system and the stability of the social order, school systems in Israel and elsewhere tend to de-emphasize the differences between conflicting values and ideologies and to minimize social and political inequality. And yet, as Morrison and McIntyre (1971) point out, there are also times when school attendance actually provides

Cohen et al. / ADOLESCENTS’ PERCEPTIONS 205

children with firsthand experience with social conflicts. In Israel, as well as in many Western countries this is especially true in the context of social and racial integration.

In the broad sociological context, informal peer groups have also been examined in terms of political socialization (Eisenstadt, 1956; Langton, 1967). Findings from several studies indicate that during adolescence, the peer group is not an important agent in clarifying the controversial issues of one’s society. Although Lyle and Hoffman (197 1) did not directly study political socialization, some of their findings are pertinent to this point. They found that school events were discussed among adolescents to a greater extent than issues such as pollution, the Vietnam war, or even student protests. In addition, discussions among adolescents about TV were mainly restricted to fictional rather than informative contents. Moreover, Chaffee, Ward, and Tipton (1970) and Adoni (1979) specifically report that adolescents tend to consider their peers as unimportant sources of information concerning political controversies.

Empirical research seems to indicate that although the adolescents are surrounded by numerous agents of socialization, the development of their perceptions of social conflicts seems to depend to a large extent on television (Hollander, 1971; Adoni, 1979). Rubin (1978) suggests that the decreased trust of American youth in the 1970s toward the political establishment can be explained, at least in part, by the salience of television depictions of political conflicts. This can be due to the fact that much of the content of television programming, both fictional and nonfictional, deals with social conflicts (Gans, 1979; Hall, 1973; Murdock, 1973; Tuchman, 1978). There is no literature, however, that specifically suggests that the other socialization agents, such as family, peer groups, schools, and church, emphasize social conflict. On the contrary, as indicated above, these latter agents typically highlight the consensus in society and the positive aspects of political life.

The context and nature of television’s contribution to the individual’s perceptions of social phenomena was studied from several viewpoints. According to the “cultivation hypothesis” Gerbner and his associates (1976, and in subsequent articles) argue that television contributes to the individual’s perception of reality in an implicit manner, without the individual being able to distinguish between media reality and social reality. The present approach rejects this assumption.

The Media Dependency hypothesis (Ball-Rokeach & DeFleur, 1976) offers a more refined approach, suggesting that people depend upon the


mass media for information about social phenomena that are remote from their everyday life experiences to a greater extent than they depend upon the media for phenomena accessible to direct experience. Little direct evidence exists to support the Media Dependency theory. Hartmann and Husband (1972) found differences concerning ethnic perceptions among children in neighborhoods with high and low percentages of immigrants. The latter, who depend more on the media, tend to perceive interethnic relations as more conflictual than do the former, who have more firsthand experience with such matters. Greenberg and Reeves (1976) suggest that to the extent that television is the only major source of information on a given topic, it can be assumed that this information will be perceived as real and will be internalized by the viewer. They also suggest that direct experience with social reality will decrease the acceptance of television reality. The present study links the Media Dependency hypothesis with the phenomenological theories; both emphasize the importance of direct versus mediated experiences with social phenomena in the process of the construction of subjective reality.

Much of the research on the media has indicated that their contents are inherently biased due to the process of selection and composition (Epstein, 1973; Tuchman, 1978). The work of Adoni, Cohen, and Mane (1981, in press) dealing with social conflicts has suggested that the television on biases in this area are related to three main dimensions of social conflicts: their complexity, intensity, and solvability.

The sociological literature maintains that the degree of complexity of any conflict in society is a function of several factors: the dynamics of their development, their manifest and latent issues, and the opponents’ motivations. Media literature, on the other hand, suggests that television news coverage tends to simplify social conflicts. TV news does so by focusing only on the manifest stages and minimizing the presentation of their underlying causes, the opponents’motivations, and, in general, the analysis of social conflicts as gradually unfolding social processes (Glasgow University Media Group, 1976; Tuchman, 1978). According to Murdock (1973), this type of simplification is the result of the “event orientation,” which determines that processes leading to an event do not themselves make the news. In the absence of explanations of the underlying causes of social conflicts, TV news presents events as being “caused” by the immediately preceding acts of groups or individuals, thereby creating the impression that dissent is confined to small and marginal groups in society. A further simplification is the typical


depiction by T V news of social conflicts as struggles between two well-delineated opponents (Epstein, 1973), while in many conflict relationships there are actually more than two parties, in addition to possible mediators, who are pursuing incompatible goals.

Intensity of a social conflict is one of its central dimensions (Kriesberg, 1973). The degree of intensity of social conflicts varies in terms of both the adversaries’ feelings and their overt behavior. Behavioral intensity is a function of the means used to obtain goals, the most intense being violence (Eldridge, 1979). The intensity of social conflicts is directly related to the kinds of issues in contention (Oberschall, 1973), and its degree varies among social conflicts and even within a particular conflict as the process of escalation and deescaltion occur.

Several studies have claimed that TV news tends to present only the more intense moments of social conflicts (see, for example, Hall, 1973). Tuchman (1978) illustrates this point with the example of news coverage of riots. While during riots there are periods of lull, “news reports usually ignore this, collapsing the course of riots into continuous intensive activity” (p. 190-191). Hall (1973) observed that the characteristic form of coverage of social conflicts is “actuality without context” and that this is obtained by the concentration of the news media on “vivid sound and image” (p. 91). Furthermore, the presentation of intensive activity usually centers around groups who are not identified with the economic and political powerholders of society. For example, the Glasgow University Media Group (1976) found that in the TV news coverage of industrial strikes in Britain, management representatives are generally interviewed in their offices-a quiet setting connoting reason, authority, and responsibility, whereas strikers are shown in “action” at mass meetings and pickets-settings implying that they are the major sources of the discord.

According to sociological theory, all specific social conflicts even- tually end, usually by compromise (Kriesberg, 1973). However, their specific bases are not necessarily eliminated by the particular settlement, and a new conflict may reoccur. The degree of difficulty of solving a social conflict depends on the nature of the incompatible goals of the parties and the cost of the possible outcomes (Oberschall, 1973).

T V news, on the other hand, tends to present social conflicts as “incidents soon to be resolved rather than permanent conflicts of interests” (Gans, 1979) and to reduce the variability of resolution. Critical sociologists, like as Murdock (1973), contend that as a result of


the “event orientation” the social conflicts covered by T V news appear to be short-termed and easily solved. The underlying message of this type of presentation is that society is essentially characterized by consensus, and that the consequence is the reinforcing of the status quo. These sociologists also claim that, as a result of the ethical and professional importance of objectivity, neutrality, and balance, the presentation of T V news gives the solutions to the conflicts the appearance of being in the general interest rather than exposing the advantages the ruling classes gain from them (Connell, Curti, & Hall, 1976).

In sum, according to the literature on media and culture, presentation of social conflicts in TV news tends to diverge from the complexity, intensity, and solvability of social conflicts as they occur in society. Due to its visual and dramatic character, television tends to depict social conflicts as less complex, more intense, and more:easily solved than in reality. The present study investigated several hypotheses related to the basic question of whether or not these content biases are transferred to the individual, causing him or her to perceive social conflicts as less complex, more intense, and more easily solved than in reality.

The preceding discussion suggests the following hypothesis: the differential perception of the complexity, intensity, and solvability of social conflicts in reality and in TV news will depend upon the degree of remoteness of the conflicts from the individual’s direct experience. More direct experience and consequently the less dependency on TV news will result in greater differentiation between the perception of social conflicts in reality and the perception of their portrayal in TV news; and, conversely, limited firsthand experience will result in relatively little differentiation between the perception of social conflicts in the “real” world and in the world of TV.

The second hypothesis states that the older the person, the better he or she will be able to distinguish between “real”socia1 conflicts and their portrayal in TV news. This will be due to the combination of increased general cognitive abilities, to differentiate between social phenomena and their symbolic representation on the one hand, as well as greater accumulated direct experience with various social conflicts on the other.

The third hypothesis relates to the direction of the differential perception. It was expected that greater experience and better cognitive abilities will result in the perception of the social conflicts in TV news as less complex, more intense, and more easy to solve than they are in reality.


Any study concerning perceptions of adolescents must take into account not only the interaction between the individuals and their environment, but also cognitive development, which is of central importance in the socialization process (Adelson & O’Neil, 1966). Cognitive development has long been considered a process of differentiation in the structure of cognition and perception that enables the individual to make distinctions among different regions of reality and phenomena in the physical and social environment. Werner (1957) argues that during the course of cognitive development, a process of conceptual differentiation occurs. Crockett (1965) refers to differentiation as a central characteristic of “cognitive complexity.” Bieri (1961) emphasize the dimensional characteristics of the cognitive structure and distinguishes between differentiation (the number of dimensions according to which the individual perceives the environment) and articulation (differentiation within each dimension). In the context of the present study, it is also important to emphasize Crockett’s (1965) suggestion that cognitive complexity is specific to certain areas of activity, and is somewhat dependent upon the experience of the individuals within their environment.

The work of Piaget (1954) and Flavell (1963) has been applied to the study of television and children by several researchers. Such studies have focused on Piaget’s stage theory of cognitive development. In its fourth and final stage, that of formal operations, which takes place by about age twelve, children are better able to think in an abstract manner. Landmark and subsequent empirical studies along these lines have focused on such topics as the comprehension of television contents (such as Collins, 1970), the distinctions between the content of television and advertising (such as Ward & Wackman, 1973), and the perception of social reality (such as Hawkins, 1977).

These and other similar studies used early adolescents (generally up to age twelve) as their oldest age groups in comparison with younger age groups. The research reported in this article uses 15-year-old respondents as the youngest age group because it was assumed that the subject matter of the study was such that it required good mastery of the cognitive skills that develop by the formal operational stage. In fact, a pilot study indicted in unequivocal terms that younger children could simply not deal with the relevant concepts. On the other hand, older adolescents (age 18) were also studied as it was expected that the relevant cognitive abilities continue to develop at least until late adolescence. Indeed, Piaget (1972) agrees that the formal operations


stage may occur between 15 and 20 years of age, particularly concerning certain abstract concepts’, and Riegel (1973) suggests a fifth and final stage of cognitive development-dialectical operations-which also takes place at the older age level.

METHOD

SELECTION OF CONFLICTS

In order to examine differences in perception between the “real” world and the world of television news, along the dimensions of complexity, intensity, and solvability, and taking into account Media Dependency theory, several conflicts were selected that varied in their presumed degree of remoteness from the everyday life experiences of Israeli adolescents. By using conflicts varying in their degree of remoteness, it was possible to examine not only the overall differences in the perception of the two worlds, but simultaneously how the degree of remoteness affects these perceptions.

Three social conflicts, which exist in most Western countries, were selected: school integration, labor disputes, and terrorism. Each conflict represents one social domain or life area: social integration, economic, and political, respectively. These three life areas are central in every social system. However, they are not ordered in terms of their remoteness from the members of the system. On the other hand, thespecificconflicts were selected on the basis of two different criteria: first, their prevalence in TV news in many counties; and second, the ability to arrange them in a hierarchy of their presumed degree of remoteness from the personal unmediated experiences of adolescents. Of the three conflicts, it was assumed that Israeli adolescents have the most direct experience with conflicts involving school integration, less direct experience with labor disputes, and the least amount of unmediated experience with terrorism.

In selecting conflicts that are designed to be ordered on their degree of remoteness, cultural-specific considerations must be made. Thus, in the Israeli case, it is widely accepted that integration of Jews from Sephardic (Near-Eastern) and Ashkenazi (European) origins is a central and highly dominant social problem. For many years this issue has been in the forefront of the public agenda and of political and social activities; notably among them a wide-scale program of school integration that is still underway. The implementation of this program is not always smooth and without debate, protest, and social action. The school

Cohen et al. / ADOLESCENTS’ PERCEPTIONS 21 1

population, both pupils and teachers, are exposed to and part of this conflict. In other countries, it is conceivable that school integration may be based on other criteria, and the salience of the problem may be different (for example, racial integration in American schools) and may vary from community to community. In Israel, however, it is a highly salient issue and of national proportion.

As for labor disputes, the Israeli economy is characterized by, among other things, many labor disputes, often culminating in wildcat and general strikes. The direct involvement of adolescents in these labor disputes is typically passive as consumers of public services that are often the subject of the disputes, such as educational institutions and transport systems, or when their parents are directly involved. Their own active involvement is typically limited to the possible situations in which they are employed on a part-time basis during school vacations. In other countries, such as the United States and those in Western Europe, the conflicts involving youth and labor might lie in the area of unemployment, for example. In Israel, however, such a problem hardly exists as in recent years there has been nearly full employment.

As for conflicts concerning political terrorism, although they are highly dominant in the Israeli mass media, as well as in the media of other countries, fortunately most people do not experience terrorism personally and directly. Despite the drama and concern about political terrorism, few people are actual victims of terrorist activities. Thus, the degree of remoteness of political terrorism is assumed to be high, and people’s information about it is derived almost entirely from the mass media.

SAMPLE

The sample consisted of 492 ninth grade and 425 twelfth grade students in several high schools in Israel. The sample was representative of the entire high school population of the country.

PROCEDURE

The research was carried out in December 1979. Two graduate students were responsible for the administration in each classroom with an average of 15 students per room. The objective of the study was explained to the respondents as follows: “We come from the Hebrew University and we are interested in studying what young people in Israel think about social conflicts. To be sure that you understand what we


mean by ‘social conflicts’, we are going to show you three news reports that were shown on the evening news some time ago.”

At this point, three 2-minute news items were shown, one representing each of the three social life areas: for the political life area, the item dealt with an airplane hijacking in Europe committed for political blackmail; for the economic life areas, the item reported on a strike at a food factory; and for the stratification life area, the item dealt with an attempt to prevent the integration of children from socially heterogeneous neighborhoods in one school.

The news items were actually produced with the aid of Israel Television newsmen, based on “scripts” prepared by the researchers. The “scripts” were based on the findings of Levin (1979) that indicate that TV news depictions of social conflicts on each of these subjects are highly uniform and that the same basic dramatic elements occur in all of them. The levels of complexity and intensity were designed to be “moderate” in all of the items.* However, as solvability in a news item could be a dichotomous variable, either with or without a solution to the conflict, two versions were produced for each item-one with and one without a solution-in order not to bias the respondents in one particular direction vis-a-vis solvability. The items were produced using film footage purchased from the Visnews agency and from segments shot by the research team. The items were judged by a group of T V journalists and researchers as well as by agroup of high school students in a pilot study to be highly authentic and of broadcast quality. For each subgroup of the sample the items were shown in one of the six possible orders of presentation, with all items either ending with a solution or without one.

The rationale for the use of the news items was to provide the respondents with a common reference regarding the nature of social conflicts; thus, the news items would serve as a “triggering mechanism” to evoke their perceptual responses. It should be stressed, however, that the reason for showing the news items was not to test the effect of the specific items nor the manipulation of the solvability variable. However, since the degrees of complexity and intensity were kept at a constant “moderate” level, whereas some respondents saw a version with solutions and others saw no solutions, differences between the responses to the different versions were examined and indeed no significant differences were found. This allowed for combining the data of all the respondents for the dataanalyses. Moreover, given the hypotheses of the study, it could also be argued that by presenting the respondents with


television news items as examples of social conflicts, a bias could result in which the respondents would be less inclined to differentiate between T V news and social reality. Hence, such a procedure would mean stacking the cards against the researchers. This point should be kept in mind when examining the results of the study.

THE QUESTIONNAIRE

Three questions were developed for each of the dimensions of perception, with parallel questions for both realms of social reality. For each question, there was a range of four possible responses ranging from low to high. For all the questions, a high score indicated high complexity, high intensity, and high difficulty of solvability. By way of illustration, the questions for the school integration conflict are presented below. By substituting “labor disputes” or “political terrorism” or “school integration,” the questions become applicable for the other conflicts as well.

For the realm of social reality, the three questions on the complexity dimension were as follows: “How many parties are generally involved in conflicts concerning school integration?” (2, 3,4, more than 4); “How many different opinions are generally involved in conflicts about school integration?”(two, few, several, many); and, “How many facts does one need to know in order to understand conflicts regarding school integration?” (few, not too many, many, very many). The comparable questions in the realm of TV news were as follows: “How many parties are usually presented on TV news in connection with conflicts on school integration?”; “In TV news, how many differing opinions are presented concerning conflicts on school integration?”; and, “How many facts does one need to know to order to understand conflicts on school integration as presented by TV news?”

The questions on intensity were as follows: “To what extent do the parties involved in conflicts on school integration use extreme means?” (not at all extreme, not too extreme, pretty extreme, very extreme); “To what extent do people involved in conflicts on school integration become emotional?”(not at all, a little, quite a lot, very much); and “To what extent do people involved in school integration conflicts act in an aggressive manner?”(not at all, a little, quite a lot, very much). For the realm of TV news, the proper modifications were made.

Finally, the questions on the solvability dimension were as follows: “What proportion of conflicts on school integration are solved?” (all,


most, few, none); “To what extent are the parties involved inconflicts on school integration usually willing to give up their demands in order to reach a solution?” (very easily, easily, with some difficulty, with great difficulty); and “If a solution in a conflict on school integration is reached, how long does it generally last?”(forever, for a long time, for a short time, for a very short time). Here, too, the necessary modifications were made to make these questions applicable to the realm of TV news.

Thus, for each realm of reality there were 27 questions, 9 for each of the three dimensions in each of the three conflicts. The first set of 27 questions for all the respondents were those concerning the realm of social reality followed by the 27 questions on the realm of T V news. This order of presentation of the questions was decided upon in order to stack the cards against the hypotheses of the study by allowing the respondents, if they so wished, to respond to the questions on the “real” world using the presented T V stimuli as reference points.3

Every set of three questions, relating to a dimension and a specific conflict in each of the two realms of reality, were formed into an index. The reliability of each of the 18 indices was computed by means of Cronback-alpha coefficients, which ranged from .45 to .79. As for the validity of the measures, using Smallest Space Analysis procedures it was demonstrated that adolescents indeed respond differently to social conflicts along the three dimensions of complexity, intensity, and solvability. Moreover, it was demonstrated that they were able to distinguish perceptually between the various social conflicts in the two realms of reality.

At the end of the questionnaire there were several demographic questions. The entire session lasted about 35 to 45 minutes.

RESULTS

Given the three distinct dimensions for the perception of social conflicts (Adoni, Cohen, & Mane, in press) the data were analyzed separately for each of the dimensions. The mean scores and standard deviations for the three dimensions for the three conflicts in both realms of reality are presented in Table I . The sample sizes on which the three ANOVAs are based vary due to separate listwise deletions of missing values for each ANOVA.

Since the hypotheses of the study are copcerned with the dvfeerential perception of social conflicts in reality and in T V news, a difference score was created for each respondent based on his or her scores for each dimension in the three conflicts. The difference scores were computed as “real” world responses minus TV news responses. Thus, if a different

TAB

LE 1

M

eans

and

Sta

ndar

d D

evia

tions

of

Per

ceiv

ed C

ompl

exity

, Int

ensi

ty, a

nd

Sol

vabi

lity

of S

ocia

l C

onfli

cts

in th

e “R

eal”

Wor

ld a

nd th

e W

orld

of

TV

New

s by

Spe

cific

Con

flict

and

Age

(9

th G

rade

N =

492

; 12t

h G

rade

N =

425

)

The

“Rea

l Wor

ld

The

Wor

ld o

f TV

New

s

Ter

roris

m

Labo

r S

choo

l T

erro

rism

La

bor

Sch

ool

Dis

pute

s In

tegr

atio

n D

ispu

tes

Inte

grat

ion

M

SD

M

S

D

M

SD

M

S

D

M

SD

M

S

D

Com

plex

ity

9th

Gra

de

8.09

2.

04

7.20

1.

70

7.83

2.

08

8.03

2.

04

6.94

1.

82

6.54

1.

79

12th

Gra

de

8.36

2.

12

7.47

1.

80

8.30

2.

22

7.87

2.

36

6.57

1.

94

6.35

1.

84

Inte

nsity

9th

Gra

de

10.6

4 1.

38

8.53

1.

49

7.77

1.

71

10.5

2 1.

55

8.51

1.

81

8.10

1.

81

12th

Gra

de

11.0

2 1.

28

8.70

1.

38

8.03

1.

59

10.7

6 1.

68

8.41

1.

65

7.98

1.

95

Diff

icul

ty o

f S

olva

bilit

y

9th

Gra

de

8.86

1.

32

8.09

1.

08

7.76

1.

25

8.84

1.

52

8.07

1.

12

7.77

1.

36

12th

Gra

de

9.27

1.

47

8.31

1.

05

8.38

1.

36

9.10

1.

79

8.05

1.

12

8.03

1.

47

Not

e: M

axim

um s

core

s =1

2. T

he a

ctua

l num

ber o

f cas

es is

sm

alle

r tha

n 49

2 ni

nth

grad

ers

and

425

twel

fth g

rade

rs d

ue to

list

wis

e de

letio

n of

mis

sing

val

ues.

The

refo

re, t

he tw

elfth

gra

de d

ata

are

not i

dent

ical

to th

at r

epor

ted

in A

doni

et a

l. (i

n pr

ess)

. Y cn


a 0

W 0 2 W

W u. Y

= 1.0

-

1 2 t h G r a d e e-0

0 I \ 0.5 1 > \

I \

a I 0 0

T V w o r l d m o r e complex

- 0.5

School L a b o r Terrorism Integration Disputes

S P E C I F I C C O N F L I C T S

Figure 1: Differential Scores for Perceived Complexity of Social Conflicts in the “Real“ World and in the World of TV News by Age and Specific Conflict

score is positive, it indicates that the respondent perceives a conflict in the “rea1”world to be more complex or more intense or more difficult to solve than in the world of T V news. Conversely, if a difference score is negative, it means that the respondent perceives the conflicts in the world of T V news as more complex or more intense or more difficult to solve than in the “real” world. These difference scores were used in three 2-way ANOVAs, one for each dimension, with age and specific conflicts as the independent variables. The realms of reality and the specific conflicts were treated as repeated measures. The means of the ANOVAs are plotted in Figures 1, 2, and 3.

As for complexity (Figure l) , the difference scores are all positive, indicating that the three conflicts in the “real” world are perceived as being more complex than in the world of TV news. Also, the older respondents perceive the differences in complexity between the two realms of reality as greater than do younger respondents (F ( 1 , 915) = 34.22, p < .001). As for the specific conflicts, in both age groups the greatest perceived differences are in the school integration conflict ( F (2, 1830) = 90.36, p < .001). No significant interaction was found.


‘Rea I ‘wo r l d m o r e i n t e n s e

rn w 2.0 a 0 0 v,

1.5 W 0 z W

W a 1.0

> 0.5

Y Y - 0

I-

rn z I- z

- y 0.0

- - 0.5

T V w o r l d m o r e i n t e n s e

1 2 t h G r a d e 0 4

9 t h G r a d e 0-

SChoo I L a b o r T s r r o rism

S P E C l F l C C O N F L I C T S

l n t a g r a t ion D i s p u t e s

Figure 2 Differential Scores for Perceived Intensity of Social Conflicts in the “Real” World and in the World of TV News by Age and Specific Conflict

Regarding intensity (Figure 2), a somewhat different picture emerges. The overall finding is that the twelfth grade respondents perceive the difference in intensity between the two realms of reality as greater than the ninth grade respondents ( F (1, 915) = 9.14, p < .01). For the ninth grade respondents, the intensity of the conflicts concerning terrorism is perceived as slightly greater in the “real” world than in the world of T V news. However, in the conflict on school integration the intensity was greater in the world of TV news compared with the “real” world. As for the labor dispute, no difference was found between the two realms of reality. For both age groups combined, the difference between the two realms of reality across the three conflicts indicates that the school integration conflict was perceived as relatively more intense in the world of T V news, whereas the labor dispute and terrorism conflicts were slightly more intense in the “real” world as compared with the world of TV news (F (2, 1830) = 9.36, p < .01). No significant interactions were obtained,

As for difficulty of solvability (Figure 3), a third pattern appears. The main effect for the age variable was significant (F (1,915) = 24.27, p <


’ 0 . 5 *

I - = > w

2 w 3 Y 0 y 0 . 0 . . - L O

n Y -

T V world - 0.5 ‘ more diff icult

’R e a I‘ w o r I d m o r e d i f l i c u l t 2 . 0 t o s o l v e

> I- - 2 1 . 5

c7 1 2 t h G r a d e 0-e

9 t h G r a d e -

~ ~~ _____ ~~~~ -

Figure 3: Differential Scores for Perceived Difficulty of Solvability of Social Conflicts in the “Real” World and in the World of TV News by Age and Specific Conflict

.001). Among the ninth grade respondents, there is no perceived difference between the difficulty of solvability of social conflicts in the two realms of reality for any of the specific conflicts. However, for the twelfth grade respondents, as the conflicts are closer to the individual’s direct experience, the perceived differences between the difficulty of solvability in the two realms of reality is greater, with the greatest difference in the school integration conflict. The overall main effect for the specific conflicts was significant (F (2, 1830) = 3.00, p < .05) and the age by conflicts interaction was also significant (F (2, 1830) 4.44, p < .o 1).

DISCUSSION

This study investigated adolescents’ differential perceptions of social conflicts in social reality and in TV news. The overall results suggest that, when asked to do so, adolescents are able to differentiate between the social conflicts and their symbolic representations in TV news.4 As initially expected, age and the degree of remoteness of social conflicts from one’s life experiences seem to account for the main differences in


the adolescents’ differential perceptions of social conflicts. The data indicate that the older adolescents (around age 18) typically differentiate between social conflicts in the “real” world and in TV news to a greater extent than do younger adolescents (around age 15). This is the case for the three specific social conflicts across all dimensions with the exception of the intensity of the school integration conflict. This holds, however, more for the intensity dimension. Thus, the findings presented above seem to suggest that developmental changes in the perception of social conflicts possibly occur unevenly in the different dimensions.

Although the literature on developmental trends relating to T V variables generally avoids the upper adolescent age group, some evidence does exist. For example, Dorr Leifer and Roberts (1972), using respondents ranging in age from kindergarten through adults, found that twelfth graders and adults make better discriminations than ninth graders and younger children between the motivations and consequences of aggressive action.

Another possible interpretation is that the clear differences that were found between the two age groups are indicative of increased direct experience that is related to age and education. The most salient example of differentiation was found for both age groups in the school integration conflict along the complexity dimension. Similar results were found along the solvability dimension for the twelfth grade respondents only, although the differences there were generally less striking than those along the complexity dimension. As for intensity, the differences were maximal for the labor dispute and for the school integration conflicts for both age groups, and between the terrorism and labor dispute conflicts for the ninth graders. These findings support the Media Dependency hypothesis inasmuch as the greatest gap between the two realms of reality was found for those conflicts with which most adolescents presumably have the most direct experience, namely conflicts concerning school integration.

In sum, it might be suggested that the older adolescents’ increased ability to differentiate between the two realms of reality stems from a fusion of cognitive and socialization factors. The present study did not attempt to make a direct assessment of the relative contribution of cognitive abilities, on the one hand, and unmediated personal experience, on the other hand, to the exhibited level of differentiation of both age groups. I t is merely suggested that both processes seem important in order for perceptual differentiation to take place. Further research could possibly attempt to partial out the explained variance of perceptual differentiation due to each of these factors.


The hypotheses concerning the direction of differentiation were supported for two of the three dimensions. The respondents perceived conflicts in social reality as more complex and more difficult to solve than in T V news. The somewhat different results on the intensity dimension showed that in the conflicts, with which adolescents have only little or no direct experience, TV news is perceived as less intense than “real”life, while in conflicts such as school integration, with which they presumably have more personal experience, its depiction on T V news is perceived as more intense or at least as equally as intense as its “real” life counterpart. This specific unexpected finding may be due to the respondents’ oversensitivity to the problem of school integration in their schools; consequently, they perceive this conflict as particularly overdramatized on television.

The amount of exposure of the adolescents in the sample to T V news may seem on the surface to be an important intervening variable. This does not prove to be the case, however. Of the entire sample used, a large majority of the adolescents, both in ninth and twelfth grades, habitually watch T V news at least several times during the week, if not nightly, while there was absolutely no case of a “nonviewer” in the sample. This fact corroborates other findings that Israeli adolescents as well as the general population are heavy news viewers, in addition to being heavy news readers (Adoni, 1979; Roeh, Katz, Cohen, & Zelizer, 1980). Moreover, and more directly pertinent, are the results of twodirect tests that were performed on the data: the analyses were done separately for viewers of TV news every night versus the relatively less frequent viewers, and for high versus low newspaper readers. No differences were found in the ability to make the distinctions between the two realms of reality when controlling for exposure to T V news or for newspaper reading.

This unusual finding should be emphasized as it is felt that for each person, there is an ideosyncratic point of “saturation” in media use when a reader and/ or a viewer becomes familiar with the various genres and media codes, including the portrayal of social reality in news. Since the present focus is not upon the knowledge level of specific events, but rather upon the overall perception of certain issues, it would not make a significant difference if a person watches the news more often or less often as long as he or she becomes familiar enough with the way it is shown. In a sense, this argument is analogous to “you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.” The same argument holds for newspapers, of course.


The findings of this study generally confirm the initial hypotheses and suggest several implications. First, to the extent that TV news is acentral socializing agent in the process of the construction of subjective reality, the findings imply a rather limited conception of the effects of television. If the world of television is perceived at least to some extent as different from the “real” world, then TV portrayals of the “real” world are more likely to be judged by the viewers as relatively biased and to be accepted only partially by them as reality. Cognitive abilities and direct experience probably act jointly as intervening variables in the process of the adolescents’ assimilation of television’s world image. Thus, the measure of differential perception has theoretical and empirical importance in revealing the significance of these psychological variables, which account for much of the variability in the adolescents’ perceptions of social reality.

Second, the present study clearly demonstrates the utility of the multivariate approach to research in the field of media and socialization. The nature of the adolescents’ construction of social reality must be investigated in terms of perceptual dimensions and domains of direct and indirect experiences. The explanatory power of factors such as cognitive abilities, real life experiences and exposure to different socializing agents and informational sources must be clearly established. Of course, a considerable amount of additional research is needed to accomplish this goal.

And finally, the question of the generalizability of the findings to other social conflicts and other social realities (that is, other countries or societies) is of prime interest. The focus in this study was on social conflicts in life areas that are basic to most Western countries. However, the specific conflicts chosen in the present study are not necessarily those that would be selected in any other country, nor would their specific hierarchy of remoteness be the same. Moreover, the degree of remoteness of the same conflicts may also change over time, even in the same cultural setting. Therefore, the culture-bound variable of remorteness and the general notion of media dependency should be taken into account in further studies of a cross-cultural nature. This is currently underway in a multinational research program.

NOTES

This article was sponsored by the Israel National Council for Research and Development. The authors would like to thank Professor William J. McGuire of Yale


University for his comments at the conceptual stage of the study. Professors Elihu Katz and Shalom Schwartz of the Hebrew University provided excellent comments on an oral presentation of the findings. Sherrill Mane and Hillel Nossek served as exceptionally able graduate research assistants throughout the entire project. Finally, the authors would like to acknowledge two anonymous reviewers for the journal who provided extremely constructive criticism, suggestions, and encouragement of an earlier version of the article.

1. It is suggested that terms like conflicts, complexity, intensity, and solvability are the kinds of concepts that require this advanced cognitive development.

2. Levin’s (1979) study was based on an analysis of numerous news items that could be ranged from high to low in terms of their intensity and complexity. For example, a news item on a hijacked airplane showing an actual attempt to rescue the hostages and/or victims of such an occurrance was considered as highly intense; a similar news item only showing the airport and a long shot of the hijacked airplane would be considered as low intensity. Items considered as “moderate” in intensity would typically show the hijacked airplane and the negotiations going on. As for complexity, a news item would be considered as highly complex if it referred to many parties to the conflict and/ or numerous issues involved. An item was considered as low in complexity if only two parties were mentioned or only one issue (the minimum for any conflict). A “moderate” degree of complexity typically involved few (3 to 4) parties and 2 to 3 issues.

3. A check was made as to what extent this bias may have occurred. Control groups consisting of 120 ninth grade and 109 twelfth grade students were added. These groups did not view the news stimuli and only answered the questions pertaining to the realm of social reality. There were no significant differences regarding the perception of social conflicts in society between the respondents in the control groups and the respondents who saw the news items. This finding is crucial indeed as it provides retroactivejustification for our not having separated the data collection into two sessions-one for the questions about the “real” world and the other for the presentation of the news items and the questions concerning the world of T V news. Since conducting the present research, a more expanded replication was done with several modifications. The same questions concerning social conflicts in T V news, the “real” world and with the addition of the world of TV fiction were presented to a sample of 417 eleventh grade students. The 91 questions were presented in one session. However, the questionnaire was produced in six versions, one for each possible order of the three “worlds.” Moreover, the questionnaire was administered without showing the respondents any stimuli. The entire session lasted 40 to 50 minutes, with only several of the respondents showing any signs of fatigue. A test was subsequently made between the responses provided by the respondents in the six subgroups based on the different versions of the questionnaire using one-way ANOVAs. Of the 9 I tests run, only 3 were significant with no consistent pattern of differences between the subgroups. One-way ANOVAs were also aoxe for the 27 indices and none were significant. These results are considered as dramatic evidence indicating that the presentation of the questions concerning the different worlds of reality in the same session did not affect the findings. Moreover, and perhaps even more important, the actual analyses of the data contrasting TV news and the “real” world were almost identical to those in the present study.

4. It could possibly be argued that merely by asking the respondents two separate sets of questions concerning TV news and reality could make the distinction more conscious in their minds. This is no different, however, for any situation when aquestionnaire is used to ask questions on different topics. Moreover, as indicated above, the order of the questions did not affect the responses. Hence, this phenomenon could at most reinforce the differentiation but not create it in the first place.


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