Goals and Goal-Achievement Methods in Television Content: Models for Anomie?

The article focuses on the impact of television in contemporary American society. It uses content analysis to explore and illuminate certain dimensions of program presentation that could serve as models for television viewers' behavior. Goals, methods, and combinations of goals and methods presented on programs viewed by various segments of the television audience are analyzed. The degree to which approved goals are portrayed as being successfully achieved by either approved or disapproved methods are also studied. Since many critics appear to worry less about the content of children's programs and are more concerned about adult programs which children are known to watch, it becomes of interest to attempt to determine the extent to which content differs over program types relative to the amount of difference within program types. In this article, a goal was defined by any verbal act or behavior by any character indicating a desire or wish for an identifiable situation. By situation is meant a state of affairs, an identifiable system of relationships.