TV habits and values: a university teaching experience

Abstract

On the one hand, this paper is part of a wider reseach work that collects information on some diferent variables: previous knowledge, habits of studing, motivational strategies, learning strategies, thinking styles, moral judgement, self-esteem, maturity (adulthood), values and logical reasoning. On the other hand, this work is one of the first steps on the ongoing research project about the controversial relationship between TV contents and values. In this paper we focus on the results obtained from a sample of university students on the relation between their values and TV programmes preferences. The data collection used on this survey process was carried out by means of virtual forms (on the Internet) since we are of the opinion that they are an effective research tool providing more interactivity in the academic virtual context. A profound development of this teaching tool is bound to become an excellent means of promoting activities focused on students and activities (non-attendance), as the frame of European recommendations for studies convergence suggests. We also use the questionnaire (SVS) created by Schwartz (2002) to know the students´ values and a questionnaire created by us to know their TV preferences. The research on this field has been mainly atheoretical or it has been based on three major models: cultivation theory (Gerber & Gross, 1976), social-cognition learning theory (Bandura, 1996), priming theory (Jo y Berkowitz, 1996). Currently, researchers are focused on analysing the effects of TV according to other models such as agenda setting (Severinm y Tankard, 1997), framing (Hallahan, 1999; Scheufele, 2004), uses and gratifications (Rubin, 1994) or enjoyment by means of tensional control (Zillmann y Bryant, 1996). According to social-cognition tradition, values are considered cognitive representations whose source can be found, on the one hand, in basic biological needs and, on the other, in demand coming from different social intitutions. But values also mean an individual contruction of a transituational goal where targets involve interests (collective or individual) that have to do with a specific motivational domain. The results show that almost the whole group of the students considers themselves as viewer and most of them prefer to watch television soaps. Besides, meaningful differences in some values domains can be related to TV enjoyment expressed by the subjects of our sample. Certain values domains like security, conformity and power are important for those students who enjoy watching TV a lot versus those who do not enjoy it. Similarly, we find some limitations on our work. Firstly, habits of the use of television should be defined more clearly and a suitable measure of this use should be developed more accurately, secondly, the data on the habits of watching TV and preferences might be conditioned by the sample composition. Nevertheless, we think that the measurement by means of the Internet is innovative and it can make the access to wider samples easier. At the same time, this tool may have an effect on the data and it could be incompatible with the requirements for the correct experimental data collection. To sum up, this paper collects the fruits of a didactic experience whose results can be used for making an empirical approach and for taking the first steps in the right direction concerning the research project on TV..