Nick Smetana

76100o Argument

Sauer

May 2, 1997

TELEVISION AND LITERACY

In the present society television has become an integral part of one's life, whether to check the score of the Brewers' game or to prepare stir fry with Yan. Television is a huge market: political candidates use it to persuade constituents, corporations to sell products, civil groups for public service announcements, and the military to get soldiers. It would be difficult for one to argue that television does not affect one's life in one aspect or another. Television has the power to affect one's voting, shopping, and eating habits along with one's political or social viewpoints. In fact recent studies have shown that violence on television is related to "subsequent violent behavior" (Hall 311). With the wide grasp of television it would be rather surprising if television did not affect literacy. For example, it is rather common to overhear a group of people talking about the latest episode of ER, but when is the last time you walking along and overheard a group of people talking about Maya Angelou's last novel? The society of the United States has come to brace such idiotic television shows as Beavis and Butthead , yet ignore the classic literature of Dante or Shakespeare. High school students across the country are lacking the basic knowledge of the culture in which they live in. In fact many can not give the century the Civil War was fought in, or who Shakespeare was. (Hirsch 35) The motion picture Clueless has come to represent an entire generation of Americans.

Many scholars believe that television has no effect on the literacy rates in the United States. (Fowles 729) This topic has been through heated discussions and studies through the years but to no avail. Other scholars feel that television does affect literacy, either positively or negatively. What ever the case, this essay will examine a few of the viewpoints on television and literacy and then direct the emphasis on the theory that television does effect literacy negatively and purpose some alternate solutions.

The first view point argues that television does not decrease literacy. Jib Fowles takes a different approach to the literacy problem instead of giving the percentage of illiterates, he examines "hard evidence from several sources on national trends in reading habits and reading materials". (Fowles 726) Fowles takes statistics on the volumes of books sold, data from public libraries, and Gallup polls to illustrate that even though the percentage of Americans watching television is going up, the percentage of Americans reading is also increasing. (728) For example, the statistics from the Department of Commerce show that between 1982 to 1987 bookstore sales rose 64.5%. (727) Fowles points out that this increase was well above the average for all retail trade. (727) He also points out that reading is becoming an "increasingly common practice" for Americans. (727) Fowles states the increase in money spent on books, went from $2.9 billion in 1970 to $9.8 billion in 1988, even with inflation was a significant leap. (727) Fowles then turns to the public libraries where he shows that Americans are also borrowing more books. In 1977, 987 million books were circulating in public libraries, by 1989 that number jumped 35% to 1,329 million books. (727) He then displays that not only are the consumption and borrowing of book increasing but the percentage of people actually reading them are also increasing. In 1962, Gallup asked: Did you read from a book yesterday? The response was 21% answered affirmatively, 26 years later in 1988 the response jumped to 37%. (727) Another Gallup Poll in 1962 asked about television viewing habits, the response was 77% had watched television in the past day. The same question was asked in 1988, and this time it rose to 91%. (728) Fowles thus concludes that the increase in sales of books and borrowing relates to more Americans reading. (729) He uses the reading Gallup Poll to reinforce his statement. The fact that television viewing has risen dramatically and it has not deterred reading habits or public library use of Americans, Fowles reasons that television has no negative effect on literacy. In fact he believes that the reading and watching television are "best understood as complementary rather than competitive" activities. (729)

The opposite theory can be seen with Norval D. Glenn. Glenn reports on a study released in 1991 by Alwin. The study examined the correlation between variables such as television, age, and family background with scores on a vocabulary test. (Glenn 216) The test was conducted by National Opinion Research Center (NORC ) from 1974 to 1990. The 10-item vocabulary test was administered to nine of the General Social Surveys. (216) The vocabulary test was developed in 1942 by Gallup and Thorndike and since then the education-adjusted mean vocabulary scores have been in decline.

The Alwin study focused on 1974 to 1990 in order to determine the cause for the decline. (216) The study concluded that the decline was not a result of family background or age. Glenn then goes on to state that the study found an interesting correlation between television, reading, and the scores on the vocabulary test. The study found that "television watching is negatively related to vocabulary" while "newspaper reading is positively related". (Glenn 218) The main finding of the study combines all three variables and shows that between 1974 and 1990 the mean education adjusted vocabulary score dropped. (222) During that same time period the percentage of Americans reading newspapers dropped, but the percentage of television watching increased. (222) Glenn shows that the Alwin study proves a negative correlation between television and vocabulary.

Another study in the field showed similar results, however, Vernon C. Hall, Karen S. Chiarello, and Beverly Edmondson also showed that television can have positive effects on literacy. Their purpose of the investigation was to replicate the findings of K.E. Stanovich and A.E. Cunnigham "concerning the antecedents of declarative knowledge, using different measures of general ability and television exposure" (305). Their study found minor discrepancies among the data compared to the father study, but they came to a similar conclusion: Educational television increases literacy, while non-educational television limits it. (305) The data from the test came from the four categories tested: general ability, television exposure, print exposure, and cultural knowledge. The general ability data included high school grade point average along with the scores from abbreviated version of the Raven Advanced Progressive Matrices test and Nelson-Denny Reading Comprehension test. A short mathematical test score was also included. (305) The next category, television exposure, included a television preference questionnaire and a recognition checklist. Another questionnaire was aimed at finding out the frequency of the watching three prime time shows and the knowledge on the characters of the shows . (305) The print exposure included author, magazine and newspaper recognition checklists. The cultural knowledge included a variety of test aimed evaluating the participants basic cultural knowledge. The results were stunning, on the author recognition test the mean percentage correct was 24.8%. (307) The magazine and newspaper recognition tests also faired rather low with 46.3% and 31.3%. The regular, non-educational, television recognition checklist's mean score was a healthy 87.3% while the non education was quite lower at 25.0%. (307) SO WHAT IN THE HELL DO ALL THESE NUMBERS MEAN? The numbers are not relevant until the correlation is calculated. The correlation shows the relationship between the sets of data; it showed that the higher the mean score on the regular television recognition test, the lower the score on the print exposure tests and in some cases the general ability tests. (309) This seems to prove that television decreases literacy but the study also found contradicting data. In fact educational television, such as the Discovery channel or the History channel, tends to increase the scores on print exposure tests and general ability along with cultural knowledge. (Hall 312) The conclusion of the study says it all: "Television viewing has become a time-consuming pastime for much of the population and has probably replaced time formerly used for reading." (312). At the same time the study suggest teachers use education television to promote cultural knowledge in their students. (312)

In this essay studies have been stated that show the conflicting data when looking at the question, does television affect literacy? The data represents only a portion of the question. Another piece of the puzzle is what our the hypotheses that explain the data. The first major hypothesis is "Displacement". It suggests that the time spent watching television cuts into "reading, homework, sleeping or active problem solving interaction with a live environment." (Hornik 194) Displacement would support the studies by Alwin reported by Glenn and the one by Hall and colleagues. In fact as stated early Hall highlights displacement in this passage: (television viewing) "has replaced time formerly used for reading". (Hall 312) The "Development of an intolerance for the pace of schooling" hypotheses could also support the studies. The hypothesis suggest that television provides a "no-effort entertainment" which might deter from the classroom environment. (Hornik 194) The next group of theories support Fowles and also Hall. The first hypothesis, "Interest stimulation", argues that if a child watches a program on a given topic then the child is more likely to display greater interest in the topic. (Hornik 194) This is also highlighted in the Hall study by the data that shows that watching educational television increases reading, vocabulary, and an array of cultural knowledge. (313) Fowles study is also supported by this study in the sense that reading is increasing while television is also increasing. (Fowles 726) Another hypothesis also fits into this, the "Learning of school equivalent content" hypothesis suggest that there is an overlap between television and school. Thus watching television is a complement to school which was stated early in the Fowles study. (Fowles 729)

These hypotheses thus shine light on some of the statistics relayed in the reports. However with the data there are some discrepancies. Fowles study brings up the major question; Does an increase consumption of books relate to an increase in time spent reading. This is still questionable, in fact Fowle asks it himself in his study: "Is it conceivable that Americans are buying and borrowing a steadily increasing number of books but are leaving them unread?" Fowle then attempts to strengthen his theory with the Gallup poll studies showing that Americans are reading more and watching television more. (Fowles 727) Nonetheless other Gallup Polls relay a different message. For example from 1975 to1990, the percentage of adults who have read an entire book in the past week declined from 30% to 24%. (Glenn 227). A more stunning statistic is the percentage of people who did not complete an entire book in the past year doubled from 8% in 1978 to 16% in 1990. Another major fault of Fowles argument is that it ignores children and young adults. Consuming and borrowing from the public library are not activities that the majority of children and young adults engage in, yet they are the one that tend to watch television the most. (Hornik 202)

The Glenn report on the Alwin study brings up even more discrepancies. Glenn realizes a majority of theses and is careful to point them out. The first is that the vocabulary test was only ten words and was developed in the 1940's. (Glenn 216) It is likely that the words are outdated and not in use in today's technological slang. (Glenn 217) Another problem is that list is only ten items long. It would be hard to compare a students vocabulary when tested on a hundred words let alone ten, thus it is an inaccurate depiction. Also vocabulary and literacy do not mean nearly the same thing, it is possible for one to be literate yet have a poor vocabulary.

There are other studies that support the theory that watching television does decrease literacy. In 1976, the National Assessment of Education Progress found that teenagers who watched three hours of television the night before an exam scored significantly lower than those who watched less than 60 minutes of television. (Hornik 195) The students who watched three hours of television scored a 59% compared to the 69% of the ones who only watched one hour. (Hornik 195) The number themselves are not striking; however, the similarities with the homework are more surprising. The same group of teenagers scored a 58.5% when they did not do homework and a 72% when they had done homework. This shows an interesting relationship between time spent watching television and time spent in academic studies. The National Assement study gives credibility to the displacement hypothesis. Two other studies observed similar effects. The California State Department of Education conducted a study in 1980, that showed that television caused a "relatively sharp decline on mathematics, reading, and written expression examinations at both the 6^th and 12^th grade levels". (Hornik 195) The second study conducted by Morgan and Gross found correlation between television hours with each reading ,mathematics, and language competencies. The study found correlations of -0.20 for the sixth through ninth graders that participated. (Hornik) The important point in the past studies is that television affects not only literacy but also mathematics, and language skills. This is the strongest evidence yet that supports the displacement theory, along with the Alwin and Hall studies this is the strongest evidence yet for the displacement theory.

The displacement hypothesis is the most credible theory the notion that television does affect literacy. In order to understand the full spectrum of the problem and accept solution one must first recap the previous data. The Alwin study as reported by Glenn found a -.191 correlation between television and vocabulary. (Glenn 218) The results were similar to the -.20 correlation found in the Morgan and Gross study. (Hornik 195) The interesting point of this study was that the correlation was not only found with reading but also mathematics and language skills. Again the National Assessment study also reinforced the multiple correlations. (Hornik 195) The Hall study also supported this and can be read in the previous parts of this article. (Hall 312) The main point to be looked at here, are the multiple correlations. This shows that television is not only taking time away from reading but also mathematics, and other subjects. The displacement theory definitely is a useful tool in correcting the problems in which television can cause.

This essay has shown the negative relationship between television and academics. However, it has also shown the positive effects of educational television. One can come to the conclusion that not all television is a deterrent to learning. The strongest theory supporting the negative effects of television is the "displacement" theory. The displacement theory states that television replaces the time spent reading or doing homework. From the literacy standpoint there is a solution: close captioning. In 1990, Congress passed the "Television Decoder Circuitry Act" mandating that all new television sets, 13 inches or larger, have built in computer chips that decodes captions. (Parks 2) This increased the availability of close captioning to the general public. Since 1990, the number of programs which are close captioned doubled from 400 to 800 in 1994. (Parks 2) In fact almost every prime time broadcast ranging from the evening news to commercials are close captioned. (Parks 2) The pace of the captioning depends on the television program. Sesame Street is about 60 words per minute, the rate of words can reach 250 words per minute as in the ABC Evening News. (Parks 6) Studies have shown that close captioning can improve literacy. In 1989, the Bean & Wilson study showed that students "using captioned materials show significant improvement in reading comprehension, listening comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, word recognition, decoding skills, and overall motivation to read" (Parks 3). Another study by Goldman & Goldman in 1989 produced similar results. (Parks 3). Close captioning has also been shown to improve literacy in second language learner and adult learners. (Parks 5) Close captioning gives an alternative learning tool for educators and parents.

Oberving the data throughout this essay, the best solution is to use both educational television and close captioning. First of all, educational television has been shown to increase literacy and cultural knowledge thus should be integrated into the classroom. Teachers should used educational television as a learning tool and to spur interest in academics. Secondly, parents should use close captioning in order to reverse the effects of non education television. Since television has been shown to displace reading, close captioning integrates both television and reading into one activity. Close captioning would allow the child to view television but at the same time read the captioning, thus increase literacy. These two factors are capable of reversing the negative effects of television and allow a new generation of children to increase literacy with the aid of technology.

Works Cited