UWIRE - Research conducted by an Ohio State University doctoral student and an Ohio State alumnus suggests TV dramas can have a significant impact on viewers' political beliefs.
Andrew Holbrook, an OSU doctoral student in political science, co-authored the study with Timothy Hill, an assistant professor of political science at Doane College.
Holbrook and Hill's first experiment randomly divided 213 undergraduate students into two groups. One group watched the crime drama "Third Watch" and the other watched "The West Wing," a political drama.
"We were originally doing a study on how 'The West Wing' affects how people perceive the president," Holbrook said. "We became interested in the effect on viewers' opinions of crime after a large percentage of the control group voted crime as the most important issue facing the nation after they watched an episode of 'Third Watch.'"
After watching the shows, participants were surveyed on their political beliefs. While only 11 percent of "The West Wing" viewers said crime was the most important issue facing America, 27 percent of "Third Watch" viewers said crime was the most important.
Holbrook and Hill conducted a second study based on these findings. The researchers divided 154 undergraduates into four groups. Two of the groups watched crime dramas "Without a Trace" and "Robbery Homicide Division," and the other two watched family dramas "Everwood" and "American Dreams."
The results were very similar to the first study, with 10 percent of the family drama viewers voting crime as the most important issue facing the nation and 30 percent of the subjects watching crime dramas following suit.
"(Holbrook's study) strengthens the argument that the line between the entertainment and news media has become blurred," said Kathleen McGraw, chair of OSU's political science department and Holbrook's dissertation adviser. "Entertainment programming can have real political consequences, and the result of this study supports that argument."
Holbrook and Hill also cited similar research collected in 2002 that showed a large percentage of crime drama viewers had lower overall approval ratings of the president, citing his poor handling of crime.
"In a subliminal way, what appears to be purely entertainment has very serious political overtones," said William Angel, political science professor at OSU-Lima. "We've also seen the news trying to become more entertainment oriented with 'infotainment' programs such as 'Dateline' and '60 Minutes,' programs that have an entertainment aspect to them."