The Relationship Between Race and Racial Attitudes and Adolescent Perceptions of Black Television Characters.

This study conducted with eleventh graders in the Baltimore City Public Schools was based on a correlational survey which explored the relationship between viewer perceptions of black television characters, race, racial attitudes, and viewing frequency. One questionnaire measured viewing frequency, the viewer's perceptions of eight black and non-black television characters, the characters' degree of reality, and the degree of viewer identification with the characters. The Multifactor Racial Attitude Inventory (MRAI) was also used to measure different aspects of attitudes toward blacks. The study found that black shows are watched more by black adolescents than by white teenagers; that non-blacks rated general-audience characters higher than did black respondents 66 percent of the time; that blacks rated black characters higher than did non-blacks 100 percent of the time; that blacks tended to believe black characters were more true-to-life than non-blacks did; and that there was no evidence of consistent patterns or trends relative to racial attitude and viewer perceptions of television characters. Tables illustrating the findings are provided. (FM)