Onderzoeksartikel

Is er een zwakker geslacht als het om televisienieuws gaat?

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Abstract

From several experiments with television news it can be concluded that men remember the news better than women do. A number of explanations for this phenomenon have been formulated, all of which are, in our view, insufficient. We investigated the relative impact of sexual difference with a heterogeneous audience who watched a semi-actual version of the NOSs eight o’ clock news. Our results show that differences in retention of the news between viewers depend on the subject matter of the items and on the way of testing. These differences can sometimes be attributed to level of education, sometimes to prior knowledge, sometimes to age, sometimes to interest in the subject matter, sometimes to sexual difference, and also sometimes to a combination of these factors. The factor sexual difference contributes significantly a difference in retention on only one item, and even in the advantage of the women. We found initially a difference in retention in the advantage of the men, but this is caused by the fact that the men in our study have on the average a higher level of education than the women. Therefore, the proposition, that men remember television news better than women do, is untenable.

How to Cite:

Peeters, A. & Heuvelman, A., (1996) “Is er een zwakker geslacht als het om televisienieuws gaat?”, Tijdschrift voor Communicatiewetenschap 24(1), 75–85.