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Is Murphy Brown a tramp? Is she a hero, a heroine? Is she a good or a poor role model, and how would we go about answering this question?  The A.P.A. has recently published a huge, ambitious but apparently methodologically primitive study of the effects of violence on TV.  I haven't gotten my hands on the book itself, but from what I read about it it is typical American psychology: detailed statistical counts of acts of violence broadcast on TV and attempts to directly relate these to behavioral sequelae in young viewers.  I'm not sure if there is any theory at all guiding the research. And what would such a theory be if it did exist?  Is Bandura's social learning theory applicable without modification to studies of the effects of television?  Is social learning theory really a narrative theory and has it been from the start without its practitioners ever knowing it?  (Even in the 60s when the early research was being done it was fictional models on film who performed the model behaviors.) Given the fact that a (simplistic?) form of role model theory is the quasi-official explanatory _frame_work which social theorists, jurists, columnists and commentators and intellectuals in general

[ I'm expanding the newsgroup list to include talk.politics.theory and soc.culture.usa, since I think the discussion might have some interest in those groups.  The article which I'm following up appeared in sci.psychology and alt.postmodern where you can probably still find it.  Both that article and this one are long, and the attention-span-impaired should hit 'n' now. ] This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it (Richard Carlson) starts out by asking: | Is Murphy Brown a tramp? | | Is she a hero, a heroine? | | Is she a good or a poor role model, and how would we go about | answering this question?   ... Later, he brings in some other questions, like the relationship between fictional and real-life unwed mothers and the influence of television on popular culture.  Since these are somewhat separate questions, I'll just comment on the first for the moment

[ I'm expanding the newsgroup list to include talk.politics.theory and soc.culture.usa, since I think the discussion might have some interest in those groups. Good, then perhaps we can get it off sci.psychology now, where it never belonged. After, Dan Quayle certainly has no psychology to speak of .

...  From the liberal point of view, Murphy Brown is a hero. In classical liberalism, what really matters is the individual...    You seem to _link_ classical liberalism and modern liberalism a little more liberally than is warranted.  They are basically opposites.  As are conservatism and classical liberalism.  The reason there are more and more unwed single mothers is, as you say, because of modern liberalism

It's curious that Quayle would raise this issue... Not really. Perot was on one of the morning news shows just a day or two before saying that strong family values were missing in the USA, and needed to be restored. Little Danny was just trying to go one better to steal thunder from someone well beyond his league. Not that Perot is that great. Just that Quayle has the intellectual presence of a blue tick hound. What do you want from a man that suggested we go to Mars because it's in the same orbit as the Earth, and has an oxygen atmosphere?

In article < This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it (Gordon Fitch) wr [ I'm expanding the newsgroup list to include talk.politics.theory and soc.culture.usa, since I think the discussion might have some interest in those groups. Good, then perhaps we can get it off sci.psychology now, where it never belonged. After, Dan Quayle certainly has no psychology to speak of . Why do you think it doesn't belong in sci.psychology?  Recall the reason I originally gave: role-model theory of some kind seems to be the default, quasi-official theory of social influence and socialization held by educated (i.e., _Time_-reading or McNeil-Lehrer-watching) Americans.  If the lay public accepts explanations of social phenomena couched in role-model theory terms, doesn't it behove psychologists and sociologist to examine, refine, test and evaluate the underlying theoretical structure? And Dan Quayle isn't very smart?  Fine.  Then why isn't his mind