ifferent age pattern, however, for children's perceptions of television people and events being like real life--what he calls the social expectations dimension of perceived reality. There was no age-related decrease in children's perceptions of television characters as similar to people in real life--at least not through the sixth graders he studied. It seems likely that children's perceptions of television reality are as multiple as the phenomenon would suggest. For example while Archie Bunker is not a "real person" you and I may meet on the street, he may act like "some real people" you and I know. Moreover, 'how much" like real-life people we perceive Archie to be depends on our experiences and perceptions of Archie as a stereotype. The major hurdle may be for children to understand that television people are actors portraying events. This understanding seems to occur between first and second grades. Understanding that television people may be like real people, or that television people may be useful in showing the viewers how to behave, may not decrease with age. This finding may account for the often-cited statistic from Lyle and Hoffman's (1972) study, which found 25 percent of tenth graders interviewed reporting that people on television were like people in real life. Indeed, television people often act like people in real life, even when the characters are stereotypes. It seems reasonable that children might recognize these similarities. Just as understanding the reality of television appears to be multidimensional, so too might children's understanding of the structure of television programming. For instance, there is evidence from several studies that between kindergarten and third grade children acquire the knowledge that television advertising content is different from programming because the former tries to sell products (see Adler et al., 1977, for a review). However, comprehension of the relationship between programming, ...
