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served to deter, for the female subjects, inhibiting notions about a more limited role for women in politics. Although general exposure to public

affairs information may be higher among boys, as repeated studies have shown, when exposure is equal or controlled the impact may not be very different on young women.

It is important to note that the impact of the "Today in the Legislature" series was rather uniform across students differing in scholastic ability, political interest, and communication behavior. One might expect that such public affairs programming might not reach and influence the less bright and less interested students. However, these sub-categories of viewers did learn as much as those with greater ability and involvement in politics. It seems likely that the nature of the television presentations was an important factor contributing to the generality of effects across varied subgroups. The finding that antecedent variables tended to be unrelated to program reactions along the interesting-dull dimension suggests that the programming attracted all types of students equally.

We also want to discuss the evidence concerning flows of causality among the intervening variables. Panel analyses can be applied to the data in this study to determine how changes in one variable affect changes in others. The matrix of intercorrelations presented in the results section shows the basic pattern of associations between change scores on five key variables measured at both Time 1 and Time 2. The main question involves the direction of causality within each pair of variables. In many cases, one variable conceptually precedes or contributes to the other; in a few the causal flow is doubtful or reciprocal. One means of testing the relative contribution of each variable in a pairing is to examine cross

cases,

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lagged correlations of the two variables between Time 1 and Time 2 levels (Chaffee, Ward and Tipton, 1970). Using this procedure to resolve questions of directionality, we can infer that the one variable in each of the pairings is clearly the greater influence in all but two cases (interest-reading, and interest-knowledge, where the pairs appear to be reciprocal). The chart below orders the pairings from the strongest to weakest change score correlations, with the likely causal variable listed first in each pair:

Ignoring those relationships below +. 10 as insignificant, a tentative

model of influence among intervening ariables can be proposed in this form:

From this, the impact of the televised series of legislature programs appears to be mediated primarily by affective reactions to the legislators: to the extent that evaluations become more positive, increases in interest, reading, efficacy and knowledge occur. Thus, the conduct of the legislators

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in their television appearances may be a crucial factor in determining how the students become socialized from this programming. Increases in interest also seem to play an important role: interest contributes to reading, knowledge, and efficacy. The other three variables do not appear to facilitate program influence, except to the extent that they enter into reciprocal relationships with interest. An alternative model might pair affect and interest as primary mediators--from which the other variab les derive their stimulus for change.

It should be pointed out that many of these linkages are quite weak, and that the program series probably had a fairly direct impact on each variable regardless of intervening changes on other variables. In addition, variables we did not measure at both sessions are not included in the model.

Nevertheless, this analysis gives some indication of the complex pattern of indirect flows of influence which may have resulted from classroom exposure. The main effects results may also serve to partly dispel one of the more persistent myths about television, that people will watch only what they have become accustomed to watch. Few, if any, of these youngsters were

initially avid viewers of public affairs programs; probably equally few were avid viewers after the study.

Nevertheless, those who had been exposed to

six hour-long programs, over a 6-week period, did choose to do some further watching of this same series on their own. Three-fifths of them stated that they would like to see more of these shows in the classroom as well. Twelve percent found the shows "interesting," and one is uncertain whether to say 'only 12%' or 'fully 12%.' Surely, if this initial interest and viewing behavior persisted over time, then both public television and the political process might well profit from increased public participation.

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Outside of the classroom, youngsters are lukewarm attenders to public

affairs information.

The largest bulk, perhaps one-half to three-fourths,

may at best do occasional watching of news and public affairs, and about the game portion have nearly regular readership of the front page of a newspaper. No more than one-fourth are regular fans of such content. This level of attention increases somewhat from late elementary school years through senior high school. This exposure is related to increased political knowledge and campaign activity. To the extent these are socially desirable behaviors then exposure to the kinds of cognitive and affective information available in this TV series may serve to facilitate or accelerate the political socialization process. It may facilitate it by making available information in an attractive, easy-to-assimilate package. It may accelerate it by making it available to groups of young people much earlier than they would normally either receive it or perhaps want to, if packaged in more traditional ways. These results would seem to have some important implications for the formal learning process and its contribution to political socialization. Some theorists, e.g., Hess and Torney (1967), argue that the school is a principal political socializer. If the role of the school as an agent of socialization is through its course materials, there is little evidence to support that proposition. Several 1960's studies on the impact of formal

in-school civics training yield bland results, at best, and a more recent study (Langton and Jennings, 1968) provided extensive documentation for the minimal effects conclusion.

In tandem with those findings is the evidence that the teaching of social studies, including civics, citizenship, etc., by conventional instructional television processes is as effective in terms of learning information

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as conventional classroom instruction (Chu and Schramm, 1967). We have used the term conventional deliberately to describe both those modes, in as much as the bulk of instructional television in such experiments consisted of televising the classroom instructor doing what he normally does, but in front of

a camera.

Even more recently, one school has experimented with using the newspaper as a replacement for, and not a supplement for, traditional classroom texts. The newspaper material was used for instruction in current affairs, mathematics, sociology, and a variety of other subjects. Early results indicate that the use of this mass medium was eminently successful, and with youngsters who were not effectively learning through traditional classroom methods (Lansing State Journal, 1973). Newspapers as a supplement to existing classroom materials have generally been shown to increase public affairs knowledge (Diederich and Maskovsky, 1970).

If one melds these ideas with the possible availability of a televised public affairs series, such as the Florida legislature series, then the focal point of this discussion may become manifest. The television material would appear to be a useful supplement for civics instruction, capable of expansion and interpretation by the classroom instructor. This combination would be expected to result in more thorough political socialization of young people, particularly in terms of knowledge, interest, related communication behaviors, and perhaps in a yen for greater political activity.

Further, there is reason to speculate that the merging of textbook and classroom information with current affairs information from television may have complementary effects. Langton and Jennings (1968) showed that civics classes, traditionally taught, impacted differently on advantaged and