DOES TELEVISION VIEWERSHIP PLAY A ROLE IN THE PERCEPTION OF QUALITY-OF-LIFE

The authors hypothesized that television viewership influences materia lism and dissatisfaction with standard of living, which in turn contri butes to feelings of dissatisfaction with life. They collected data fr om five countries to examine the issue in a variety of cultural and me dia environments. The countries and types of samples were: United Stat es (consumer panel and college students), Canada (urban households), A ustralia (urban households), Turkey (urban households), and China (urb an households). The results were generally consistent with the hypothe ses. However, nest of the support came from the U.S. samples. Too poss ible explanations may account for the findings. One is that the effect of television viewership on life satisfaction is a unique phenomenon that is applicable only to the United States. Given the disparity of v iewership levels between the U.S. and other countries, that explanatio n has some face validity. The other is that the effects were less evid ent in non-U.S. samples because of methodological limitations of the c ross-cultural research. Overall, the results show that television view ership, at least in the U.S., nay play a significant role in making pe ople unhappy with their lives. Much of television advertising reinforc es material consumption and possession with images of the ''good life. '' Thus, television advertising contributes to terminal materialism-ma terialism for the sake of materialism. Socially responsible advertisin g professionals should make a concerted effort to create messages that reflect instrumental materialism-materialism for the sake of meeting essential and basic needs.