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Television has an opportunity to influence beliefs about groups with which individuals typically may have little direct social contact. This study describes a synthesis of the Contact Hypothesis and the concept of Parasocial Interaction to pose what we call the Parasocial Contact Hypothesis to test whether exposure to gay men on Will & Grace can influence attitudes toward gay men in general. Based on a study of 245 university students, this study examines the relationships among number and intimacy of gay social contacts, parasocial interaction, viewing frequency of Will & Grace, and scores on Herek's Attitudes Toward Gay Men and Lesbians scale. Increased viewing frequency and parasocial interaction were found to correlate with lower levels of sexual prejudice-a relationship that was most pronounced for those with the least amount of social contact with lesbians and gay men.

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This study examined the effects of viewing 10 episodes of the television series Six Feet Under to assess whether such programming could influence college students' attitudes about death and dying. Students were administered the Death Attitude Profile--Revised, the Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale, and the short version of the Threat Index, prior to and after viewing. Significant changes were found on a number of measures. These results are similar to the effects of didactic death education courses.