Researchers have employed different theoretical frameworks to predict patterns of television program choice. Despite varied theoretical origins, such efforts typically assume that program choice is systematically related to program content. A substantial body of marketing research, however, has provided evidence that choice is determined by scheduling—not content—factors, drawing into question the explanatory power of current theories. This article integrates disparate theoretical perspectives into a single model that is consistent with empirically documented patterns of choice.

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Of three educational programs, two were manipulated to contain (a) no humor; or humor in (b) a slow pace, (c) an intermediate pace, or (d) a fast pace. The amount of humor was kept constant by combining episodes into blocks for the slower-paced versions. First-and second-grade school children, ostensibly in a waiting period, watched television, and their program choices were unobtrusively monitored. Three programs were available at any time: One never contained humor; of the other two, with the conditions systematically rotated, one contained no humor and the other contained humor of a particular pace. The effect of pacing was analyzed in a factorial design varying the levels of pace with two educational programs. To determine the effect of humor as such, the two manipulated programs with and without humor were traced. It was found that the presence of humor greatly facilitates selective exposure to an educational television program. This facilitation increases with the pace of the employment of humor. Fast pacing (i.e., the frequent placement of short humorous inserts) proved to be most effective in quickly generating and maintaining selective exposure.Many educators apparently believe that the involvement of humor in educational endeavors can only have beneficial effects (e.g., Gilliland & Mauritsen, 1971;Welker, 1977). Some reservations have been expressed with regard to effects on the learning process, especially on the so-called intrinsic motivation to acquire information that does not have an immediate payoff (Singer &

Subjects' initial apprehension about crime was manipulated via exposure to a specially edited crime documentary or control film. They were then given an opportunity to select films to be viewed from a list. This list contained film descriptions that varied (according to apretest) in the degree to which they featured victimization and justice restoration. Analysis of the victimization scores of the films selected indicated that apprehensive subjects (those exposed to the crime documentary) chose films with less victimization than their counterparts in the controlgroup. Analysis of the justice restoration scores indicated that apprehensive subjects chose films that featured more justice than their counterparts in the control group. These findings are consistent with several selective exposure rationales for the well-documented relationship between exposure to televisionand crime drama in particular-and fear of crime. These rationales are fully discussed and the findings of the present study are reconciled with earlier research on the relationship between television exposure and fear of crime, including research on the cultivation of fear via television exposure.