Television communicates cultural
lessons and information to the entire nation, and "these cultural
lessons are assimilated to some degree by audience members throughout
the country who then incorporate elements of the sponsored imagery
into their everyday interpersonal relations" (Lull, 1986, p. 607).
Our daily experience of media inclines us toward particular forms of
social life and creates a "shaped world that reflects the essential
possibilities of media" (Idhe, 1983, p. 63). Media characters become
our role models; these role models do not spring from a void, but are
produced from the culturally biased mind of a writer who in turn has
been influenced by para-social interaction with other media figures
(Caughey, 1984). But most importantly, "interpersonal uses of
television, especially when they involve conversation, contribute to
the maintenance of ideological imperatives" (Lull, 1986, p. 609).