Television in Time: Research Images and Empirical Findings

Abstract: The thesis contains a general theoretical and historical argument and the application of this argument to specific empirical data gathered over a period of 23 years among young people in Iceland. The first part consists of a selective review of the international research literature on television at the time of writing. This review leads to the establishment of three stages in the development of this image. These stages are repeatedly referred to in the rest of the thesis. The thesis goes on to provide the historical and cultural background to television in Iceland, emphasizing the continuity in the literary and oral heritage over several centuries. The introduction of television may constitute an unprecedented break in this continuity. The main body of the thesis consists of an analysis - and the application of the conceptual tools constructed in earlier parts of the thesis - of three separate questions which were repeatedly put to random samples of young Icelanders, regarding their orientation to other countries, their book-reading, and their knowledge of political figures. In all three instances, the results of the analysis are found to support the hypotheses forwarded earlier in the thesis.