Tapping into Critical Thinking: Viewer Interpretations of a Television Conflict

Abstract

Media literacy programs frequently teach critical thinking skills with the goal of making viewers less susceptible to undesirable program effects. Even so, scholars are only beginning to understand “how” viewers cognitively construct meanings from program content–a prerequisite step for media effects. This study reports a detailed analysis of the essays viewers wrote in response to an open-ended question about an episode of television conflict. Results showed two interpretive frames guided sense-making. These frames were linked to the viewer's own family communication patterns supporting the notion that different family communication schemata promote alternative orientations toward cognitive processing. In addition, three levels of elaboration about key program ideas demonstrated that different semantic structures underlie viewer interpretations. Suggestions are offered to guide future research and teaching about critical thinking and sense-making processes.