sample reaction paper for extra credit

The study I participated in dealt with using TV as a medium of education. To start we filled out a survey that asked about various things concerning what TV programs we watched, what networks, and how often. Later questions then focused on our knowledge of AIDS. Afterwards, we saw an episode from Girlfriends that dealt with AIDS in particular, and discussed it afterwards. We discussed whether we thought the episode portrayed AIDS in an accurate manner, whether we learned anything from the episode, and then more generally what we thought of the episode. The episode itself dealt with the more emotional aspects and impact of AIDS from someone who already was HIV positive. I also noticed that some of the questions asked in the original survey were apparent in what was “taught” in the sitcom episode. We then later watched part of a Sex and The City episode that dealt with one of the more promiscuous characters dealing with the fact that she had never had an AIDS test. All of her friends have been tested, and the episode basically dealt with the issues in AIDS prevention. We later discussed this episode much in the same manner that we did the Girlfriends episode, and then later compared the two episodes to see which we felt dealt with AIDS better, how each dealt with it, and whether they affected the way in which we acted in every day life (one question was: “does this make you want to go out and get an AIDS test?”). We also discussed on a broader level whether we thought TV or entertainment should be used to teach the public about important topics such as AIDS, whether or not the US public actually knows all that much about diseases like AIDS, and whether the educational use of sitcoms was appropriate and whether or not we actually learned something. Lastly, we filled out a survey much similar to the first that focused more on certain aspects of AIDS to see whether or not our views had changed.
One issue I find most pertinent to the research study was how the graduate student seemed to define Communication for her study. From what I gather, she defined communication as having intentionality—we must communicate with intention; such intention in the case of the research study was to actively try to teach and educate the public about important topics affecting society today. Furthermore, her research reflected some issues dealing with Axiology, in that her research seemed to be geared at fomenting social change, which is rather self-evident as most communication scholars are conducting research in an attempt to understand the communication process and ultimately better society. What I wonder is what her hypothesis was, or rather what theory she was trying to validate. A possible theoretic proposition could be “the greater the amount of educational material presented on primetime TV, the higher the level of societal understanding of important, pertinent issues facing them today.” Therefore the surveys given to us in the beginning and the end of the session were key. One way in which the theoretic proposition could be validated would be through an increase of “right answers” on the survey. In addition, our discussion about which episodes we felt were more effective would play into the fact that the study conducted on us is mechanistic—it is trying to show how both channel (TV) and message (content) variables are affecting our perceptions and awareness. I personally think that it would be interesting to study the effects of TV as a medium of education from a psychological perspective in addition to looking at it from a mechanistic perspective. I know, for example, that my own personal biases and beliefs were affecting how receptive I was to the ideas presented in the TV shows (which one could argue as a psychological extraneous variable that the graduate student must account for).