Health information processing from television: the role of health orientation

The quintessential presence of television in modern American life has led to decades of research on the unhealthy effects of television. However, recent years have witnessed a surge in scholarship seeking to interrogate the positive health effects of television, particularly in the realm of incorporating health content into entertainment-based television programs. One of the important critical questions in the realm of the positive health effects of television focuses on the amount of health information learning contributed by health information content on television. This article takes a motivation-based approach to health information learning from television, arguing that health orientation influences the amount of health information learned by individuals from television. On the basis of 2 separate studies, the article demonstrates that individuals who learn health information from a variety of television programs are more health oriented than individuals who do not learn health information from these television programs.