Which medium between radio and television is more effective to capture and sustain the attention of the audience?

Abstract

This dissertation questions which medium, between radio and television, is more effective to capture the attention of the receivers by means of the news bulletin. Focus groups were carried out among post-secondary students to test for attention. This was measured by recall tasks. The relationship of the audio and video channel is integrative if there is redundancy between these two channels, but it is discriminative if there is dissonance. The audio channel is not given full attention because of the little capacity needed to process the information. Attention is not a variable that could be totally controlled: the audience selects which message to attend to on the basis of personal interest.