Can One TV Show Make a Difference? Will & Grace and the Parasocial Contact Hypothesis Edward Schiappa, Peter B. Gregg, & Dean E. Hewes (forthcoming in Journal of Homosexuality) Can a popular television situation comedy make a difference in how people think about gay men? When the National Broadcasting Company first began to air Will & Grace in 1998, gay rights advocates and media critics applauded the program for its positive portrayal of two gay men with very different personalities (Battles & Hilton-Morrow, 2002, pp. 87-89). The show features four main characters living in Manhattan. The title characters are Will Truman, a gay attorney, and his best friend Grace Adler, a heterosexual interior decorator. They are often joined by Jack McFarland, a “flamboyantly gay, continually unemployed, self-described actor/dancer/ choreographer,” and Karen Walker, a wealthy, married “socialite and alcoholic” who works for Grace (Battles & Hilton- Morrow, 2002, p. 88). The show has been very successful and has won critical praise and numerous awards. By spring 2001, Will & Grace was being watched by an average of 17.3 million viewers each week (Cagle, 2002); in 2002, the series entered syndication and now can be viewed daily in most media markets. Will & Grace is an unusual communication phenomenon. In the U.S., homosexuals are still targets of prejudice, which is manifested “in a wide range of behaviors ranging from verbal expressions of dislike to violent attacks” (Herek, 1988, p. 451). Negative attitudes toward homosexuals have been documented as pervasive among adolescents (Morrison, Parriag, & Morrison, 1999), college students (D’Augelli & Rose, 1990; Kurdek, 1988), and the general adult population in the U.S. (Herek & Glunt, 1993). Attitudes toward homosexuals are slowly changing, however (Altemeyer, 2001; Yang, 1997), and it seems reasonable to explore what role, if any, television has in influencing sexual prejudice (Gross, 1984, 2001; Shanahan & Morgan, 1999). In the first decades of television, homosexuals were mostly absent or portrayed negatively as deviants in mainstream shows like Marcus Welby, M.D. or Hawaii Five-0 (Gould, 1973; Gross, 1991, Simms, 1981). Lesbian representations have fared better than gay men (Moritz, 1989), and both have fared better in film than on television (Nelson, 1985). Content analysis by Kielwasser and Wolf (1992) and Fejes and Petrich (1993) suggest that, at least through the early 1990s, positive representations of gay men and lesbians on mainstream television were few and far between. Billy Crystal’s portrayal of a gay character, Jodie Dallas, on “Soap” is noteworthy as television history but did not appear to lead to more gay characters in mainstream television. By 1995, homosexual characters accounted for 0.6 percent of the TV population, significantly less than estimated rates of homosexuality in the U.S. population (Shanahan & Morgan, 1999, p. 94). In the 1990s, number of gay characters on television increased significantly, though the beneficence of increased visibility is a matter of some dispute (Walters, 2001). While many pundits considered Ellen an important cultural break-through in the U.S., we are not aware of any empirical research done investigating attitudes associated with viewing the show; furthermore, one cannot assume that positive attitudes toward lesbian characters results in positive attitudes about gay men (Herek, 1988, p. 470; Kite & Whitley, 1998, p. 56). While there are positive portrayals of homosexual characters scattered across various television shows, no previous broadcast network show that features two gay male characters in leading roles has reached the sort of enduring popularity and critical acclaim that Will & Grace has. It is impossible, of course, to predict the future direction of television content. The popularity of cable network shows with more diverse portrayals of gay men, such as Queer as Folk, Six Feet Under, and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy