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Abstract

Introduction

Literature

Rationale

Methods

Results

Discussion

Authors

This empirical work was a pilot study to discover if there is a relationship between Hollywood's portrayal of the military, and people's perception and opinions of the military. To test this question, an instrument was created for measuring people's perceptions and opinions about the military, and what movies with military themes they have seen. The authors created the Armed Forces Perception Survey. Forty-two undergraduate students (22 female, 20 male) from the University of Oklahoma completed the survey. Students reported that their overall impression of the military is positive (M = 2.0476, SD = .6608) and that movie portrayals of people and life in the military were occasionally to rarely realistic (M = 2.6905, SD = .5174.) A significant correlation was found between how the students characterize people in the military with how realistic the respondents thought the movies were, their enjoyment of movies with a military theme, and how corrupt they thought the military is based on how the military is portrayed in the movies. Based on the results of this pilot study, further research needs to done to prove or disprove conclusively if there is indeed a relationship between Hollywood's portrayal of the military, and people's perception and opinions of the military.