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This article focuses on how do people respond when they are cut off from one of their regular sources of news. In this article it reports reactions of New Yorkers to the newspaper strike of December 1958. The sample used by Bernard Berelson of Columbia's Bureau of Applied Social Research was broadened to include all five boroughs of New York City plus Long Island and Connecticut suburbs. Interviewing areas were selected to reflect the ethnic and economic characteristics of the metropolitan area. Detailed interviews were accomplished with a total of 164 persons who affirmed that they ordinarily read a New York City daily newspaper regularly. Large-circulation New York newspapers have less "community" flavor than the dailies in most American cities. Local news in New York encompasses a vast scene, remote from most newspaper readers' personal experience. Except for newspapers, the tremendous communications apparatus of the metropolitan area continued to function during the strike. Thus it is remarkable that metropolitan New Yorkers missed the papers as much as they did.

The article presents information on the psychology of newspapers along with an exhaustive study of the treatment, which Boston newspapers accorded to revision of the Neutrality Act that gripped the attention of the U.S. in the fall of 1939. This investigation is based upon a complete sample of weekday and Sunday editions of English-language newspapers published in Boston, Massachusetts. The extent to which this simplification of the story took place in the Boston papers was estimated as carefully as possible. The evidence indicates that editors and newswriters attempt to give as comprehensive and adequate a representation of events as they dare; while the readers insist upon selecting, sharpening, and pointing the issue still further to suit their desire for simplification and definiteness. Newspapers must dramatize and select in order to produce in their readers the emotional integration required for a good fight. A newspaper's pattern of influence is built around its editorial policy. Most papers do to a certain extent select news items favoring the editorial policy of the paper, and reject those that are opposed. In summary, the evidence reported in this study is interpreted as supporting five generalizations which are offered here as tentative laws in the new field of the psychology of newspapers: (1) issues are skeletonized; (2) any given newspaper's field of influence is well-patterned; (3) readers are more emotional than editors; (4)public interest as reflected in newspapers is variable in time; (5) public interest rapidly fatigues and presses for an early closure.

Farmers compose one of the most important occupational groups in the U.S. Yet, in past campaigns the Farm Division at the Republican Party's headquarters has emphasized political organization in farm areas at the expense of machinery for preparing and distributing propaganda designed especially for rural voters. Going by the significance of rural voters, The Republican Party organization at Washington finally decided to set up a separate rural press section in the Publicity Division, for the 1940 presidential election in the U.S. Herman Roe, a former president of the National Editorial Association, has been appointed the head of the new section of rural press. Although he centered his hopes on publishers in the agricultural Middle West, Roe circularized a list of 6,000 papers. Of the 4,355 publishers who requested publicity releases in response to his letter, a surprisingly large number came from New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. A thorough knowledge of rural newspapers enabled Roe to adopt techniques that would best serve the country press.

This article focuses on a study designed to determine effects of television on the reading of newspapers and magazines in London, England. According to the author, the methodological problem involved in this and similar studies of the effects of mass communication is that there was no available alternative to an ex post facto "experimental" design in which respondents themselves selected whether they were to be viewers or non-viewers. Moreover, since respondents could not be randomly assigned to the two conditions by the investigator, differences between the two groups on the dependent variable, frequency of newspaper reading, could be attributed either to the effects of television or to initial differences between the two groups. With regard to all these observations, it can be concluded that television may have had the effect of increasing the reading and buying of papers of popular press with their lighter, shorter material and of decreasing the reading and buying of the more serious papers.

This article presents the author's reply to Edwin B. Parker on his observations regarding the study conducted by the author towards the effects of television on magazine and newspaper reading in London, England. According to the author, while the process of matching in terms of the correlates of both dependent and independent variables has been used before, Parker has suggested, under the term "covariance procedure," a more formal and systematic use of the technique, a distinct contribution, practical development of which is more than likely. In addition to this, Parker is quite right in reminding a basic weakness in the use of matching as a means of isolating effects. One can and must build checks into the matching process but in the end some degree of doubt must remain about the efficiency of the matching achieved. If Parker had argued from this position in presenting his covariance method as a means of reducing uncertainty, there would have been no point of difference between him and the author.

This article focuses on the comparative content analysis of the Arabic press. The purpose of this analysis was to determine the extent to which the reading publics in various Arab countries are being exposed to news of international events. Secondly, the kind of information the press is transmitting and the relative attention it is paying to events involving different countries of Europe, Asia and Africa. Lastly, the favorable or unfavorable images of these other countries that this information is likely to convey to the readers. The content analysis was carried out in two phases. The first concerned the content of the entire newspaper. In this phase, printed space was measured and multiplied by the average number of pages per issue to obtain base totals for each prestige paper. The second phase of the analysis was confined to the first page only. Items appearing on this page were classified in greater detail. In the study it was found that, despite the small size of many Arabic newspapers, papers, internationally significant news, as opposed to news of local or regional reference, absorbs a surprisingly high percentage of total space. Objective changes in the world power situation and in the nature of Arab-Western interaction have not succeeded in suppressing the Arab's preoccupation with external affairs.

This article focuses on the papers presented at the conference on communication agencies at the University of Chicago on August 4, 1941. These papers may be grouped under four categories: first, effects of communications on public opinions; second, implications of communications research for social science; third, implications of communications research for public institutions and fourth, governmental control of public communications. Under the first category, the papers reported on effects of print, radio, film and forum. Under the second category, sociologists and professors examined the implications of communications research for the science and practice of politics. Under the third category, papers were presented concerning implication for public institutions. The fourth category consists of generalizations supported both by examples and by frequencies with which typical themes occur in the news content.

This article presents information on economic trends affecting the newspaper as an opinion forming medium. Among current tendencies in the daily newspaper field, one stands out that has become more and more disquieting to both advocates and critics of the industry. Information related to the extend to which trend toward daily newspaper monopoly proceeded in the cities of the U.S. No effort is made here to recount again the vast multiplicity of factors, that have made for and maintained local daily paper monopolies. They include finance, labor union, personnel, wire franchise, feature rights, national and local advertising, distribution, and other considerations. The number of American cities with competing daily newspapers is diminishing by about 10 per cent a year. In short only a few dozen U.S. cities can observe freedom of the press lifted in the daily newspaper field above the realms of academic discussion and made vital. The development of the more extreme type of local monopoly, one-daily-newspaper cities, further emphasizes the change that is coming over the industry.

A study of neighborhood newspapers within a large city illuminates the role which this specialized medium plays in the social process, and underlines the thesis that the image of a source held by it's audience has a strong influence in enhancing the impact of communications from that source. The neighborhood newspaper is found to represent an auxiliary, rather than a competitor, to the daily press in the minds of its readers. It is not believed to be commercialized, it is not seen as politically partisan but rather as an agent of community welfare and progress, and it often acts as an extension of the personal and social contacts of its readers. The urban community press is defined as including any weekly English language publication addressed to residents of a specific locality or area of any metropolitan district. Coordination and the maintenance of consensus within the urban community has been closely associated with the development of interrelated systems of mass media, of which the community press is a part. The community press, long recognized by certain types of commercial advertisers, politicians and community leaders as a relevant media of communication, has been neglected by students of urbanism.

The article presents the characteristics of the press during months of July, August and September of 1940, which were strongly reminiscent of July, August, and September of 1916. Amongst the similarities it is seen that during both the periods a Democratic President was running for re-election. Fear of being involved in a European war was topmost in the minds of the voters, and the national defense and foreign policies were hotly debated issues of the campaign. Especially there is a striking similarity in the attacks upon the administration in power for "failure to adequately build up the national defense." The National Newspaper Week that began on Monday, September 30 was devoted to making the American public aware of the value of a free press. The U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Wendell L. Willkie, the Republican candidate, wrote National Newspaper Week letters emphasizing the necessity of a free press in upholding democracy, and most of the daily papers in the country published their letters. All of the straight Republican and independent Republican newspapers in the country supported Willkie's candidacy for the Presidency. Less than one-half of the newspapers which described themselves as independent Democratic were supporting Roosevelt.

Student Opinion Surveys of America, with headquarters at the University of Texas, was established in December 1938 to provide a scientific sampling referendum for the U.S. colleges. College newspapers were chosen in strategic locations from lists of top-notchers in the annual competitions sponsored by collegiate press associations. A cross-section determined from figures of the U.S. Office of Education and other sources called for an accurate geographical distribution according to student concentrations; so invitations to a selected number of key papers were sent out last fall. In six months the Surveys have conducted studies of the average college man and woman on thirty-two separate questions, many of them in related series. The Surveys definitely show that there is truth in the familiar statement that young people are more liberal in their attitudes than older persons. On social questions students would class themselves as liberal thinkers. Over three-fourths oppose the return of prohibition, only one third think collegians drink too much, and six out of every ten admit they do drink. If they had their way, a blood test before marriage to detect venereal disease would be required by law. And they would make sex education compulsory in colleges.

The National Association of Broadcasters has announced its annual program of grants for research in broadcasting. Until January 1, 1976, students and faculty members at American colleges and universities are invited to submit proposals for studies addressed to virtually any aspect of commercial radio and television, the only exclusion is research concerned with the marketing effectiveness of broadcast advertising. A grant of $ 80,000 to Duke University for a study of the interaction between politicians and the press during the 1976 Presidential campaign. The research, already underway, will focus on media coverage of campaigns in New Hampshire, California, Wisconsin and Virginia. Materials analyzed will include videotapes, news clippings from daily and weekly papers in the four states plus campaign related content in at least seven major out of state papers, three national news magazines, and memoranda and budgets from several news organizations.

Seldom does a wedding attract national attention as did that of former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. The appetite of the public for news was not easily satisfied. Early stories appearing in the daily press more than hinted at family disapproval of the match, although little justification could be found for material of this kind. In many cases the allegations proved embarrassing. Caterers, florists, musicians, dressmakers, and others lending their services were asked to release nothing directly to the papers. The only news material which was knowingly withheld until the day of the wedding, gave details of the bridal gown, costumes of the bridal party, and the guest lists. A plan of press procedure for the wedding ceremony and the reception was prepared. In preparing the entire program, the wishes of newsmen were always considered. Indeed, the plan was frequently altered in response to requests which could be granted in fairness to all.

Findings from analyses presented in this paper, using data from a Roper survey, suggest that the role of attitudes toward homosexuals should be at the center of future explorations of the relationship between the media coverage of AIDS and public opinion. While the available data are limited, our analyses raise the possibility that anti-gay attitudes constrain the ability of the media to effectively communicate information about risk factors and how the disease is transmitted. Researchers need to explore the possibility that anti-gay attitudes stand between media information and public knowledge and public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adults' use of newspapers is found to correlate positively with having reasons for preferring one U.S. senatorial candidate over another. Television exposure is negatively related to political "reasoning" to a nearly significant degree. Data were provided by a 1974 nationwide, postelection survey. Analysis was conducted at the aggregate level, examining media behavior and political knowledge in 67 news markets. News markets with competition among daily newspapers show greater levels of information than monopoly areas, controlling for education and interest in politics. Results suggest that a decline in newspaper penetration, lessened competition, or shift toward use of television for news would weaken peoples' understanding about partisan candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an earlier paper in this journal,* the author suggested that the processes of attitude change underlying mass communication impact are of two kinds: with low involvement to persuasive stimuli one might look for gradual shifts in perceptual structure, aided by repetition, activated by behavioral choice situations, and followed at some time by attitude change, while with high involvement one could look instead [or the classic and familiar conflict of ideas at the level of conscious opinion and attitude that precedes changes in behavior. The present paper describes the development and application of a workable tool to measure this involvement, a necessary step in the study of communication impact along these lines is to proceed further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The treatment of news about the United States in newspapers of the world is, of course, a matter of major interest to the country and people so portrayed. The article presents information on Australian and New Zealand newspaper coverage of the United States. The analysis was undertaken to find out what was being said about the United States in the eight publications, and how it was being said. Seventeen subject-matter categories were developed to analyze all U.S. news, diplomacy and foreign relations, internal governmental affairs and politics, economic activity, defense and military, labor and agriculture, science and medicine, space, religion and education, crime and justice, national morale and character, race relations, prominent individuals, the arts, culture, and entertainment, human interest, accidents and disasters, sports, and miscellaneous. To place findings of the study in proper perspective, it was necessary to determine news hole of each of the eight publications. A sub-sample was drawn from the twenty four issues of each newspaper, using the same procedure as for the original sample. The average news hole was computed for each. Display and classified advertising, daily horse-racing forms, stock-market listings, radio and television listings, comic strips, and crossword puzzles were considered standing items in all the newspapers studied and thus excluded from news hole.

This article focuses on the functioning of newspaper editors in the United States. Because of the unique characteristics of the modern U.S. news paper as a business enterprise, the modern newspaper editor is functionally a distinct species in or perhaps between-the worlds of letters and of business. To state it crudely, it is by professional service to mass circulation that the editor produces, as a by-product, a high cash value for advertising space. By reason of this indirection, the complex newspaper organization is set up as a unique system of checks and balances and the editor operates as part industrialist, part showman, perhaps part demagogue and also as an idealist and professional journalist. For example, it is the editor's function to understand that the first amendment to the constitution guaranteeing the freedom of the press is his institution's most precious heritage, for the preservation of which his eternal vigilance is demanded. So the editor operates with a profound pessimism born, of the realization that unless he harps upon freedom of the press and guards it zealously, no one else will and so it will be lost.

If nothing else, democratic politics requires compromise. Mass polarization, where citizens disagree strongly and those disagreements magnify over time, presents obvious threats to democratic well-being. The overwhelming presumption is that if polarization is occurring, a substantial portion of it is attributable to the fragmentation attendant an increasingly choice-laden media environment where individuals expose themselves only to opinion-reinforcing information. Under what conditions does mass opinion polarization occur? Through two over-time laboratory experiments involving information choice behavior, this paper considers, first, the effects of slant in one’s information environment on over-time opinion dynamics and, second, the moderating role of attitude importance on those effects. The experiments reveal that, despite similar information search behavior, those with strong attitudes are dogmatic, resisting even substantial contrary evidence; those with weak attitudes, by contrast, hear opposing arguments and develop moderate opinions regardless of the prevalence of those arguments in their environment. Evaluations of information, rather than information search behavior per se, explain why individuals with strong attitudes polarize and those with weak attitudes do not. Polarization therefore seems to require more than media fragmentation and, in fact, a more important factor may be the strength of citizens’ prior attitudes on particular issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Little previous research has been done on the public health impact of mass media coverage of cancer episodes of public figures. This paper uses a variety of data sources to examine the impact of President Reagan's colon cancer episode of July, 1985. Records of phone calls to the Cancer information Service of the National Cancer institute are examined as a measure of public interest and concern about colorectal cancer: data on the use of two colorectal early detection tests-proctoscopy and fecal occult blood tests-are looked at as a measure of behavioral change: and data on the incidence of early and advanced colorectal cancer are used to estimate the potential public health impact of this behavioral change. We find that there was a sharp, albeit somewhat transitory, increase in public interest in colorectal cancer in the wake of President Reagan's colon cancer episode, with a corresponding increase in the use of early detection tests. The incidence data on early and advanced disease is indicative of a beneficial public health impact. but this can be confirmed only after additional data on mortality becomes available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares letter opinion (opinions expressed in published letters-to-the-editor) with public opinion on ERA. Prior research has suggested that letter opinion is biased by atypical letter writers or by newspaper editorial policies which are used to select letters for publication. Drawing on a national sample of 92 daily newspapers, no substantial difference between letter opinion and public opinion on ERA is detected. Little support is found for the hypothesis that newspaper policies bias letter opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the author reports the results of a carefully planned and extensive public opinion survey designed to ascertain probable reactions of Turkish couples to a government program of family planning. Also, the survey undertook to weigh the possible usefulness of the mass media and the political and spiritual leaders in the villages in winning support for the program, particularly among the villagers. The value of a public opinion survey in implementing public policy in this situation is clearly underscored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a study of the amounts and kinds of foreign news carried in outstanding U.S. and South American dailies and a comparative analysis of the press treatment of foreign news. Most people in the U.S. and the other American nations learn about world events through the mass media rather than by direct contact, hence the foreign news coverage of the major newspapers can have a great influence on international relations. It was found that in total amount of foreign news covering seven world areas, the South American papers published about double the daily volume published by the U.S. newspapers. The New York Times published almost twice as much foreign news from the same areas as the South American press. A large part of the daily foreign news report in the average South American paper was devoted to news about and from the U.S. The average U.S. newspaper, on the other hand, was found to devote only about one-twentieth of the amount of space to news of South America that the South American paper devotes to the U.S.

It has long been observed by social scientists and, more intuitively, by those who are concerned with the practical politics of public opinion, that one function of the mass media is to confer recognition on individuals or groups. Public recognition, in turn, when it comes from a "significant other" or an important reference group, may exercise an influence on the opinions and behavior of those who receive it. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role that recognition, as expressed through the mass media, played by influencing politically-significant behavior in one crisis situation—the Berlin blockade of 1948-49. Following the end of the Second World War, the city of Berlin in Germany was divided into four sectors, each of which was occupied by one of the four major powers. A full blockade of the land and water routes leading to the sectors occupied by the Western Allies was imposed by the Soviet Union in June 1948. Moscow's objective in doing this was apparently either to force the United States, Great Britain, and France to relinquish their position in Berlin, or else to obtain major concessions from them in West Germany.

This paper deals with the possibilities of translating the findings of domestic American research into hypotheses for international mass communications research. Four American attitude and opinion studies are examined in this light, and their findings are re-evaluated as possible points of departure for international public opinion and communications research. The implications of this study are extremely important to the international communicator. They bear on the basic question of whether he should present a black-and-white picture-portraying his own aims and policies as pleasing and attractive, while condemning the opposition, or whether he should at times admit his side's shortcomings and mistakes. Findings of the study suggest two situations in which it may be advantageous to present both sides of an issue. Since that approach is more likely to succeed with those who disagree, it should perhaps be used whenever there is widespread or intense opposition to the stand advocated in the communication. Secondly, since the two-sided approach seems more compelling for the better educated, it should perhaps be used in communications intended primarily for opinion leaders or sophisticated audiences. By the same token, the one-sided approach may be more successful with mass audiences.

This article presents a study of the newspaper " The Chicago Tribune." The Tribune commenced publication on June 10, 1847, with four hundred readers. During the next fifty years it always managed to be heard. But its importance cannot be measured primarily on the number of its readers. It never lacked sturdy competitors. Its circulation fluctuated sharply. The author says that though the Tribune acquired all the parts that should have constituted, when assembled, by a great newspaper machine. But the insincerity, the lack of faith, contradictions and falsehoods, the refusal to build with infinite patience towards a definite goal, caused the structure to give way. Many things can be legitimately charged against the Tribune. But it cannot be denied that it is rooted in the traditions and personalities of a long and somehow great past; it clings to certain basic ideas and principles, even when it twists and turns in a maze of seeming contradictions and falsehoods.

In Part I of this article (Spring Issue), Dr. and Mrs. Gabel analyzed the editorials, in ten Texas newspapers, dealing with selected national issues. In Part II they turn their attention to several key international issues. The ten newspapers studied (see Part I, Table I; and also Part II, Table I) "appear to be the dominant metropolitan newspaper influences of Texas." They have a combined circulation of nearly 1,000,000, and cover geographical areas representative of both industrial and agricultural divisions of the state. Eight are independently owned, while the Houston Press is part of the Scripps-Howard chain and the San Antonio Light is Hearst-owned. The period covered by the study is mainly early September through December 15, 1945, with a few additional editorials from the latter half of December, 1945. The technique of analysis includes (a) noting the frequency of comment, and (b) indicating the favor, disfavor or the lack of a position, together with something of the manner in which editorial positions were urged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article throws light upon the relationship between trends in the daily newspaper industry and the character of the press as a channel of communication. Of special pertinence to the nile of the press in the public opinion field are evidences of change in respect so independence and financial stability, monopoly, and one-newspaper places. Newspaper developments during the past few years that are described by recently published statistical reports suggest some striking generalizations regarding the press's adaptations to depression and recovery conditions. More daily newspapers do not necessarily mean mouthpieces for hitherto unrepresented segments of the population. Despite the depression decline in advertisements, the industry demonstrated an amazing stability of income. The spread of unified control over the morning and evening dailies in a single field has taken the movement toward local monopolies even further. At least 100 towns now have only dailies of this sort.

This article reflects the growing interest of students of public opinion in the sociological implications of newspaper trends. It is not the political news that informs people about one another. It is the revelations of private life and those inconsequential items that in the newspaper office are known as human interest stories. Now historians of the press maintain that it was this type of copy that, in the U.S., made newspaper reading a universal habit. The question which now arises is that whether personal news which characterizes the popular newspaper play a part in welding the U.S. democracy. The conversion of news into stories told in the language of the street, but written like fiction, brought new classes of readers. These readers were men who can't read or at least had not been habitual and regular readers of the high-priced daily newspapers. The newspaper stories reflected the popular mind, that is to say the way people thought about the things that came within their comprehension.

Even though a record number of women ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020, Clinton's loss in 2016 led pundits, party elites, and voters to worry about whether the country would be willing to support a woman for president, and polling organizations regularly asked questions that tapped into such concerns. While the vast majority expressed willingness to vote for a woman for president in polls, people were more skeptical about how their neighbors felt. Our research question cuts to the heart of this issue: How does polling information about comfort with the idea of a woman president affect perceptions of the electability of actual women running for their party's nomination, and in turn voting decisions? We expect that exposure to signals of low comfort with a woman president will reduce perceptions of electability, and in turn dampen support for women at the nomination stage, but there are competing hypotheses for how signals of high comfort will be received. We further expect that Democratic women will be most affected by such information. We test these expectations with an experiment fielded on the 2019 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES). Our findings have important implications for media coverage of polls related to women running for executive office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent election surprises, regime changes, and political shocks indicate that political agendas have become more fast-moving and volatile. The ability to measure the complex dynamics of agenda change and capture the nature and extent of volatility in political systems is therefore more crucial than ever before. This study proposes a definition and operationalization of volatility that combines insights from political science, communications, information theory, and computational techniques. The proposed measures of fractionalization and agenda change encompass the shifting salience of issues in the agenda as a whole and allow the study of agendas across different domains. We evaluate these metrics and compare them to other measures such as issue-level survival rates and the Pedersen Index, which uses public-opinion poll data to measure public agendas, as well as traditional media content to measure media agendas in the UK and Germany. We show how these measures complement existing approaches and could be employed in future agenda-setting research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various books. One of the books discussed is "The Art of Asking Questions," by Stanley L. Payne. Stanley Payne makes its reappearance just in time to educate and captivate a new generation of survey researchers. For those already persuaded of its value, the book is also available from Princeton in hardcover. Another book is "The Sociology of Journalism and the Press," by Harry Christian. It focuses on the production side of mass communications. It examines the political economy of the press as defined in terms of changing patterns of ownership and control, the effect of advertising policies on the range of viewpoints represented in the national press, and the influence of market conditions on the internal dynamics of newspaper organizations. Another book is "The Sense of Well-Being in America: Recent Patterns and Trends," by Angus Campbell. It describes the state of psychological well-being of Americans as measured by survey data collected over the past 20 years. The book "Television and Youth--25 Years of Research and Controversy," by John P. Murray is also discussed in this article. It focuses on the impact of television on children.

A comparison of front-page New York Times content and national public opinion from 1954 to 1976 showed strong agenda-setting effects for the civil rights issue. For this issue, the optimal effect span was the four- to six-week period immediately prior to field work. These findings contradict previous findings and assertions about a cumulative media effect over a longer period of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the history of political polls in Britain since 1945, when the first such poll was conducted, and examines current topical issues, including the relationship between the media and the polls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely recognized that leaks can hamper international negotiations, but the ability of publicity to promote agreement among nations has received less attention. This article argues that the press contributes to international agreement insofar as it illuminates the issues under negotiation, helps to ensure intra-governmental coordination, links governments with interested publics, and provides supplementary communication channels for diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a rapid change within news institutions in the last decade. The received conventions that decade after decade automatically conditioned each novice journalist to comply with traditional values are being rejected and reformed. Standards of "legitimacy" are being questioned. With the expansion of higher education and more sophisticated demands upon newspapers by their audiences, there was an influx of reporters from middle-class backgrounds with college educations. The importance of social reform in American society affected large numbers of college youth and as they recognized the importance of the media as agents of change, more perceptive, highly motivated students began to appear regularly in the better journalism schools. Professionalism has both aggravated and provided an escape for tensions between traditional and the newer social consciousness values of the news media. It has aggravated tensions by providing a new degree of unity among working journalists in opposition to traditional, institutional constraints that they regarded as inadequate, unethical, or demeaning.

An adequate perspective on our institutions tends to be possible only in retrospect. This article examines media growth trends over the past twenty years and finds the interpretation of them greatly distorted. Contrary to past expectations, mass media are shrinking in size relative to the total economy and the specialized media are becoming increasingly important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many occupations and professions in American society today are experiencing dissension and debate over the definition over responsible professional practice. Within journalism, the debate revolves around objectivity versus subjectivity, detachment versus advocacy, observer versus watchdog. In this article, the authors define two clearly distinguishable sets of belief systems concerning the functions of the media and the role of the journalist, and analyze their antecedents and correlates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of media use have given little attention to the possible social utility of media content for interpersonal communication. Here, this issue is explored by means of two secondary analyses and an experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we present some data. on the use of newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and cinema by samples drawn from. the middle and upper classes in France and Egypt. A sample of 200 was selected in each country, with approximately half the respondents male and half female, and all eighteen or older(n1). The increase, education, axed occupation are typical of a middle- and upper-class population. Table presents demographic data for the two samples. Table 2 presents consumer habits. As can be seen from Table 3, a reasonably high correlation was found among education, occupation or profession and income in France. In Egypt, on the contrary, a significant correlation was found only between education and income, and that is low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What news items interest people most? Which medium do they prefer for what type of news? Leo Bogart reports the results, as obtained from national sample survey, and compares the news preferences expressed by the public with those attributed to the public by a group of newspaper editors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What factors are related to the decisions by newspaper gatekeepers to run certain pieces of information and not others, or to feature certain items and "bury" others? This study involves an integrated approach to this news decision-making process, including analysis of content, administration of a questionnaire, and gathering of demographic data. The study covers three kinds of "forces" and their relationships to news decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on a study to determine effects of television on public library circulation by comparing communities with and without television as a substitute for experimentation. According to the author, with the widespread acceptance of a medium of mass communication in a complex society, it is reasonable to expect that it will produce some changes in the uses made of the old ones. The extent of displacement will depend on how well the new medium fulfills functions of the old and whether additional functions are also fulfilled by the new. The considerable reduction in the use of radio and the change in the nature of radio programming since the advent of television is a good example of such a displacement and shift in function. Moreover, several surveys indicate a decrease in book reading attributed to television. Most are marred by the defect of comparing book-reading habits of television owners with non-owners, ignoring or insufficiently controlling for the fact that viewers and non-viewers of television were certainly different in their reading habits before television became available.

This article undertakes to cite the new orientation, to state what seem to be the emerging generalizations, and to at least suggest the extent of findings which they seem capable of ordering. This optimism is based on two phenomena. The first of these is a new orientation toward the study of communication effects which has recently become conspicuous in the literature. And the second phenomenon is the emergence, from this new approach, of a few generalizations. It is proposed that these generalizations can be tied together, and tentatively developed a little further, and that when this is done the resulting set of generalizations can be extremely helpful. More specifically, they seem capable of organizing and relating a good deal of existing knowledge about the processes of communication effect, the factors involved in the process, and the direction which effects typically take. They thus provide some hope that the vast and ill-ordered array of communications research findings may be eventually molded, by these or other generalizations, into a body of organized knowledge.

The article reports that newspapermen have recently shown a tendency to divide into two groups, those who are enthusiastic about public opinion research, and those to whom it is anathema. This division has been sharpened by the 1948 election polls. The author of this article, a newspaperman of some 30 years' standing and the director of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin poll, gives from his experience some of the reasons both for the enthusiasm and for the distrust. Polls can be of great help to newspapers from a news, editorial, and public relations viewpoint, but at the same time their speed, accuracy, and cost must be brought into line with newspaper standards if they are to be the answer to the newspaperman's dream. Some newspaper folk are antagonistic to opinion polls, chiefly because they are skeptical of the methods employed. They doubt that the cross-section is an accurate portrayal of the community at large, and feel that for their purposes they can obtain results as conclusive by a much more limited number of spot interviews. They also doubt the accuracy of the findings, and in the economic field their experience has shown that such doubts are not without foundation.

This article surveys and summarizes leading events and situations in various fields of communication that particularly concern problems of opinion formation and control. The period covered extends from September through December 1939. The survey seeks to bring together in a concise and convenient form not only factual data having public opinion implications but also summaries of current ideas and hypotheses regarding communicational activities, news of current research, and suggestions for desirable research projects. This article discusses how press, radio and films affect the international communication's the physical network and the form and content of communicated matter. It also talks on the press and news gathering costs, international wireless and radio broadcasting services, motion pictures, promotion and propaganda of films. Other than the problems arising from wartime communications, the press has been particularly concerned during the wartime with problems of economy, prestige, and new forms of competition. The outbreak of the war has strongly emphasized two important factors, (1) public interest in political questions, particularly those related to the ideologies of belligerent nations, and (2) pressure from groups both within and without the industry to produce films congenial to those groups in political content.

This article discusses issues related to press and the Great Britain constitutional crisis. American editors were, however, still somewhat hesitant about breaking the story. The American press clamored for daily coverage. London, Great Britain, correspondents for American dailies and press associations, unable to utilize their ordinary sources, the London dailies, which up to this time had carefully refrained from any mention of the subject, were forced to rely upon surmises, rumors, and conjectures for their daily file. As the date for the abdication approached and the silence of the British press continued, the American correspondents, stimulated by insistent demands from American editors, and handicapped by the failure to obtain either official confirmation or denial, redoubled their efforts to cover "the biggest news story since the World War." The periodical "Editor and publisher" has estimated that roughly 60,000 words were transmitted by cable in the eighteen-hour period which preceded the actual abdication.

Researchers have argued that events and surrounding media coverage shape attitudes and intended behaviors on topics related to the events (Langer et al. 1992 ; Hoekstra 2003). Such research relies on analyzing attitudinal trends using rolling cross-section designs or across data collections, but little published research measures whether an event covered by the media could shape a behavioral intention salient to that event within one data collection period. In 2018 the Census Bureau conducted the Census Barriers, Attitudes, and Motivators Study (CBAMS) survey. Five weeks into the survey's field period, the Secretary of Commerce directed the Census Bureau to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, resulting in media coverage. The CBAMS survey asked likelihood to respond to the decennial census, which may have been affected by the external news environment. Treating this as a "natural experiment," we match pre- and post-citizenship question-announcement respondents and report the results of a multivariate model predicting intent to respond to the census. We also examine differences between subgroups and their complements pre- and post-announcement. Although the citizenship question was not included on the 2020 Census, the odds that those responding after the citizenship question announcement were "extremely" or "very likely" to respond to the census were 20 percent lower than the odds of those responding before. Future research should examine the permanency of changes on intended behaviors, especially in cases where news coverage focused on an outcome—such as the addition of the citizenship question—that did not occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political preferences of those with high and low incomes are highly correlated, and both groups become less supportive of redistributive spending as economic inequality increases. This article looks for a source of these interincome group correlations by examining trends in media coverage. We find that during periods of higher inequality, media coverage is more likely to focus on the personal characteristics of welfare recipients rather than the social consequences and causes of poverty. Observational and experimental data indicate that this shift in media frames can predict declining support for welfare spending, even for those with lower incomes who might benefit from redistribution. These findings help explain the reactions of the American public to rising inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]