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Despite annual expenditures on public relations exceeding $19.42 billion, U.S. businesses lack practical guidance about the effectiveness of publicity in mass media. Here, we assemble a rich and novel data set to gauge the impact of news reports on consumer sign-ups with the U.S. Do Not Call (DNC) Registry. Using multiple identification strategies, we found robust evidence that news reports increased consumer registrations. Specifically, a 1% increase in the number of news reports increased DNC registrations by 0.018%. The impact increased with mention of the toll-free telephone number and URL, but decreased with the length of the headline and main text. Furthermore, we found evidence that reports affect behavior through persuasion as well as information--the impact on registration was higher for reports that mentioned the number of other people registering. Finally, the impact of news reports on consumer registration was stronger in national than local newspapers and in politically neutral and Democrat than Republican newspapers. Key words: advertising; journalism; information; persuasion; policy; publicity History: Received February 23, 2010; accepted May 6, 2011, by Pradeep Chintagunta and Preyas Desai, special issue editors. Published online in Articles in Advance July 25, 2011., 1. Introduction The media provide the key infrastructure for governance and a well-functioning polity: 'the central purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with accurate and reliable information they need [...]

This paper critically examines the ways that tuberculosis (TB) has been represented in the print media in New Zealand over recent years (2002-2004). Our broad contention is that, notwithstanding its biomedical reality, TB is socially constructed by, and through, human experience. Further, public health practitioners depend, to a large extent, on the media to alert the public to threats of disease and opportunities for protection. However, the messages conveyed are sometimes neither helpful nor accurate. In our analysis of TB coverage in three major daily newspapers in New Zealand, we enumerate and classify references to the disease, as well as undertake a discursive analysis of the revealed themes. Of the 366 texts we retrieved in the database search, we selected 120 for in-depth analysis. Our examination indicated the importance of bovine TB within the national consciousness, the stigmatised character of TB and the association between TB and immigrants. We observe that newspaper 'stories' in general, and commentaries by public health officials in particular, are invariably offered on a 'case by case' basis. We conclude that this specificity in time and place avoids more challenging discourses linking TB with deeply embedded determinants of health such as the strong link between TB and poverty. Keywords: New Zealand; Tuberculosis; Media; Disease; Discourse; Public health; Newspapers

When Carl B. Stokes was elected the first African-American mayor of a major U.S. city (Cleveland) in 1967, it was considered a symbol of achievement for the nation's ongoing civil rights movement. Although national and local mainstream media paid considerable attention to his successful campaign, little attention has been given to the role his city's African-American newspaper played. The Cleveland Call and Post did not merely chronicle Stokes' campaign; it actively mobilized the African-American community to realize its political strength, and it challenged the white community to exercise racial tolerance to make history. The paper's crusade further exemplified the role and viability of the African-American press during their struggle to find their place among daily media sources that also covered the African-American community.

News illustrations and editorial cartoons in Harper's Weekly and Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, the two major illustrated news weeklies of the time, have been credited with directly aiding Civil War enlistment efforts in the North. This article uses illustrations and editorial cartoons published from 1861 to 1864 in both weeklies to demonstrate that while they supported voluntary enlistments and bounties, Harper's supported the Civil War draft while Leslie's did not. The difference in editorial positions regarding the draft was heightened by coverage of the draft riots in 1863. Harper's played down the riots and limited coverage primarily to a two-page spread depicting ape-like, Irish rioters committing acts of violence. Leslie's carried considerably more coverage, depicting less chaotic 'rioters' and used riot illustrations on its cover.

This experiment examines the effect of tabloid and standard packaging styles on calm and arousing news stories. The goal of this line of research is to investigate the combined influence of form and content on information processing and viewer evaluations of television news. Results indicate that the bells and whistles of tabloid production features enhance memory for calm news items but overburden the information processing system when applied to arousing news content. The evaluative measures produced data that show formal features have an influence on the meaning viewers derive from news content and that they rate news packaged in the tabloid format as less objective and believable than stories without these dramatic features. Keywords: limited capacity; information processing; arousal; television news; sensationalism; formal features; structural features; memory; cognition; physiology; recognition; credibility; tabloid

The Gelman-King theory of enlightened preferences holds that the mass media play an important role in enlightening vote choices during election campaigns in the United States. This article adapts this theory to the electoral cycle in Britain. It also expands the theory to consider the media's role in facilitating consistent attitudes. Using data from the 19921997 British Election Panel Study, the author finds that attitudinal consistency and enlightened party preferences were highest immediately following elections. Moreover, there were significant differences according to the type of newspapers voters read, with broadsheet readers being the most enlightened. These findings suggest that enlightened preferences theory has wider applicability than simply US election campaigns.

This study of coverage of the local theater scene from 1975-85 in three Chicago dailies found that one critic, Richard Christiansen, had the strongest influence on the development of the Chicago Style that flourished in the off-Loop theaters., Arts reviewers who work for daily newspapers usually gain attention only when they have written something that has hurt somebody. Despite the hundreds of plays and numerous playwrights he championed [...]

Dutch newspaper coverage of the establishment of centers for asylum seekers and refugees in Netherlands. The newspaper coverage was almost uniformly from a human interest standpoint rather than a political standpoint and was therefore positive. The positive or negative attitude of the newspaper's community about the centers did not influence coverage.

Independent newspapers published in China since media restraints were removed in the 1970s are very popular and well liked by the Chinese people. While readership in Communist Party publications is still high, people are more likely to purchase and enjoy independent papers filled with international and consumer news.

This article discusses modern nationalism in China and how the concept was interpreted by the rural population. The author argues that rural people were influenced by nationalism not through newspapers circulated by the elite, as had been suggested, but through oral news which had been reinvented through different perspectives.

Public schools operate within a local context where institutional actors facilitate or constrain policy decisions. The authors focus on the role of the local newspapers. In this study of news reporting on educational issues in Chicago, they apply two analytical perspectives--namely, the pluralist bargaining model and the unitary actor model. They created a database of news reports on the city's educational matters by two major Chicago newspapers for a 20-month period. Analysis suggests a strong unitary tendency in news reporting by the city's two major newspapers, as they are situated in the midst of mayor-led reform in schools.

Research findings refute the common view that the media set election agendas. Researchers examined the issues which candidates in the 1992 presidential election wanted to raise, and they looked at how public interests affected this planned agenda. Newspapers are important intermediaries in this process, but analysis of US newspapers from the time of the election indicated that the messages of all the candidates were well-represented, and that coverage was not dictated by editorial endorsements. Election agenda-setting may, instead, be a process involving transaction between all interested parties.

The Minaret, the monthly publication of the Islamic Center of Southern California, has transformed over the decade from a mosque newsletter into a voice of the American Muslims. The Minaret aims to help Muslims learn ways of interacting with American society while retaining their values. Funded by a local Muslim community in Los Angeles, its articles and editorials call upon the Muslims to reject anti-Western antipathies and recognize themselves as American Muslims. The magazine focuses on civil rights deprivation of the American Muslims and the experience of Muslim converts.

General George McClellan's 1862 Peninsula campaign of the American Civil War was judged a failure at the time because of his cautiousness. An examination of public expectations generated by newspapers and a comparison with U.S. Grant's 1864 campaign indicate expectations were unrealistically high early in the war but more moderate in 1864. Pres Lincoln was aware of the public disappointment in 1862 and ended the campaign. In 1864, both the public and political leaders had more realistic attitudes about the war and newspapers helped to bring about this change.

Congress was disproportionately influenced by the way in which Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988 was covered in the Washington Post and this gives credibility to the Beltway journalism model theory. The theory states that coverage by the print media in the Washington, DC, area gives a distorted vision of the world to the policy makers in Washington and leads them to believe that they know the reaction of the people, when they actually do not. The role of print media in covering complex policy issues based on the models of Pack journalism and Beltway journalism is discussed.

The press should highlight issues concerning the Hispanic Community as an increase in the number of Hispanic reporters who write on and analyze the socio-economic and political thoughts of the Hispanics will help alleviate the problems of the Hispanic community in the US. The print media is very powerful as it guides the government in the framing of laws that concern the entire gamut of Hispanic life. The Hispanic population should voice their stand on issues through the press and not allow the media to define the issues for the Hispanics.

The development of mass-circulation newspapers greatly influenced the process of urbanization in nineteenth century St Petersburg, Russia. The print media of that era focused on the basic issues that needed to be resolved by the government, provided a concrete idea of what a modern urban center should be and served as an effective vehicle for change through citizen awareness.