Discusses results of a Wisconsin panel study supporting the hypothesis that public confidence in governmental institutions would increase during the campaign period and associates this increase with heavier exposure to the campaign and the Ford-Carter debates. Improved evaluations of candidates are associated with interpersonal discussion rather…

The usefulness of presidential debates to the electorate and to the total political system is evaluated in this paper. The paper first reports the results of opinion polls concerning the value of the 1976 debates and cites studies showing the types of information that people obtained from watching the debates. It then considers whether voters'…

A study reexamined survey data collected in late October 1984 in order to test the validity of the generalization that people are influenced more by television ads than they are by television news. Sampling was based on random digit dialing in Dane County, Wisconsin, and 416 interviews conducted by telephone. Data analysis indicated that the…

Tests the traditional two-part hypothesis that partisan predispositions motivate a person to be selectively exposed to political campaign communications, which in turn serve to reinforce those original predispositions. Draws inferences about differences in these processes that exist between adolescents and their parents. (PD)

A study tested the cumulative acquisition model proposed by S. H. Chaffee and A. R. Tims to explain the development of adolescent patterns of news media use. The Guttman scale procedure was used to analyze patterns of news media use across a three-wave panel survey of 366 parent-child pairs over a 2-year period. In each wave, interviewers talked…