This paper investigates the media attitudes and behaviors of black adults toward four types of print media: majority, black entertainment, black establishment, and black nonestablishment. The relationships of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, subjective orientations, and media attitudes and behaviors are empirically examined.…

The editorial page of the newspaper is of recognized importance both to the newspaper itself and to public life. Data from a survey taken of 178 newspaper editors in four circulation categories support the following recommendations for improvement of the editorial page: take stands on important issues, emphasize local issues, improve the thinking…

A brief review of the literature on the use of black stereotypes in mass media advertising, and the results of a current study in this area are presented. Data were gathered by analysis of 1,536 ads in six general interest magazines and 4,371 ads in the New York Times over a one month period, and 368 television commercials on three networks over a…

This paper presents a rationale for studying the effect of a community's news media resources on the diversity of topics that the public considers important (the agenda). Research on media effects has followed a model that implicitly assumes that the important effects consist of the persuasion of individuals to adopt specific positions. This paper…

The concept of the agenda setting function of the mass media holds that apart from any influence they may have on voter attitudes or behavior, the mass media apparently influence voters' perceptions of the importance of the issues. The agenda setting function of the mass media is analyzed for significance in this investigation. A panel study of…

A number of general considerations in communication channel selection are noted, and the literature of channel use among older persons is reviewed. Selected approaches to communicating with older persons are described briefly. While television is the dominant medium among older persons generally, printed media play an important role also,…

The sender of communication strives to deliver information in depth; receivers of that communication favor more, and shorter, bits of information. In this study, the coefficient of balance between depth and scope was correlated with measures of the popularity of a group of magazines published in Austin, Texas. A regression formula was used to…

Presented is an abridgement of the Final Report on Phase I of the North Reading Screen Education Project, including chapters concerning the following: purpose, scope and procedure of the project; description and evaluations of courses, 1967-68 and 1968-69; evaluation of the students; principal investigator's commentary and assessment. Within this…

Research in instructional media needs to relate itself to research in other fields, e.g., human development, individual differences, and information processing, being nourished by other theories and in turn nourishing them. Thus it needs to deal with the functions of stimuli, laying the foundations of a prescriptive theory that concerns itself…

The effects on readers of direct quotations versus paraphrases, and reader comprehension of material from direct quotations versus paraphrases were examined in this experiment. Four reasonably short and clear stories--two speech stories and two interview stories--were selected from metropolitan daily newspapers. Two versions of each story were set…

The purpose of this study was to analyze the results of the mediational process of the press to discover how much and in what ways press reports of Agnew's speeches differed from his original speeches. Comparisons were made between the coverage produced by the press reports and manuscripts of Agnew's speeches in order to discover how much of the…

Designed to explore the relationship between the mass media and candidate image, a single interview questionnaire was prepared to be administered during the two weeks prior to election day, November 7, 1972. It was hypothesized that the amount of information which respondents indicated they received from paid political advertisements, editorials,…

Universities contain powerful blocs of resistance to new educational technology, perhaps especially to television. University attitudes and structures as well as faculty ignorance, apathy, and resistance affect the development of cable television. No one seems to speak with great confidence and precision about the educational potential of cable.…

This monograph describes four experiments in which two signaling techniques were used by students. Three kinds of accuracy and the conditions under which they occured were looked at. Each experiment was designed to require students to engage successively in two or three journalistic tasks (e.g., writing a news story, judging news values, and…

Although empirical research on the agenda-setting function of mass communication dates only from the 1968 presidential election, historically there has been long-standing concern over the control of communication because of its assumed influence. Early communication research shared this concern and assumption, focusing on the ability of the media…