One of the most difficult problems facing scholars interested in conducting empirical research concerning the gratification that audience members seek or receive from the media is measurement of gratification itself. This paper outlines the strategies commonly used by researchers and describes some of the limitations of each. Particular attention…

A study conducted in Columbus, Ohio, assessed the importance of voter uncertainty in motivating media use and use of specific campaign information. Data were collected from a telephone survey of 540 persons registered to vote in Columbus or surrounding Franklin County. Decisional difficulty, likelihood of vote change, and knowledge about the…

A survey of 548 male and female household heads in Columbus, Ohio, was conducted in 1977 to discover the effects of dependency on different media on levels of trust toward government, knowledge about government, and perceived knowledge about government at both local and national levels. It was hypothesized that newspaper dependency is positively…

The political scandals known as Watergate provided an unusual opportunity to study the importance of attitudinal and cognitive variables in media research. In order to assess the impact of Watergate during the months preceding the 1974 Congressional elections, 339 personal interviews were conducted during October with a probability sample of…

In order to determine if media dependency has effects on audience members, a study was conducted among 460 randomly chosen household heads in Syracuse, New York. The respondents were asked to answer questions designed to measure media dependency in terms of use and of reliance on the various media. The questionnaire included a measure of audience…