Responds to Jeffery Bineham's article, "A Historical Account of the Hypodermic Model in Mass Communication" (same issue). Argues that the history of the hypodermic model (viewing media's all-powerful and direct influence on society) is distinct from the history and literature of empirical research on mass media effects. (MM)

Concludes that lost newspaper readership is not directly attributable to deficiencies in the newspaper itself, and that social change might be as important in determining the future of the newspaper in the United States as will the press's performance in the media marketplace. (FL)

Finds willingness to buy is affected both by the content of the advertisement and the buyer's predisposition to buy the advertised brand. (RB)

Outlines four factors that account for the relative lack of integration between mass communication and interpersonal communication researchers. Cites several forces that support segregation of the two research areas, yet notes that the recent turn to cognitive explanations of communication in both fields may create the climate for meaningful…

Results of a Wisconsin study and a national study indicate that media richness of a community is associated with greater diversity in the public problems agenda held by the citizens of that community. (GW)

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…

Data from a series of surveys of voters in the Midwest, conducted during the 1976 presidential election campaign, were used to explore the effects of the campaign in relation to when people decided for whom to vote. A second purpose was to consider the adequacy of the traditional dichotomous model of voters: people who make up their minds early…

Data from a national survey were used to test a model representing the dynamics of newspaper reading behaviors. It was hypothesized that three types of constraints (structural constraints, transitional constraints, and self-constraints) would be present to various degrees in four types of newspaper readers: regular readers, regular nonreaders,…

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)

In a long-term health intervention campaign, researchers tested the proposition that consistency among people's knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors is contingent on high levels of involvement with a given subject. (DF)

Discusses media-centered communication research models and applies them to a field setting in Venezuela in an attempt to assess the extent to which social processes depend on mass communication. See CS 703 632 for subscription information. (MH)

Noting that attention, or increased mental effort, has long been recognized as an important variable in the processing of mass communication messages, this paper examines both methodological and theoretical issues associated with the measurement of attention, particularly to the news and public affairs content in the news media. After a brief…

Data from personal interviews with 268 black adults living in predominantly black neighborhoods of San Francisco, California, were used to examine the relationships among political participation, media exposure, and various individual characteristics. Results showed that reading general news magazines had the strongest interaction with the three…

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…

As part of a larger study of political socialization in adolescence, 782 adolescents and 718 parents were surveyed to test hypotheses about political information as a function of the early phase of a presidential campaign and the news exposure level of the respondent. Despite shortcomings in the sample design and in the precision of interview…