Noting that there are signs of a relaxation in the long tension caused by the methodological "cold war" between quantitative and qualitative research proponents, this paper points to communications research as one area where the trend is developing. Placing communications studies in the framework of current public attitudes toward…

A similarity exists in the way minority groups in the sixties and in the seventies used media coverage to achieve recognition. The poor and the blacks in the 1960s and the aged and the handicapped in the 1970s turned to the media as they sought freedom to move, rejected separation and isolation, and sought access and independence by breaking the…