Investigates community attitudes toward four images of the news media (thorough and accurate, presents too much bad news, news media as a special interest group, and journalists as "boosters"). Finds some evidence that people compensate for distortions they think occur in the news because of the ways the news media operates. (RS)

Reports on an analysis of data in two Houston daily newspapers, which indicates that the distribution of crimes reported in the press is markedly dissimilar from the distribution of crimes reported to the police; concludes that newspaper readers are given a distorted view of the reality of crime. (GW)

Compares the way in which various news media covered a specific political event and examines the correlation between the agenda of issues stressed by the media and the agenda of issues recalled by the public. (GW)

Investigates whether the relative amount of bad, neutral, and good news on television has corresponding effects on viewers' image of the community depicted and of the carrying newscast. Concludes that bad news creates a bad image for the community but that good news does not produce a more favorable image than neutral news. (MM)

A study of 150 residents of a small southern Illinois city suggests that there are significant correlations between local daily newspaper content and what people in the community report reading and talking about, but that there are only nonsignificant partial correlations between the newspaper's and the residents' agendas about local news. (GW)