Proposes that newspaper journalists' demographic and attitudinal characteristics help to maintain distance between them and the public they serve. Claims that this distance may be directly related to the public's perceptions of newspaper credibility. (MM)

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)

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)

Argues that the success of West Germany's publishing giant, Axel Springer Verlag, can be attributed to the technical excellence of its products and to the fact that these products reflect the mainstream of German thought. (FL)

Examines the relationship among media use, participation in local shopping and leisure activities, and orientation toward the local community. Reexamines Robert Merton's Cosmopolitan scale, finding it to have both localite (exclusively local orientation) and cosmopolite (orientation to events outside the local community) dimensions. (MM)

Indicates that a series of television programs succeeded in improving public attitudes toward mental retardation and retarded people. (KS)

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)

Attempts to document the attitudes of the public--especially the black, poorly educated, and powerless sub-groups of the public--concerning the need for minority ownership of radio stations that feature minority programming. (Author/GW)

Offers a behavioral definition of a public, demonstrates how the definition can be used by public relations practitioners in researching and analyzing their publics, and reports on a formulative study of a suburban hospital that can serve as a model for public relations practitioners who wish to do similar research. (Author/GW)

Structural differences between three Midwestern communities were found to be associated with viewers' perceptions of realism and idealism in television programs. (KS)

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)

Describes an urban mass media campaign that had a direct impact on changing public opinion regarding the privacy issue. (GW)

Examines the associations between media use and knowledge of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Explores how media consumption is related to attitudes toward AIDS and policy issues pertaining to AIDS. Finds newspaper users better informed than television viewers. Finds television news users more likely to be misinformed than frequent…