Agenda setting provides an analysis strategy for linking press coverage and voter perceptions of front runners, and underscores the importance of studying the primaries early in an election year. Two studies were undertaken in 1976. The first study, in Onandaga County (New York), involved telephone interviews of 335 registered Democrats in late…

The interplay that exists between the mass media and political activity provides the topic for this report of an informal dialogue between William R. Carmack, from the University of Oklahoma, and Joseph S. Foote, press secretary to Carl Albert, Speaker of the House of Representatives. The first section of the report relates Carmack's opening…

Presidential candidates in the United States tend to seek consensus rather than to try to discover new answers to problems and to convince voters that they should be elected to implement those answers. Reporters in the mass media emphasize objectivity and fairness in their reporting. This emphasis produces an intense interest in the…

This paper presents a conceptual analysis of bias and outlines the complexity and subtlety of the questions engulfing bias by sorting out views of bias that have been implicit in debates about the media, assessing the scientific value of these competing views in identifying and understanding bias in the media, offering an alternative view which is…

The main objective of this constituency study was to determine the level of awareness and corresponding opinions of constituents with regard to three issues. Thirty-three Wisconsin state senators served as subjects along with 1,650 Wisconsin citizens who were interviewed via telephone regarding their views. The political public relations…

This article contains a critical analysis of agenda-setting theory and research. In choosing and displaying news, editors, newsroom staff, and broadcasters play an important part in shaping political reality. Readers learn not only about a given issue, but also how much importance to attach to that issue from the amount of information in a news…

The purpose of this study is to present systematic findings concerning bias in TV news coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign and to describe the kinds of coverage that the candidates and parties received during the campaign. News about the election was analyzed from weekday network evening news programs, AP day and night wire coverage, a…

The role that time frame plays in the media agenda-setting process was studied by examining the single issue of civil rights over an extended period between 1954 and 1976. The public agenda was determined from 27 Gallup polls, conducted between 1954 and 1976, which asked respondents what they considered the most important issue facing the American…

The purpose of this book is to explore the effects of public opinion on governmental policy making, with a special focus on the role of the mass media in this process. Specific areas covered include political campaigning, the President and the press, blacks and the media, and cable television. Topics of discussion in the ten chapters are: linkage…

This book presents a history of journalism in the United States. The opening chapters discuss the European roots of American journalism and cover the time-span ending with the Civil War; the primary concern is an exposition of the principles of the American press. The remaining chapters examine the mass media--newspapers, television, radio,…

The relative credibility of media is measured and compared over a 16-year period by the Roper Organization for the Television Information Office. Sources of information and trends in viewing habits and hours of viewing are described; the relative desirability of media as viewed by various population groups is reported. Changes in opinion as to…

Research continued and new studies were launched in four major areas: communications, urban problems, politics, and economic issues. The foci of these studies are described briefly. Projects in communications are examining flows of news, media monopoly, press freedoms under pressure, public affairs broadcasting, press councils, political access to…

Analysis of the Wisconsin woman suffrage campaign of 1910-1920 suggests that public relations belonged not only to political or business practices, but was equally a process by which the masses achieved their own best interests in nineteenth and early twentieth century social reform movements. Woman suffragists were led by women, and the public…