Forty-eight Michigan newspapers were surveyed by telephone to determine their criteria in selecting online database services, type of personnel using them, training procedures, budgets, and perceptions of the impact of these services on the speed of writing stories and quality of reporting. Data collection involved two phases: (1) researchers…

A study of reader response to newspaper articles in a defamatory context tested: (1) the judicial assumption that the macro-environment in which statements appear is important to a reader's distinguishing between fact and opinion; (2) the possibility that a byline may influence a reader's characterization of statements; and (3) the idea that…

Data were collected from 734 respondents, employees of a large Midwestern utility organization, to a survey questionnaire which attempted to examine the employees' reactions to the company newspaper. Specifically, the study sought to compare group phenomena among readers with respect to their inclinations to read the newspaper and their…

To investigate the dissemination of electoral information by the Spanish-language press to the Spanish-speaking population, a study asked several questions: (1) What were the characteristics of the headlines of Spanish-language daily newspapers in Miami and Los Angeles during the 1988 presidential race? (2) Did the headlines of these papers…

The first part of this report summarizes a master's thesis study on the observance of international law in two newspapers. The study was based on an inventory of 71 international legal documents, suggesting a set of journalistic principles and rules. The observance of these norms was tested by analyzing some 6,000 news items and articles from two…

Recent research in agenda setting, dealing with the ways people perceive campaign issues dependent upon their coverage by the media has left unanswered the question of how context variables such as political framing--the context within which the media present a particular issue-affect the agenda setting process. A study was conducted to test the…

Noting that the past 20 years have been disappointing for Africa as the economies and political systems of promising newly independent African nations have fallen into decline or disruption, this paper attempts to explain why the African press suffered a "false start" in facilitating these nations' emergence into the modern world.…

Approximately 823 people were interviewed in a study that sought to determine (1) whether newspaper reliant and television reliant people think about political information in the same manner, and (2) what inferences can be drawn from the viewing of cognitive structures if one assumes a causal ordering from cognitive structure--level of…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 12 titles deal with the following topics: establishing newspapers in the Washington Territory; the business history of the antebellum Wisconsin newspaper, 1833-1860; the idea of news in a culturally plural society; the…

A study of the role of the attention construct in the process of transforming specific newspaper and television media content into political knowledge involved a survey of 71 undergraduate students in an introductory journalism course. A review of the literature had revealed that the use of the attention construct had been infrequent in mass media…

Defining political culture as a fundamental, culturally important value system that forms a context in which media content judgments and other professional behaviors can be described or evaluated in a meaningful way, this paper analyses two minority press systems as they relate to their political culture contexts. The two systems are the black…

The results of a survey conducted in 1975 were compared with the findings of three previous studies of Finnish public awareness of mass media to determine any changes or trends which might have occurred between the years 1967 and 1975. Data were reported in categories based on the public concept of (1) the most important mass medium, (2) the…

Mass media in the Philippines at present show two seemingly opposite trends: a small but noticeable increase in the number of provincial newspapers, and a reduction in the number of radio stations in certain areas. Two general features of the media situation, the private ownership of the media and the need for progressive public service…

A study was conducted to discover teachers' preferred means of obtaining information on environmental issues. A survey was administered to 123 teachers attending a one-week workshop on environmental education during the summer of 1978 to determine their use of four mass media: radio, television, newspapers, and magazines. Results revealed that…

Contending that narrowly focused empirical research on comparative professionalism cannot produce a complete understanding of journalists in developing nations, this paper calls for the development of research methodologies and approaches that will examine journalistic professionalism in the context of the interdependence of mass media and…