A study was conducted to learn more about voters' use and perception of endorsements in the 1984 presidential election. Six interviewers were trained and then assigned to a random sample of precincts in Orlando, Florida, on the day of the 1984 presidential election. Each interviewer stopped every third voter and asked those willing to cooperate 12…

A study tested the hypotheses (1) that reporting of methodological information needed to gauge the accuracy of public opinion poll stories in metropolitican daily newspapers improved significantly during the presidential election years from 1968 to 1980, and (2) that these newspapers were more likely to report this information in their own inhouse…

Presents a case study of the presidential election campaign television debates of 1960. (TO)

Discusses the relative momentum of the presidential candidates in the 1976 election campaign and the treatment given this phenomenon by the television networks. (JMF)

Reports a study examining the political advertising in the media and relates the findings to the voters' perception of the salience of the issues in the campaign. (TO)

Uses psychological theories about how people process information to examine the influence of variance in question wording on public support for the Reagan defense build-up. Concludes that source cues influence the public but that such influence is overwhelmed when the public is simultaneously exposed to relevant policy information. (TB)

Uses Ross Perot's campaign for president in 1992 as a case study in how two key political institutions--the conventional political press and the party system--mediate the effects of political communication. Finds that reporters allocated positive and negative coverage to Perot according to the same rules that they normally follow. (TB)

Reports on an investigation focusing on the interrelationships of certain media and nonmedia variables (including newspaper, television, and candidate image variables) that appeared to be operating in a way that influenced the outcome of 23 Texas mayoral races. (Author/GT)

In 1972, M. McCombs and D. Shaw introduced the idea that the mass media have the ability to tell the public which issues are of major importance in a political campaign by virtue of the amount of coverage they give each. This they termed the "agenda setting" function of the media. A study was conducted to investigate various aspects of…

A secondary analysis of data from two Indiana Polls, the first carried out in January 1983 and the second in November and December 1983, was conducted to compare respondents' reports of their viewing of network television news and local television news, and their reading of local newspapers. The intent was to use respondents' preferred source for…

A study was designed to investigate the consequences of various coding strategies on the semantic differential as a function of responses to an ideal source in the prediction of overall credibility and homophily. The study was also intended to provide additional evidence for the disconfirmation of the underlying extremity assumption of the…

A review of the literature reveals that a complete model, within a political framework, for what takes place when special interest groups and mass media interact does not exist. Since media access is more successful for groups with specific goals and resources, a model for the interaction of special interest groups and the mass media focuses on…

In order to study the influence of need for orientation and media gratifications on media use and media effects in political communication, two previous surveys were studied to compare the causal modeling approach and the contingent conditions approach. In the first study, 339 personal interviews were conducted with registered voters during a…

The political scandals known as Watergate provided an unusual opportunity to study the importance of attitudinal and cognitive variables in media research. In order to assess the impact of Watergate during the months preceding the 1974 Congressional elections, 339 personal interviews were conducted during October with a probability sample of…

A content analysis was conducted of 203 editorials from the "Daily Oklahoman" from the first six months of the 1980 presidential campaign. The analysis was based on two assumptions: (1) the tone of the 1980 presidential campaign essentially was set after only six months of official campaigning, and (2) the "Daily Oklahoman"…