David Pritchard

Political Knowledge and Communication Resources

b Mass media are an important source of political information in social systems, but they are not the only source. For example, when Robert Park called communication the driving force of social evolution, he was referring not only to communication in the form of news, but also to communication through publicaffairs discussion.’ Several of the early studies of public opinion and voting realized this and considered not only the role of the mass media, but also the role of interpersonal communication.2 The range of influences on people’s political information holding, however, is likely to be broader than newspapers, television, and other people. Accordingly, research that attempts to evaluate the role of communication in the development of political cognitions ideally should look at a larger scope of what might be called “communication resources”-sources that people can turn to

Racial Profiling in the Newsroom

This article examines patterns of story assignments at a metropolitan daily newspaper. The studys content analysis documents a form of racial profiling in which African American reporters write stories mostly about minority issues, while white reporters write stories mostly about government and business. Interviews with journalists documented the widespread belief that experience as a member of a racial minority helps the newspaper provide better coverage of minority issues. However, journalists of all races spoke of racial diversity only when they were talking about minority reporters and minority-oriented topics. The hegemony of whiteness was such that none of the journalists appeared to have thought about the role of whiteness in the coverage of the largely white realms of politics and business.

Impact of Ethics Codes on Judgments by Journalists: A Natural Experiment.

,This article reports the results of a study designed to test an assumption that underlies much of the current interest in ethics codes for journalists. The assumptionsometimes stated, more often not-is that ethics codes help shape the decisions journalists make in situations that raise ethical issues. The postulated link between ethics codes and journalistic behavior has rarely been examined, as Braman’ recently noted. The study reported here uses a natural experiment design to examine ethical decisionmaking by journalists whose work is governed by markedly different ethics codes. Formal, written mechanisms of social control such as statutes, contracts and newspaper ethics codes are designed to regulate behavior by establishing, or at least stating, the boundaries of legitimate activity. The nature of the relationship between formal norms and the behavior they are intended to regulate is problematic, however, because all sorts of factors other than formal norms influence behavior. Assuming that formal norms such as statutes, contracts and ethics codes have a direct effect on behavior is especially

How Readers' Letters May Influence Editors and News Emphasis: A Content Analysis of 10 Newspapers, 1948-1978

Several studies have documented that there is often little connection between reality and press attention—for example, a “crime wave” is as likely to reflect press attention as actual crime. Using information from a large government-gathered database, and cross-lagged partial correlations, this study finds some evidence that letters to the newspaper do influence some editors to write about certain issues and also some newspapers to emphasize particular topics in the news. This was true of six of the 10 papers for which data could be used. But there was little evidence that editorials influenced news topics, or vice versa.

One owner, one voice? Testing a central premise of newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership policy

Empirical questions about the relationship between ownership structure and media content are central to the debate about media ownership policy in the United States. At the core of the debate is the concern that an individual or company owning multiple media outlets will slant news and opinion in an attempt to distort public opinion and or influence public policy. The premise is that a single owner represents a single voice, regardless of how many media outlets the owner operates. This article, which features a study of news and commentary about the 2004 presidential campaign from commonly owned newspapers, television stations and radio stations in three communities, tests the validity of the one owner, one voice premise in the context of newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership. The results of the study—one of the very few studies of newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership to incorporate radio content—suggest that there is no empirical basis for believing that cross-owned media do any less than other media to serve the public interest.

Outside Over National News Agencies? A Study of Preferences in the French Regional Press

This survey of 27 French journalists responsible for choosing foreign news from the wire services to publish in regional newspapers outside Paris shows that Agence France Presse remains the major wire source. But the concise, unadorned style of the French language service offered by the Associated Press has gained many users. French journalists are specializing more, and about one-fourth of younger journalists have formal journalism training. There is less time for editing on some newspapers. The study suggests the unique style of Agence France Presse may have to give way to be more competitive, at a cost to a unique French emphasis on foreign news. International news may become like foreign news in any press.

Rethinking Criminal Libel: An Empirical Study

The prevailing view of criminal libel among communication law scholars in the United States is that there are very few prosecutions, that most of the prosecutions are about politics or public issues, and that none of the prosecutions are necessary because victims of defamation can sue for civil libel. The results of an empirical study of all Wisconsin criminal libel cases from 1991 through 2007, however, suggest that criminal libel is prosecuted far more often than realized, that most criminal libel prosecutions have nothing to do with political or public issues, and that the First Amendment is an effective shield on the rare occasions when a criminal libel prosecution is politically motivated. This article concludes that criminal libel can be a legitimate way for the law to deal with expressive deviance that harms the reputations of private figures in cases that have nothing to do with public issues.

The Canadian and American Constitutions in Comparative Perspective.

Spanning over two centuries of constitutional developments in the United States and Canada, this comprehensive collection of essays brings together the provocative writings of prominent political scientists and jurists from both countries on the historical origins, ideology, function and political determinants of the two working constitutional systems. The books lively and clear analysis summarises the intricate details of constitutional politics in a way that will help readers to face up to the historical choices that now confront us. Policies that have dominated public debate in recent years are examined under four broad headings: federalism, church-state relations, the politics of rights and the role of judges in formulating public policy. Addressed both to students of law, history and political science and to all who are concerned about their constitutional future, these essays examine issues that have led to profound changes in the lives of ordinary citizens in both countries.

Ideology and Public Trust in Radio as a Source for Local News

This study uses original survey data (N = 937) to examine trust in public radio and talk radio as sources for local news. Respondents expressed higher levels of trust in public radio than in talk radio. Trust in public radio was lower than trust in television but greater than trust in Internet sites, while trust in talk radio was lower than trust in television or newspapers. Compared to liberals, conservatives reported less trust in public radio but greater trust in talk radio. The relationships between ideology and trust were stronger among highly educated respondents than among the less educated.

Predicting the Content of State Public Records Laws

A study of state public records laws indicates links between the concept of policy liberalism of states and the relative openness of their state records laws. Categorizations of states according to their political culture, however, are not significant predictors of the contents of their laws