Eric S. Fredin

Local Community Ties, Community-Boundedness, and Local Public Affairs Knowledge Gaps

This study focused on the roles that community integration and community-boundedness (the relevance of a topic for a specific community) play on knowledge gaps. Given the extensive evidence linking media exposure with community ties, the authors hypothesized that ties with the local community could potentially mitigate local public affairs knowledge gaps. They also examined if the relevance of a topic to a subgroup would lead to lower knowledge gaps. A survey of 661 residents of Franklin County, Ohio, showed that whereas community ties were unrelated to knowledge, community-boundedness could be an important determinant of knowledge gaps on local public affairs. Additional analysis of the data also suggests that length of association with the community could be a potentially important contingent condition in the amelioration of knowledge gaps. The authors argue that their findings extend traditional findings of knowledge gaps that apply to geographically defined communities to studying “communities without propinquity.”

A cyclic model of information seeking in hyperlinked environments: The role of goals, self-efficacy, and intrinsic motivation

To examine the emergent properties of information seeking in hyperlinked environments, in this paper we developed a cyclic model. Using this model as a framework, the relationships among perceived goal difficulty, goal success, and self-efficacy were examined. Self-efficacy was conceptualized as a mediating mechanism and intrinsic motivation (IM) in the task was examined as a moderator. Data were collected as repeated measures over 20 cycles during an hour-long session of information seeking when students were given that task of designing a travel plan for a trip to China. The findings suggest that success in meeting information goals in one cycle resulted in an increase in self-efficacy, which in turn reduced the perceived difficulty of information goals in the upcoming cycle. At the same time, self-efficacy from previous cycles seemed to provide the impetus for formulating more challenging information goals in subsequent cycles. Besides this dual role of self-efficacy, the moderating role of IM was also evident. For participants relatively high in baseline IM for the task, the link between self-efficacy and goal success was weaker. However, for participants with relatively low levels of baseline IM for the task, goal success has a stronger effect on self-efficacy.

Browsing and the Hypermedia Interaction Cycle: A Model of Self- Efficacy and Goal Dynamics

The Hypermedia Interaction Cycle (HIC) proposed in this paper is an iterative, self-regulatory model that captures the dynamics of hypermedia interaction from a users perspective. The interaction cycle was divided into three distinct phases: preparation, exploration, and consolidation. The dynamics between two motivational components, namely self-efficacy factors and goal conditions, were examined within the HIC using a browsing task that involved searching for news-story ideas on the World Wide Web. Findings suggest that a cyclical model involving shifting states of goals and self-efficacy can capture some of the dynamics of motivation within the HIC. Furthermore, there was evidence of a self-regulatory pattern between the motivational components in the model.

Cognitive strategies for media use during a presidential campaign

This study investigates whether attention to political news and attention to debates during a presidential campaign are affected by audience members’ cognitive schemata concerning media and politics and the information‐processing strategies they claim to use when encountering the media. Data come from a telephone survey of a probability sample of 706 registered voters in a metropolitan area. Hierarchical regression using political and sociological controls provides support for the general hypothesis. Four sets of cognitive constructs are studied: images concerning how the news media work and why; campaign information‐processing strategies such as reading between the lines or reflecting on the news; schema‐based orientations toward or preference for particular types of campaign‐related information; and patterns of salience for each set of cognitive constructs. Some support is found for the hypothesis that audiences compensate for perceived shortcomings in the media by increased attention to the news and mo...

Buses and Ballots: The Role of Media Images in a Local Election

This study examines the role of media in a local election using media use and public perceptions of media and their interactions as key independent variables. Some support is found for the notion that media do not exert direct effects on behavioral outcomes, but rather this process depends on how people perceive the media they use in terms of their ties to special interests in the community and the interaction of this perception with media use.

Cognitions and Attitudes about Community: Compensating for Media Images.

bIntuitively, it seems that people have ideas about how the news media operate and why, and it seems that these ideas affect what people get out of the news. These notions are studied here by capitalizing on two research programs. One has identified a core of ideas that individuals have about how the ncws media work.’ The other has investigated the relation of media use to the framework of thoughts and opinions people have about the community in which they live.2 People3 ideas about how the news media work are investigated by studying their effects upon that framework concerning community.

Sex Discrimination in Earnings and Story Assignments among TV Reporters

I See, for example, David H. Weaver and G . Ckvcland Wilhoit, The American Journalisr (Bloomington. Ind.: Indiana University Press. 1986). p. 21: Barbara Sinclair Dcckard, 77w Womenf Movement. 3rd ed. (New York: Harper 8 Row, 1983). p. I@, Cynthia Fuchs Epstein. Women in Low (New York Basic Books. 1981). p. 53. 2 See. for example. Cen.sw of Population, Volume 2. Subject Rrporrs: Eorninxs by Occuparion and Income (Waahington. D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census. 1984); Deckard. op. cit.. p. 13% Weaver and Wilhoit. op. cir..