Jack M. McLeod

Communication, Context, and Community An Exploration of Print, Broadcast, and Internet Influences

This research explores the influence of mass media use and community context on civic engagement. The article presents a multilevel test of print, broadcast, and Internet effects on interpersonal trust and civic participation that acknowledges there are (a) micro-level differences in the motives underlying media use, (b) age-cohort differences in patterns of media use and levels of civic engagement, and (c) macro-level differences in community / communication context. Accordingly, the effects of individual differences in media use and aggregate differences in community context are analyzed within generational subsamples using a pooled data set developed from the 1998 and 1999 DDB Life Style Studies. The data suggest that informational uses of mass media are positively related to the production of social capital, whereas social-recreational uses are negatively related to these civic indicators. Informational uses of mass media were also found to interact with community context to influence civic engagement. Analyses within subsamples find that among the youngest adult Americans, use of the Internet for information exchange more strongly influences trust in people and civic participation than do uses of traditional print and broadcast news media.

Community Integration, Local Media Use, and Democratic Processes:

Research on dimensions of community integration has suffered from the lack of clear conceptual and operational definitions. The purposes of this article are to explicate the concept of community integration and its dimensions and to specify the structural and media antecedents and the political consequences of these dimensions. Using 15 indicators drawn from previous integration studies, we test the hypothesis that integration is a multidimensional concept. A factor analysis reveals that community integration has at least five dimensions: psychological attachment, interpersonal discussion networks, city versus group, localism versus cosmopolitanism, and city versus neighborhood. The structural and media use antecedents and the political consequences of these dimensions are examined to provide construct validity for our measurement. We find strong relationships between local media use and the dimensions of community integration, as well as links between local media use and community integration and local political interest, knowledge, and participation.

BEYOND SIMPLE EXPOSURE Media Orientations and Their Impact on Political Processes

This study adopts a broad approach to problems associated with confusion in the literature on media orientations and political processes. Three different dependent variables representing cognition, attitude and behavior are examined in relation to multiple measures of media dependence: time spent, reliance, exposure to content, level of attention and gratifications sought. Results suggest complex relationships between media use and the dependent variables and again confirm an integrative role for television that is often hidden in analyses based on simple exposure time.

Another Look At the Agenda-Setting Function of the Press

The agenda-setting hypothesis asserts that the media have an effect indirectly by choosing certain issues for emphasis, thus making those issues more salient to the audiences. The hypothesis, stated in such general terms, presents formidable conceptual and methodological difficulties that are dealt with in this article. A controlled study of the audiences of two newspapers with differing content emphases was conducted during the 1972 presidential campaign. The results show only moderate support for the agenda-setting hypothesis; the honesty in government issues, given heavy play in one of the two newspapers, failed to generate much enthusiasm among readers of either paper. In addition the results suggest agenda setting is not a broad and unqualified media effect. Predicted differences mainly were restricted to the less involved and less motivated partisans who were heavily dependent on the newspapers for their political news. Finally, the importance of studying issue saliences apart from political attitudes was illustrated by the relatively strong relationship between such saliences and voter turnout and direction.

Interpersonal Approaches to Communication Research

are thought of as &dquo;self-made,&dquo; while the poor are held to be &dquo;lazy.&dquo; Skinner (1971) points out that his theory of operant conditioning through reinforcement is resisted partly because of the popular tendency to assign both the &dquo;blame&dquo; and the &dquo;credit&dquo; for human conduct to the person’s internal psyche. Perhaps, then, it is understandable that even our &dquo;social&dquo; science employs mainly intrapersonal concepts, such as attitudes, motives, and personality traits, to account for behavior.

Understanding Deliberation The Effects of Discussion Networks on Participation in a Public Forum

Participation in a deliberative forum has received relatively little scrutiny as opposed to more traditional forms of participation. This study examines direct and indirect effects of discussion network characteristics on willingness to participate in a deliberative forum. Using data collected in a telephone survey of 416 respondents in Madison, Wisconsin, in the fall of 1997, the authors employ structural equation modeling techniques to explore the roles that local media use, interpersonal discussion of local politics, and reflection of information play in mediating the relationship between discussion networks and participation in public forums. Findings show that network heterogeneity directly influences forum participation, suggesting that membership in heterogeneous networks ensures greater nontraditional participation. Also, having more discussion partners makes frequent discussion of issues and higher levels of local public affairs media use more likely. Communication processes lead to reflection about local issues, which enhances forum participation. Finally, normative implications are addressed.

Parental Influences On Adolescent Media Use

The developing child in modern society is typically introduced to the mass media in the home, and it is at home that he is most likely to use several varieties of print and broadcast media. By the time he reaches adolescence, it is plausible to assume that his patterns of media use have been shaped by social influences in the home, particularly his parents. Many parents express concern about mass media influences on their youngsters and appear to be quite willing to modify their own behavior if it will encourage desirable patterns of media use by their adolescents.

Multilevel Analysis in Mass Communication Research

This article presents an epistemological view of levels of analysis. According to this view, four types of relationships need to be differentiated: macro-macro, macro-micro, micro-micro, and micro-macro. The two within-level relationships are linked by the two cross-level relationships that, in turn, are explicated by various theories of organizational, institutional, and social processes. Mass communication is thus conceived of as a process from production to consumption that occurs at both micro-individual and macro-social levels. The contributions of this multilevel view of mass communications to theoretical development in the field is illustrated by analyzing three prominent theories in our field: the knowledge gap, cultivation, and the spiral of silence. Finally, the article discusses the available research techniques and strategies for dealing with multilevel research questions.

Media and civic socialization of youth

Research on the development of citizenship has been reinvigorated by considering adolescents as participants actively engaged in, and interacting with, family, peers, teachers, and the media. This contrasts with earlier top-down transmission models that saw adolescents as passive recipients of information from parents and teachers. Active citizenship is now seen as a largely indirect result of contextualized knowledge and cognitive skills learned from news media use, interpersonal communication, and active participation in school and community volunteer activities. The processes of active citizenship learning are an important part of the moral development of adolescents and young adults.

Processes of Political Socialization A Communication Mediation Approach to Youth Civic Engagement

By analyzing data from a national panel survey of adolescents (ages 12-17) and their parents conducted around the 2008 general election, this study explores the varied roles communication plays in socializing youth into democratic citizenship. In particular, we propose and test a communication mediation model of youth socialization, in which interdependent communication processes located in the family, schools, media, and peer networks combine to cultivate communication competence, a set of basic communication skills and motives needed for active and informed participation in public life. Analysis of our panel data indicates that participation in deliberative classroom activities and democratic peer norms contribute to civic activism among youth. These peer and school influences, however, are found to be largely indirect, working through informational use of conventional and online news media, and expression and discussion of political ideas outside of classroom and family boundaries. In particular, our findings highlight strong online pathways to participation, centering on news consumption and political expression via digital media technologies, suggesting the key role of the Internet in this dynamic.