Kandice L. Salomone

Crime: Effects of Media Exposure and Personal Experience on Issue Salience.

b Media coverage of crime and its relation to what actually occurs “in the real world” and public perceptions of crime has been an issue of interest for some time. Evidence from past research, although mixed, appears to favor a match between crime news coverage and public perceptions of crime rather than one between crime news coverage and objective indicators, or between public perceptions and objective indicators. If the amount or nature of crime news does not correspond to objective or social indicators of crime what possible effect could this media coverage have on perceived public importance about crime as an issue and an individual’s fear of victimization? And how is this relationship mediated by personal experience? These are the major questions investigated in the present study. As early as 1952, Davis offered evidence

Network television news coverage of environmental risks

Despite the criticisms that surround television coverage of environmental risk, there have been relatively few attempts to measure what and whom television shows. Most research has focused analysis on a few weeks of coverage of major stories like the gas leak at Bhopal, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, or the Mount St. Helens eruption. To advance the research into television coverage of environmental risk, an analysis has been made of all environmental risk coverage by the network nightly news broadcasts for a period of more than two years. Researchers have analyzed all environmental risk coverage-564 stories in 26 months-presented on ABC, CBS, and NBCs evening news broadcasts from January 1984 through February 1986. The quantitative information from the 564 stories was balanced by a more qualitative analysis of the television coverage of two case studies-the dioxin contamination in Times Beach, Missouri, and the suspected methyl isocyanate emissions from the Union Carbide plant in Institute, West Virginia. Both qualitative and quantitative data contributed to the analysis of the role played by experts and environmental advocacy sources in coverage of environmental risk and to the suggestions for increasing that role.

Rhetoric and Reality: Risk Communication in Government Agencies

Abstract Government agencies and industries are increasingly grappling with ways to address the problems caused by the different ways that laypeople and experts perceive environmental risks. This article summarizes the results of two studies that examined the extent of philosophical commitment to risk communication by government agencies compared with the risk communication practices of these agencies. Both studies suggest a gap between the stated commitment of government agencies to risk communication and their practices. The authors suggest how that gap may be bridged.

Risk communication activities of state health agencies

Surveys concerning the risk communication practices and needs of state health agencies were completed by agency commissioners and designated staff of 48 states and territories. These data indicate that agencies are expending more effort on responding to requests for information than on initiating dialogues with interested constituencies or alerting the public to risk. The data also suggest a gap between the stated philosophy and practice of the agencies.

Improving press coverage of environmental risk

Continuing education programs are needed to provide journalists with an understanding of risk assessment, and the preparation required to produce ac curate, professional coverage of environmental problems. The key audience for such programs is general assignment and local-beat reporters and their editors, rather than specialized science and environmental writers. In conducting such educational programs, the researchers learned that reporters and editors auto matically think in terms of the traditional journalistic determinants of news, rather than the scientific degree of risk. Journalists and news sources often col lide because they make assumptions based on their own very different defini tions and expectations. News sources wishing to influence media coverage should adjust their messages according to the needs of journalists: to achieve this, they too can benefit from continuing education programs.

Environmental Risk Reporting: Hypotheticals Teach Skills

Teaching the art or at least the act of reporting is as difficult as teaching writing and editing. But while students come to journalism programs with a long history of trying to write for school, most come with very little experience in reporting. Journalism teachers have their special bag of tricks ohen hypothetical exercises d e signed to help students figure out for themselves how to track down a story. The advantage of hypothetical exercises, of course, is that they are more engrossing and involving than traditional classroom work, yet more mmllable than, say, a laboratory newspaper. Students get a chance to make and learn from their mistakes, while the teacher determines the hypothetical situation and thus the mistakes and lessons that are most likely to occur. Working journalists are even less willing than students to sit still for a lecture on reporting. While professionals will come to a journalism seminar, they expea to participate actively, and if this is not possible, they expect at a minimum to participate vicariously. This is, of course, the Secret of the success of television game shows that the audience, even those sitting at home, feel a part of the action. Teachers can learn from television: like game shows, hypothetical exercises are much more involving than talking heads. Fred Friendly’s Columbia University programs for public television are a case in point. A famous lawyer with a set of hypothetical incidents in hand strides back and forth asking government officials, journalists and other