Kenneth M. Goldstein

Getting in the Door: Sampling and Completing Elite Interviews

Many factors are important when it comes to conducting high quality elite interviews. As my colleagues have noted in their presentations in San Francisco and in their essays in this issue, gaining valid and reliable data from elite interviews demands that researchers be well prepared, construct sound questions, establish a rapport with respondents, know how to write up their notes, and code responses accurately and consistently. Improving these skills will certainly reduce the amount of measurement error contained in interview data. Unfortunately, none of these skills matter if you do not get the interview. In other words, everything that my colleagues have talked about depends on getting in the door, getting access to your subject. A well-prepared personable researcher who would be able to control an open-ended and wide-ranging interview, while establishing a strong informal rapport with an elite respondent will never get to demonstrate his or her interviewing skills—or ability to decrease measurement error—if the meeting never takes place. Furthermore and fundamentally, systematic error will also be introduced if researchers only get access to certain types of respondents.

THE POLITICS OF PARTICIPATION: Mobilization and Turnout over Time

Recent studies have argued that mobilization is not only an important determinant of individual participation, but that it can explain the mystery of declining voter turnout in the United States over the past 40 years. We identify and evaluate three possible ways in which mobilization might have affected levels of turnout over time: (a) aggregate rates of mobilization may have declined, (b) the effectiveness of mobilization contacts may have declined, and (c) the targeting of mobilization may have changed. The first two theories have been well articulated in the literature; the third has not. We find no evidence of a decline in mobilizing activity, nor do we find that mobilizing techniques have become less effective. Although we find that campaigns are more likely to target habitual voters in recent years, this pattern of behavior can only explain a small amount of the overall decline in turnout.

Separation by Television Program: Understanding the Targeting of Political Advertising in Presidential Elections

Although conventional wisdom suggests that imbalanced message flows are relatively rare in presidential campaigns, this view relies on the assumption that competing campaigns allocate their advertising similarly. In this research, we show that this assumption is false. We combine ad tracking data from the Wisconsin Advertising Project with a unique collection of survey data on the audience for various program genres. Examining advertising in the 2000, 2004, and 2008 U.S. presidential races, we find that the Republican and Democratic candidates distributed their advertising differently across different program genres, reaching different types of voters. A form of microtargeting has increasingly entered into the realm of political advertising buys. We find that who sees certain political ads is more nonrandom than scholars had previously thought, and we find that unbalanced message flows (a precondition for ad persuasion) are more prevalent than conventional wisdom has suggested.

Capturing Multiple Markets: A New Method of Capturing and Analyzing Local Television News

This paper focuses on the importance of local news as the primary source of information for most Americans, emphasizing the need for additional research about local TV news content across a variety of topics and about elections and crime in particular. In addition, we present a detailed methodology of a new capture, coding, and digital archiving process that significantly advances current tools available to researchers, journalists, educators, policymakers, and that portion of the general public interested in local TV news content. Finally, the paper presents initial findings from an ongoing study of local TV coverage as an example of how researchers can capture and analyze large amounts of local TV news data in multiple media markets at a comparatively low cost, thus overcoming a reliance on single market studies with relatively small sample sizes.

Injury Reporting on Local TV News: A Prime-Time Opportunity for Prevention

BACKGROUND Local television news is Americas primary source of information and may be an opportunity to shape public opinion surrounding issues such as injury prevention. OBJECTIVE This study sought to systematically evaluate unintentional-injury coverage on local television news and to identify frequently interviewed public-service professionals and factors associated with discussion of risk factors and prevention. METHODS Late news broadcasts from 122 local television stations within the U.S. during October 2002 were analyzed. The main outcomes variables were counts of case-injury stories: motor-vehicle crashes, fires, falls, drowning, poisonings, and sports-recreational injuries; identification of interviewed public service professionals; and discussion of risk factors and prevention. Bivariate and mulitvariate analysis was performed to identify predictors of discussion of prevention measures, risk factors, or both. Data were analyzed in Fall 2006. RESULTS From 2795 broadcasts, 1748 case-injury stories were identified. Fires and motor-vehicle crashes constituted 84% of the case-injury stories. There were 245 case-injury stories containing an interview with a public service professional. Police officers and firefighters accounted for 82% of these interviews. Interviews with police officers and firefighters were independently associated with discussion of risk factors and prevention measures for motor-vehicle crashes (OR=2.49, CI=1.7-3.6) and fires (OR=2.77, CI=1.2-5.9), respectively. CONCLUSIONS Motor-vehicle crashes and fires were the most commonly reported injury topics. Police officers and firefighters were most commonly interviewed and, if interviewed, increased the likelihood that risk factors, prevention measures, or both were discussed. Optimizing the messages delivered by public service professionals through public service professional-level and media-level interventions may be an opportunity for disseminating injury-prevention information to the public and to policymakers, and methods to increase the likelihood of media interviews with public service professionals should be explored.

Stroke information reported on local television news: A national perspective

Background and Purpose— Local television news commonly reports on health. This study aimed to characterize local TV news stroke reporting in America. Methods— Content analysis of stroke stories reported on 122 US local television stations. All stroke stories were coded for main focus and discussion of risk factors, stroke signs and symptoms, recombinant tissue plasminogen activator, treatment within 3 hours, or recommendation to call 911. Results— Of the 1799 health stories, only 13 stroke stories aired, and the median story length was 24 seconds (interquartile range 21 to 48). Stroke was the 22nd most common health topic. Few stroke stories discussed useful information about prevention or treatment of stroke. Conclusion— Stroke stories were nearly nonexistent in our sample, and those reported failed to discuss important messages needed to improve stroke prevention and treatment.

Communicating emerging infectious disease outbreaks to the public through local television news: public health officials as potential spokespeople.

OBJECTIVE To assess how West Nile virus (WNV) was reported to the American public on local television news and identify the main factors that influenced coverage. METHODS A representative sample of WNV stories that were reported on 122 local television news stations across the United States during October 2002, covering 67% of the nations population, were coded for self-efficacy, comparative risk scenarios, symptoms and recommendations, high-risk individuals, and frame. In addition, public service professionals (PSPs) interviewed in the segments were identified. Comparisons were made between stories in which a PSP was interviewed and stories without an interview with respect to discussion of the 5 variables coded. RESULTS Of the 1,371 health-related stories captured during the study period, 160 WNV stories aired, the second most common health topic reported. Forty-nine of the 160 WNV stories contained at least 1 of the 5 reporting variables. Forty-two PSPs were interviewed within 33 unique WNV stories. Public health officials composed 81% of all PSP interviews. Stories containing a public health official interview had 15.2 times (odds ratio 15.2, confidence interval 5.1-45.9) higher odds of reporting quality information, controlling for station affiliate or geographic location. CONCLUSIONS Emerging infectious disease stories are prominently reported by local television news. Stories containing interviews with public health officials were also much more likely to report quality information. Optimizing the interactions between and availability of public health officials and the local news media may enhance disaster communication of emerging infections.

The Long-Term and Geographically Constrained Effects of Campaign Advertising on Political Polarization and Sorting

Scholars agree that there has been an increase in polarization among political elites, though there continues to be debate on the extent to which polarization exists among the mass public. Still, there is general agreement that the American public has become more sorted over the past two decades, a time during which political ad volumes have increased and ads have become more negative. In this research, we explore whether there is a link between the two. We take advantage of variation in the volume and tone of political advertising across media markets to examine the link between advertising and three dependent variables: issue polarization, affective polarization, and sorting. We focus on the impact of both recent ad exposure and cumulative ad exposure across several election cycles. Ultimately, we find little impact of advertising on polarization or sorting, both overall and among subgroups of the population.