Richard M. Perloff

Political communication : politics, press, and public in America

Contents: Part I:Mass Media and Government Institutions. Introduction to Political Communication. Early History of the Press and Presidency. Modern History of the Press and Presidency. Presidents and News in the Television Age. Covering the Presidency. Presidential Rhetoric. Presidential Rhetoric: Genres and Impact. Congress and the Media. The Media and Local Politics. Part II:Political Communication Theories and Effects. Political Communication Effects. Agenda-Setting. Agenda-Building. The Health Care Reform Campaign. Health Care Reform: News and Public Opinion. Part III:Communication and the Presidential Election. Presidential Campaigns: History and Overview. The Media and the Nominating Process. The Press and the Presidential Campaign. News Media Impact on Voters. Political Advertising: Content. Political Advertising: Effects. Debates: Formats and Strategies. Debates: Impact and Controversies. Epilogue.

Mass media and political thought : an information-processing approach

Introduction - Richard M Perloff and Sidney Kraus Political Communication Processes and Effects PART ONE: COGNITIVE FOUNDATIONS Voter Thought Processes and Voting Theory - John A Herstein Jr Political Sophistication - Richard R Lau and Ralph Erber An Information-Processing Perspective Predicting Participation and Choice - Martin Fishbein, Susan E Middlestadt, and Jean-Kyung Chung First-Time Voters in US Partisan Elections PART TWO: POLITICAL MEDIA PROCESSES AND EFFECTS Emotional and Cognitive Responses to Televised Images of Political Leaders - John T Lanzetta et al Psychological Accounts of Agenda-Setting - Shanto Iyengar and Donald R Kinder Cognitions and Personal and Political Behaviors - Tom R Tyler and Paul J Lavrakas The Case of Crime Finding the Unexpected - Klaus Schonbach and David H Weaver Cognitive Bonding in a Political Campaign Personal Relevance and Campaign Information Seeking - Richard M Perloff A Cognitive Response-Based Approach Motivation and Political Information Processing - Gina M Garramone Extending the Gratifications Approach PART THREE: MACRO IMPLICATIONS Patterns of Political Cognition - W Russell Neuman and Ann C Fryling An Exploration of the Public Mind Learning about Politics from the Media - Arthur H Miller and Kent Asp A Comparative Study of Sweden and the United States Integrative Complexity of Policy Reasoning - Philip E Tetlock PART FOUR: REAL-WORLD EFFECTS The Studies and the World Outside - Sidney Kraus

Loneliness, Depression and the Uses of Television

the highest number of standard inches of any subcategory. Minority education, dissent and unrest, and administrative ruling and procedures were also well documented during this period while testing results, drugs, and teacher education had very little coverage. While the newshole percentages calculated for the early 1960s were lower than the 4% average found by Gerbner, media attention did appear to fluctuate with historical events such as wars, student unrest and court decisions.20 The newshole percentages calculated for this study were also lower than those found by Stempel21 in his 1962 study, but it must be noted that education was combined with classic arts in his study. The 1969 figure for the Times does not compare closely with those of Showalter,22 while the 1975 percentage of 3.8 for the Times differs from the 1.4 percent average found by Ryan and Owen.23 Some of these disparities are probably due to differing definitions of education news. For example, this study did not include all of the sports coverage in newshole calculations, and newshole was defined as all editorial matter except advertisements. Other s tud ies may have used d i f fe ren t definitions. Thus we see that the basic conclusions of the literature are supported by our data. Our study further contributes to the discussion of educational coverage by the media by pointing out some of the gapsas in elementary and preschool coverage, the trend to longer articles and also by suggesting that things have not changed over the last 15 years.

A Three-Decade Retrospective on the Hostile Media Effect

Some 30 years ago, Vallone, Ross, and Lepper (1985) conducted a pioneering study of the hostile media effect in which they demonstrated that partisans perceive media coverage as unfairly biased against their side. Over the ensuing decades, scores of experiments and surveys have extended their findings, demonstrating hostile media effects in a variety of domains. Taking the measure of the research more than 30 years later by systematically reviewing the many studies conducted in different locales, this article summarizes the knowledge base on the hostile media effect. The article integrates findings, clarifies conceptual issues, and presents two research-based models of the effect. Future scholarly pathways are suggested, with a focus on how hostile media biases may change—or continue—in an era vastly different than the mass communication-dominated age in which the concept was pioneered.

APPLYING THE THEORY OF REASONED ACTION TO CHARITABLE INTENT

The present study applied Fishbein and Ajzens 1975 theory of reasoned action to the domain of philanthropic behavior. 245 college students completed a questionnaire that assessed attitude and subjective norm regarding intent to create a charitable bequest via will. Attitude and subjective norm accounted for significant amounts of variance in behavioral intentions, consistent with other studies of the theory of reasoned action.

Gender Constancy and Same-Sex Imitation: A Developmental Study.

Summary Recent research has indicated that cognitive-developmental processes (i.e., awareness of gender constancy) may have an important impact on childrens sex-role development. The present study, based on the work of Slaby and Frey, interviewed 51 preschool children individually to assess their awareness of gender constancy and their choice of same-sex models. The findings suggest that the relationship may be more complex than originally assumed. Imitation of same-sex models performing relatively neutral activities was not more likely among high gender-constant children (aware that their gender cannot change) than among low gender-constant children (not certain whether their gender is fixed and unchanging). However, when given a choice between imitating a same-sex model performing a relatively unpleasant task and an opposite-sex model enacting a more pleasant behavior, high gender-constant children were more likely to indicate an imitative preference for the same-sex model than low gender-constant chil...

Tracking the psychosocial predictors of older individuals' television uses.

The elderly spend considerable amounts of time with mass media, but little is known about the psychology of their viewing habits. This study compared the relative impact of social, structural, and psychosocial variables on the television uses of elderly viewers. The results of a survey of 113 older respondents indicated that psychosocial factors accounted for variance above and beyond that of demographic and situational factors in viewing of television entertainment programs, parasocial programs (e.g., soap operas), as well as in watching of television for companionship purposes. Emotional loneliness and locus of control proved particularly significant predictors of television behavior.

Portrayals of the Elderly in Magazine Advertisements

Measures. We first asked our subjects to complete a questionnaire measuring selfesteem and self-image to minimize possible demand characteristics of the experiment.12 These measures were not directly related to the film. Subjects completed this questionnaire in 15 to 20 minutes, thus providing a time lag between film exposure and our measures of social interaction. We then gave our subjects another questionnaire which measured their willingness to interact socially with white children. This questionnaire contained the following items:lJ

Antecedents of children's comprehension of television advertising

This study compared the importance of role taking and logical operations stage in predicting childrens understanding of the purpose of television advertising. Role taking was found to be the more critical variable.

Mass Communication Research at the Crossroads: Definitional Issues and Theoretical Directions for Mass and Political Communication Scholarship in an Age of Online Media

More than a dozen years ago, in a highly regarded article in this journal, Chaffee and Metzger (2001) theorized about the nature of mass communication in the digital age. The present article, building on issues raised by Chaffee and Metzger, explores the nature of mass communication in a social media era and demarcates overlapping terms, notably mass communication and mediated communication. Arguing that theory plays a key role in advancing mass communication research at a technological crossroads, the article discusses ways that three major mass communication theoretical perspectives—cultivation, agenda-setting, and uses and gratifications—can specifically be adapted to illuminate media processes and effects in the contemporary age.