Ronald E. Ostman

A Public's Environmental Information Sources and Evaluations of Mass Media

Abstract Which mass media sources of environmental information are used most frequently by a public? What is a publics perception of the quality of environmental content provided by journalists and newscasters? Partial answers to these questions are based on telephone surveys among 336 Ithaca, New York, residents in April 1984. Newspapers and television emerged as most frequently used media, but other media were preferred for believable information. Educated segments of the sample used television less for environmental news than did less educated segments and tended to reject television as a believable source, preferring print media other than newspapers as believable sources of scientific information on the environment. The sample generally held a negative evaluation of media personnel performance on four criteria—lack of balance, biased political orientation, sensationalism, and tendency to select so as to maximize audience. A slim majority thought environmental media messengers told the truth.

The Spiral of Silence in the 1948 Presidential Election

Noelle-Neumanns spiral of silence is tested with data from the 1948 Elmira election study. Results indicate that support for the theory and trends in the data are consistent with expectations for the spiral of silence as an additional explanation for the famous election misprediction. Statistical tests affirm Noelle-Neumanns suggestion that social isolation is associated with fear of isolation and provide partial support for the idea that social isolation interacts with fear of isolation in the spiral of silence effect.

News Media Exposure and Its Learning Effects during the Persian Gulf War

In a comparison of two probability surveys, one conducted immediately after the Persian Gulf War and the other a year and half earlier, this study showed significantly higher levels of news exposure across all media channels during the war. Both exposure to newspaper and to cable and PBS news programming were positively related to levels of knowledge about the war. Exposure to CNN leveled off the potential differences in knowledge acquisition across educational levels. Exposure to network TV news might be related to gaining “image-oriented” information, while exposure to newspaper and to cable and PBS news programming were related to learning more abstract and complex information about the war.

Life stage and motives for television use

Do motives for using TV vary by viewers age? Mass communication literature suggests that TV plays an important role in the life of younger and older persons in American society, but has not investigated how motives for viewing vary by age of the viewer or what needs are satisfied by viewing. A systematic random sample of telephone households in the Carbondale, DeSoto, and Murphysboro area of Southern Illinois provided 140 interviews with adults aged eighteen to eighty-seven. Life stage was related to five motives for using TV (to learn things, to forget, to overcome loneliness, to pass time when bored, and to find something to talk about). All but the forget/bored motive were positively correlated with age.

Relation of Questions and Answers in Kennedy's Press Conferences.

f i Many journalism instructors, communication researchers and textbook writers1 offer specific instructions on how beginning reporters and researchers should ask questions in order to elicit responses which have proven valuable in writing news or scientific reports. Students are told there are “good” and “bad“ ways to ask questions. However, little evidence has been presented to demonstrate that “good” questions stimulate “good” answers. This article examines the relatedness of question and answer through content analysis

TV Police and Family Programs as Reality to Schizophrenic-Labeled Persons

b This article summarizes findings from openand closed-ended interviews with persons labeled “schizophrenics in an acute phase.” Interview results are compared to data gathered using the same instruments in telephone interviews with respondents from nonlabeled community samples.! In open-ended interviews in late 1978 and early 1979, we inquired into schizophrenics’ perceptions of television. Responses often indicated a high degree of perceived TV realism. Next, a closedended instrument was administered, based

Images of Germany in the American Media: By Jim Willis. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1999. 193 pp.

territory. Their newspapers were bridges between the East and its familiar culture and the new frontier, still full of uncertainty. Editors were early town boosters who sought after good businesses, schools, and government. And, just as in the East, these newspapers were records of all the drama and everyday life that marked the human condition. Historians have generally neglected this chapter in Americas mostimportant expansion. But Dary demonstrates that newspapers played a significant role in forging the foundation and direction of societies that came to make up the Old West. While perhaps a too-large portion of the book

Articles on Mass Communication in U.S. and Foreign Journals: A Selected Annotated Bibliography • April-September, 1987

Two major controversies dominated the April-May-June quarter: The news media reported on the private life of Gary Hart, thereby prompting his withdrawal as a presidential candidate and stirring debate about whether snooping into private activities of public figures constitutes good journalism (No. 571). A sex scandal involving the PTL ministry made major headlines and caused the media to scrutinize all television evangelists

A projective art test for determining the degree of schizophrenics′ perceived reality of television☆

Abstract The visual medium of television is the dominant mass medium used by residents in a state-supported mental health center. The extent to which residents perceive the content of TV to be real may be an important intervening variable in the eventual use of TV content by the resident in his or her own life, as well as for therapeutic purposes. A traditional pencil-and-paper measure of the perceived reality of TV is not wholly satisfactory for schizophrenics in a chronic state. An easily scored experimental projective drawing test is explained which has promise as a measurement approach to determine the persons perceived reality of television. The results for schizophrenics are compared to those for a matched sample of non-institutionalized persons.