Newspaper Exposure Research Articles

Level of Awareness on Disaster Risk Reduction of the University of Eastern Philippines Employees and Students

The researchers looked at how well academics, students, and non-teaching staff at the University of Eastern Philippines System were aware of disaster risk reduction. Education, agriculture, health, fisheries, and marine resources were all used to measure awareness. The research also revealed a link between awareness and a number of personal characteristics, as well as a substantial variation in awareness amongst student groups. The study used a 30-item Likert type instrument to assess disaster risk reduction awareness and used a descriptive-correlational research approach. Percentages, means, multiple regression analysis, and analysis of variance were used to examine the data. The study's findings revealed that faculty members were well-versed in disaster risk reduction in education, agriculture, and health, as well as disaster risk reduction in fisheries and marine resources, infrastructure, and the environment and natural resources. The students were well-informed on disaster risk reduction in the areas of education, agriculture, and health, as well as disaster risk reduction in the areas of fisheries and marine resources, infrastructure, and the environment and natural resources. The six components of the degree of awareness were known to the non-teaching employees. Exposure to newspapers and television was shown to be substantially associated to the level of disaster risk reduction knowledge among faculty and non-teaching personnel. Students' newspaper exposure and year levels were shown to be substantially connected to their degree of disaster risk reduction knowledge. There is a considerable variation in disaster risk reduction awareness across the three categories of respondents.

Newspaper Exposure, Efficacy Feeling and Political Apathy among Youths in South-East Nigeria

The spate of youths’ political apathy in Nigeria remains a constant source of worry to stakeholders. Nevertheless, efforts to stem the tide have been largely unsuccessful. Studies indicate that many youths rely on newspapers and other mass media for political information, and such reliance may influence their general political behaviour. This study examines the influence of newspaper reports on the extent of political apathy among young people in Southeast Nigeria using a sample of 384 respondents selected through a multistage sampling technique. It also evaluates the roles played by political efficacy and news perception in youths’ extent of political involvement. Findings show that obtaining political news from newspaper is positively associated with an increased feeling of political efficacy (rs(379) = .567**, p = <.05) but negatively related to reduced political apathy among youths (rs(379) = -.525**, p = <.05). Also, many young people tend to perceive newspaper political reports to lack depth, objectivity, and accuracy. This perception tends to be negatively associated with their extent of political apathy (rs(379) = -.427*, p = <.05). Therefore, newspaper coverage must pay more attention to reporting on important political issues that will enable the public to take self-determined action consistent with the social responsibility of the press.

Reefer Madness to Marijuana Legalization

American attitudes toward marijuana have varied greatly from the time it was criminalized in the 1930s through the present day, and public opinion favoring the legalization of marijuana has steadily risen since 1990. It is generally well accepted that the media played a large role in shaping not only marijuana laws but also the general public’s attitudes toward marijuana. As such, this study utilized General Social Survey data to examine the relationship between media exposure and attitudes toward the legalization of marijuana from 1975 through 2012, 1975 through 1990, and 1991 through 2012. The findings indicate that while media exposure was not significantly related to attitudes about marijuana legalization from 1975 through 1990, both television and newspaper exposure had a significant positive relationship with favor toward the legalization of marijuana from 1991 through 2012.

All Press is Good Press: The News Media and the Incumbent Advantage in Judicial Elections

There is a good deal of evidence that planned media exposure influences outcomes in judicial elections via campaign spending and paid campaign advertisements. However, less well understood is the influence of unplanned media exposure of the sort that happens spontaneously in the news media. Here, we investigate the proposition that unplanned media exposure can influence both the emergence of challengers and the outcome of contested judicial elections. Using data from 282 state supreme court elections in 22 states from 2000-2012, we use two-stage selection models to examine the effect of different types of unplanned newspaper exposure on judicial races. we find, among other things, that unplanned media exposure of the incumbent generally benefits the incumbent. Challengers, on the other hand, have difficulty getting the same level of unplanned media coverage. When they do, the benefits to their campaign are not significant.

The Media as a Window on the Past? The Impact of Television and Newspaper Consumption on Knowledge of the Democratic Transition in Portugal

This study seeks to expand our understanding of how the media increase the level of political information, by focusing on an understudied yet important learning outcome: knowledge of the political past. The article explores the factors underlying variation in the recognition of the leading actors in the transitional process in Portugal. The results show that television news and newspaper exposure foster recognition of these actors, but that media use interacts with personal experience of the transition (stronger effects among younger cohorts) and party identification (stronger impact on those who do not feel close to a political party).

Political Ideology and Partisan Newspaper Exposure:Comparative Study Between External Columnists as Opinion Leaders and General Publics

Political Ideology and Partisan Newspaper Exposure:Comparative Study Between External Columnists as Opinion Leaders and General Publics

Motivated Misperception? Party, Education, Partisan News, and Belief in “Death Panels”

This study drew on the literature in motivated reasoning and 2009 Pew survey data to examine the roles of partisanship, education, news exposure, and their interactions in the misperception that health care reform would create “death panels.” Radio news exposure encouraged the misperception only among Republicans, while newspaper exposure discouraged it, especially among non-Republicans. But rather than polarize perceptions along partisan lines as predicted, Fox News exposure contributed to misperception mainstreaming. Finally, this study identified a complex role for education in both inhibiting misperceptions (as a main effect) and promoting them (as an interaction with Fox News exposure).

Interview & innovative practice with Merrill Norton, Pharm.D., NCAC II, CCS, CCDP-D

Interview & innovative practice with Merrill Norton, Pharm.D., NCAC II, CCS, CCDP-D

Recent Articles in the Field of Public Opinion Research

In this section, the International Journal of Public Opinion Research reviews articles that have recently been published in peer-refereed journals and which broadly relate to the field of public opinion. The intention is not to give an exhaustive overview of a given study but rather to alert our readers to interesting ideas and research in our field. Beaudoin attempts to fill a gap in the research into the formation of social capital in the U.S. He sets out a theoretical framework to examine the interaction between ethnic group and the effect of TV and newspaper news exposure on social capital development, and discusses four possible causes that might explain ethnicity acting as a modifying factor: news portrayals of ethnic groups; differences in language skills; differences in residential mobility; and communication culture, drawing a distinction between the oral and literate traditions. He then tests the framework empirically, using the 2005 Health Information National Trends Survey, a nationally representative telephone and online survey of American adults. Social capital is measured in three respects (auxiliary relationships, organization membership, and attendance of religious services); news use is measured separately for exposure to newspaper, national TV, and local TV news; and four ethnic groups are distinguished. The study finds that newspaper use is a significant predictor of social capital, but watching national TV news and local TV news are not. However, there are also interactions with ethnicity: newspaper exposure has a more positive effect for Whites than for Latinos, and TV national news exposure is a positive predictor of social capital for Black Americans, significantly more so than for Whites. Beaudoin concludes that his findings are consistent with the communication culture explanation for differences by ethnicity, but not with the other three possible causes that he had hypothesized.

Adolescent Self-Perceptions and Attitudes Toward School as Determinants of Anabolic-Androgenic Steroid Risk Estimates and Normative Judgments

Grounded in symbolic interactionism and drawing on data gathered in the 2007 Monitoring the Future Study ( n = 2,201), this research examines how self-esteem and perceived intelligence, as well as attitudes and behaviors related to school environments, associate with perceptions of anabolic-androgenic steroids. With perceived risk and approval/disapproval of steroid use as dependent measures, logistic regression models identified explanatory effects for sex, race, newspaper exposure, and peer use of steroids, with males, Whites, those who seldom read the newspaper, and those with friends who had used steroids estimating lower levels of risk and indicating less disapproval. Those who viewed themselves as being more intelligent than their peers as well as those with higher levels of self-esteem estimated higher levels of risk and expressed greater disapproval, whereas those who indicated “hating” school and those who had skipped school the most estimated lower risk and less disapproval. Logit log-linear models identified the most parsimonious representations of variable relationships, demonstrating how the presence of a self-esteem index stands to reduce the centrality of sex and race as explanatory measures.

Measurement of risk perceptions in social research: a comparative analysis of ordinary least squares, ordinal and multinomial logistic regression models

Drawing on data gathered in the 2006 Monitoring the Future study of American youth (n = 2489), this investigation offers a comparative analysis of ordinary least squares (OLS), ordinal and multinomial logistic regression models in examining the effects of multiple factors on perceptions of alcohol risk. The article addresses limitations of OLS models in risk analyses and demonstrates how scholars can avoid making statistical errors when positioning vague quantifiers as ordinal dependent measures. Substantively, the article finds differential effects for (1) sex, (2) perceived attitudes of peers toward alcohol consumption, (3) frequency of intoxication, (4) teacher efforts toward alcohol education, (5) frequency of communicating with friends, and (6) newspaper exposure, as determinants of alcohol risk perceptions. Through statistical results and visual displays, the article reveals how inferences made about these effects stand to vary depending on the regression method chosen.

Cultivation Effects of a Newspaper on Reality Estimates and Explicit and Implicit Attitudes

This paper explores the cultivation effect of a newspaper on its readers’ reality estimates and attitudes. Additionally, the study tries to advance cultivation research by examining implicit attitudes (i.e., automatic affective reactions toward an object). A content analysis of four months of news coverage in one particular newspaper showed that foreigners were overrepresented as offenders and that the newspaper had a negative view of the EU. According to cultivation theory, it is assumed that the more people read a newspaper, the more their reality estimates and attitudes correspond to the most recurrent, stable, and overarching patterns of the newspaper’s content. To test this hypothesis, a total of 453 students participated in a study that used a cross-lagged panel design with two waves and a time-lag of two months. Consistent with the cultivation hypothesis, those who spent more time reading the newspaper were more likely to overestimate the frequency of foreigners as offenders (i.e., first-order cultivation) and had more negative self-reported attitudes toward the EU (i.e., second-order cultivation). Additionally, those who read more of the newspaper showed more negative implicit attitudes toward the EU (i.e., implicit cultivation). The data show evidence of a significant causal influence of newspaper exposure on implicit attitudes, and a marginally significant causal effect on the overestimation of foreigners as offenders and on explicit attitudes toward the EU. The consideration of implicit attitudes as an additional dependent variable could advance cultivation theory and research.

Attracting Younger Audiences: Examining How Access to Local News Content Influences Perceptions of Credibility on Younger Readers

The researchers conducted a case study to examine the relationship between campus and community newspaper exposure and perceptions of credibility for young adults. In the fall of 2005, the University of Florida partnered with the local paper to provide free copies of its paper on campus. In a 6-month period, two Web surveys (N = 3,400) of those enrolled in a general education class found that these readers view the campus newspaper as more credible than the community newspaper. Exposure and credibility for the community paper declined over time, but no significant changes were noted for the perceptions of credibility of the campus newspaper, although exposure declined for it. Researchers also found positive relationships between changes in credibility and increased exposure. Finally, perception changes for the college newspaper were linked to agreement with the campus newspaper's editorial policies. Implications are discussed.

Exploring the Association Between News Use and Social Capital

The current study assesses the association between news use and social capital—and whether this association varies by ethnicity and medium. Ordinary least square regression analysis indicates that social capital is predicted by newspaper exposure, but not TV national news exposure or TV local news exposure. In addition, there are two significant interaction terms between the news exposure measures and ethnicity in predicting social capital. First, the association between newspaper exposure and social capital is more positive for Whites than Latinos. Second, the association between TV national news exposure and social capital is less positive for Whites than Blacks. Of four potential contributory factors, the most viable factor is communication culture. Specifically, the relative oral and literate traditions of American ethnic groups are most suitable for explaining how the association between news use and social capital varies by ethnicity and medium.

Negative Articles Predict Clinical Trial Reluctance

Findings in this study on clinical trials show that front page and section stories are overwhelmingly negative and that newspaper exposure is a negative predictor of the intention to participate.

Effects of Mass Communication on Attitudes toward Anabolic Steroids: An Analysis of High School Seniors

Drawing on a national probability sample of high school seniors (n = 2,560), this research explores relationships between exposure to four types of mass communication—magazines, movies, newspapers, and television—and attitudes toward anabolic steroids, operationalized along three dependent measures. Logistic regression analyses revealed statistically significant relationships among (a) magazine exposure and estimates of drug use in professional sports, (b) newspaper and television exposure and disapproval of steroid use, (c) newspaper exposure and estimates of self-inflicted harm caused by steroid use, and (d) exposure to anti-drug spots and each of the three dependent variables. Theoretical and methodological implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The Impact of a Health Campaign on Health Social Capital

Referring to literature in sociology, mass communication, and public health, we conceptualize and operationally define “health social capital” and “individual health social capital” and then posit and test a model for its development in response to a public health media campaign. The campaign evaluated here was designed to stimulate behaviors that would provide a more supportive social environment for children and youth, an environment which we consider to be richer in aggregate health social capital. The association model of advertising was employed to explain the development of individual health social capital measures of awareness, attitude, and behavior. With cross-sectional data (1998, n = 614; 1999, n = 1,087; 2000, n = 1,388), we examine the results for changes in awareness, attitude, and behavior over time and the significant links between these dependent variables and media campaign exposure. The results show significant increases in awareness and attitude, but not in behavior. Structural equation modeling revealed different patterns of influence for newspaper and TV campaign exposure.

3. Measuring the Frequency of Regular Behaviors: Comparing the “Typical Week” to the “Past Week”

Social scientists often measure the frequency with which people perform behaviors executed regularly throughout their daily lives, but there is no standard approach to this measurement task: some investigators have asked respondents about their behavior during a “usual” or “typical” day, week, or month, whereas others sought to describe the same sorts of behavior patterns by asking about the most recent day, week, or month. This paper compares the validity of “typical” week and “past” week reports for assessing habitual behavior patterns using data from the 1989 National Election Study Pilot, in which respondents were randomly assigned to report TV news program and newspaper exposure during either a typical week or the past week. The predictive validity of the measures was assessed using objective tests of current events knowledge and identification of political figures, as well as self-assessments of political knowledge. The typical week questions consistently manifested superior predictive validity, especially among the most educated respondents.

Towards Sustainable Farming Development: The Attitude of Farmers in a Selected Area of Shimane Prefecture, Japan

ABSTRACT This study mainly discusses the attitude of farmers towards environment and sustainability issues of agricultural development. Field work was conducted in Nakano block of Iwami town, Shimane prefecture and data were collected from the farmers through personal interviews. Findings revealed that most of the farmers confronted low levels of environmental problems. The issues mostly confronted were the reduction of necessary aquatic life and beneficial insects in nature due to the use of agro-chemicals. Cultivation of high yielding varieties of crops with proper management practices, use of low toxicity pesticides and care in handling were the matters mostly suggested by farmers to combat environmental degradation. Most of the farmers possessed a highly favorable attitude towards the above issues. Significant positive correlation was found only between the farmers' attitude and their formal education and newspaper exposure.

Communication and Beliefs about Racial Equality

In this paper, we examine the effects of location in the social structure and communication processes on whites' responses to societal change conceptions of equality (structural equality): one that entailed beliefs about abstract notions of equality and one that pertained to concrete reference-based (blacks') conception of inequality. A recent national survey provided the data to test eleven hypotheses derived from theorizing in the area of stratification beliefs. Using covariance analysis, all our predictions received at least partial support. We found that those less well placed in the social system were more likely to embrace institutional change solutions to inequality and that those who attend more to television news were more likely to embrace structural racial inequality. On the other hand, while both television news and newspaper exposure had a positive influence on interpersonal discussion, the relationships of this variable with one of the equality measures indicated that engaging in more interpersonal discussion lead to less of an endorsement of structural racial inequality. Finally, those who embraced the general conception of equality were less likely to endorse race-specific structural inequality. We outlined some implications of our findings for social policy with some suggestions for further research.