The Newspaper and Community Integration

Several questions bearing on Janowitz's classic community-integration hypothesis were pursued in a survey of 500 members of a Catholic diocese in the Northwest. Church ties were positively associated with subscribing to the church newspaper, with participation in church groups having the strongest relationship. Some ties to local churches were positively associated with commercial newspaper subscribing, most especially participation in church groups. Ties to church and volunteer associations had separate and joint positive relationships to commercial newspaper subscribing, demonstrating evidence of an additive effect. All these results were consistent with the community integration hypothesis.