Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

A national survey of candidates for state legislative offices examined the impact of nonpaid campaign activities on percentage of vote obtained, and assesses them in the contexts of different levels of funding, levels of competitiveness, and incumbency advantage. From a representative sample of 527 candidates, several insights emerge. First, while incumbency is a powerful force, a wide array of nonpaid campaign activities can substantially influence election outcome. Second, while some forms of free media coverage are quite risky, endorsements from community leaders and in newspaper editorials are consistently beneficial at this level. Finally, traditional campaigning, like door-to-door canvassing, is very much alive and well in state legislative races.

This study assessed the use of “horse race” and issue experts by fifteen daily newspapers covering seven open races for governor between Labor Day and Election Day 2002. About 38% of stories cited experts. “Horse race” experts were cited in 27% of news stories, while issue experts were cited in 14%. Experts were cited more frequently in 2002 than in a similar study of a 1998 governor's race. Stories by statehouse bureau reporters were more likely than others to cite experts. More prominently displayed stories cited more experts than other stories, as did stories that were more balanced between electoral opponents.

This study gathered baseline data on the moral development of 249 professional journalists. Journalists scored fourth highest among professionals tested, ranking behind seminarians/philosophers, medical students, and physicians, but above dental students, nurses, graduate students, undergraduate college students, veterinary students, and adults in general. No significant differences were found between various groups of journalists, including men and women, and broadcast and print journalists; journalists who did civic journalism or investigative reporting scored significantly higher than those who did not. A regression analysis points to five factors predictive of higher moral development in journalists—doing investigative journalism, a high degree of choice at work, moderate religiosity, a strong internal sense of right and wrong, and viewing rules and law as less important than other factors.

This article proposes a model of commitment to journalism among recent entrants to the occupation. The model is based on the concept of continuance commitment from the sociology of work literature. It is expected that workplace-related factors should affect level of occupational commitment, but it also is expected that greater investments made in pursuit of a journalism career during precollege and college years should lead to a higher level of commitment. The data show that job sentiments are strongly predictive of commitment, but precollege and college investments generally were not predictive in a direct way. Early socialization did indirectly predict pursuit of journalistic work. Once in the field, however, new journalists assess dedication to the occupation by extrapolating from organizational experiences. In general, data also suggest that commitment to journalism is predicted much like commitment to other types of communication occupations.

Measuring accuracy has been a part of academic literature since the mid-1930s. Most accuracy surveys, even those for television, send printed stories to sources for their evaluation. This study develops a workable design to measure television news accuracy by sending video copies to sources. It also adapts a questionnaire from the newspaper literature for use in television. The research method was used to assess the accuracy of local television in Cleveland.

Articles from four California newspapers focusing on pesticide use and farm workers were content analyzed to track inclusion of pro- and anti-pesticide sources, along with neutral sources. The authors applied hegemony theory to news content and historical, socioeconomic, and demographic data. Results indicate that in all newspapers, “counter-hegemonic” anti-pesticide sources were the most-often quoted. Analysis suggests that newspapers, themselves part of the ruling hegemony, nevertheless do sometimes provide significant space for opposing voices on environmental justice issues, especially when the sources become professional challengers, such as the United Farm Workers Union, highly legitimized by their routine use in the press.

This study analyzed the composition of boards of directors of thirteen publicly traded newspaper companies to examine the extent of director appointment from financial institutions or leading advertisers. The results revealed ingrained ties to financial institutions and leading advertisers from 1988 to 2000. A pooled cross-sectional time series analysis showed that a company's financial situation is associated with the subsequent appointment of directors. The results confirmed the view that interlocks are associated with inter-firm resource dependence. However, most of the variance in the ratios of board members from financial interests to total board members was accounted for by idiosyncratic variations among the corporations. The effect of capital dependency was much smaller than the company-specific unit effects.

Although “globalization” has been widely addressed in the tradition of international communication, media reporting of it has not gained much attention in the globalization debate. This study is designed to collect some empirical evidence on the meaning construction of the 1997 Asian economic crisis and the International Monetary Fund bailouts within the context of the newly emerged “globalization” news paradigm. The examination of major themes, described causes and solutions to the crisis, and story context of five countries' news reports helps to detect the existence of a pro-neoliberal news frame.

This study surveyed Weblog users online to investigate how credible they view blogs as compared to traditional media as well as other online sources. This study also explores the degree to which reliance on Weblogs as well as traditional and online media sources predicts credibility of Weblogs after controlling for demographic and political factors. Weblog users judged blogs as highly credible—more credible than traditional sources. They did, however, rate traditional sources as moderately credible. Weblog users rated blogs higher on depth of information than they did on fairness.

While much research focuses on main effects of emerging media technologies, the potential for new media attributes to moderate relationships between content features and cognitive outcomes has enjoyed less attention. Do new user controls moderate editing effects on memory? This study demonstrates that control can exacerbate effects. Researchers developed an interface offering two levels of user control. Those assigned to a situation comparable to traditional television viewing were four times more likely to later recognize complex media content than were those for whom user control over pacing and narrative sequence was available. Implications for journalism and strategic communication are discussed.

Through focus group interviews, this study examined how college women negotiate exposure to media images of disproportionately large-breasted women. The results showed that media images directly and indirectly influence women's breast satisfaction. Personal experiences; self-confidence; and interactions with men, family, and friends influenced their views of ideal breast size.