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THE MASS AS SOURCES OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, , AND HEALTH KNOWLEDGE*

BY SERENA WADE AND Downloaded from The focus of this paper is the relation of different patterns of informa- tion-seeking to different levels of public knowledge in three areas—public affairs, science, and health. The come from secondary analysis of na- tional sample surveys, and were obtained as by-products of a broad study of public knowledge in the United States.

When this was written, Dr. Wade was a research associate in the Institute http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/ for Research, at Stanford. She is now a consultant in the field of mass media and a lecturer at San Jose State College. Dr. Schramm is director of the Institute for Communication Research, at Stanford. OUR carefully made national surveys1 provide trend data on public affairs knowledge and its sources2 between 1952 and 1964. No such trend data exist for science and health, but

approximately the same kinds of questions about source and at National Yang-Ming Univ. Library on July 7, 2016 Fknowledge were asked concerning science in 19578 and health in 1958.4 * This study o£ the distribution of public affairs, science, and health knowledge was financed by the U. S. Office of , Division of Statistical Services, and carried out by the Institute for Communication Research, Stanford University. The final report is entitled Knowledge and the Public Mind, by Wilbur Schramm and Serena Wade, Stanford, December 1967. The support of the Office of Education is gratefully acknowledged. 1 Four comparable national surveys of public affairs knowledge during presidential election campaigns were conducted by the Survey Research Center, University of Michigan, in 195s (N = 1,899), in 1956 (N = 1,76s), in i960 (N = 1,954), and in 1964 (N = 1,570). * Only in the most specialized areas is it possible to think of a single source for any kind of knowledge. We learn in school, and we learn from experience. We learn from the mass media, and from other people. All the chief sources, in their own way, cover all the broad areas of knowledge. Therefore, when we talk of the sources of public knowledge, we must necessarily talk not about which source is used, but rather about which source is more likely to be used, or used more often, or preferred. » The national sdence survey conducted by the Survey Research Center in 1957, before the launching of Sputnik, was originally intended to assess the size of science in the mass media, and therefore included much useful on sources. After Sputnik, i# 1958, certain comparable knowledge questions were asked in another survey to determine what changes had taken place. (For the 1957 survey, N =. 1,919; for the iggS study, N ~ 1,547). A report of some of the results of these studies appeared in The Public Impact of Science in the Mass Media, Institute for Social Research, Survey Research Center, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, 1958. * The national health survey was conducted by the National Opinion Research Cen- 198 WADE AND SCHRAMM Unfortunately, the sources inquired about in these surveys do not include all the sources we should like to know about; notably they do not include interpersonal information nor adult education. There- fore, we shall be restricted in this paper to dealing mainly with the mass media as sources of public information.6

THE CHANGING SOURCES OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS INFORMATION

The four SRC surveys, 1952 to 1964, asked, "How much did you Downloaded from read articles [or view programs] about the elec- tion—regularly, often, from time to time, or just once in a while?" and "How many articles would you say you read—a good many, several, or just one or two?" The answers are summarized in

Table 1. http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/ During presidential campaigns, public affairs television regularly reaches all population groups fairly equally, and its coverage has increased and evened out since 1952. and , and especially the latter, are more likely to be used regularly by better-educated groups, whites, and readers in the higher income and occupational categories than by others. About 70 per cent of American adults make regular use of television for information on campaigns, candidates, and issues; about 50 per cent regularly use newspapers; at National Yang-Ming Univ. Library on July 7, 2016 and about 25 per cent make regular use of magazines. The high figures for use of the media in 1956 must be interpreted with caution. They are probably due to a slightly different wording of the question in that year.6 It is also necessary to use caution in ter. University of Chicago, in 1958 (N — 76s), with the support of the U. S. Public Health Service, to identify the patterns of utilizing medical care and the factors that affect reception of in the United States. A report on this study by James W. Swinehart, entitled Voluntary Exposure to Health Com- munications, was presented to the American Public Health Association in Novem- ber 1966. Certain other studies will also be referred to in the following pages, among them two NORC surveys—one in 1963, immediately after the Kennedy as- sassination, and another in June 1965, in which some of the same knowledge ques- tions were repeated. (For the 1963 survey, N = 1,384; for the 1965 study, N — M69). • We can take some comfort, however, from the fact that fewer than so per cent of American adults engage in any formalized act of adult learning in any one year (see J. Johnstone and R. Rivera, Volunteers for Learning, Chicago, Aldine Publish- ing Company, 1965), and also from the findings of E. B. Parker and W. J. Paisley (Patterns of Adult Information Seeking, Stanford, Institute for Communication Re- search, 1966), who asked samples of respondents in two communities, "What are some of the ways in which you keep yourself informed about national affairs?" and also how they found out about some specific items of national or international affairs. Print or television sources were used more than interpersonal sources for such information, by a factor of more than ten to one. MASS MEDIA AS SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE 199 TABLE 1 PROPORTION MAKING REGULAR USE OF THREE MEDIA DURING FOUR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS

Newspapers Television Magazines Respondent Characteristic 1952 1956 1960 1964 1952 1956 1960 1964 1952 1956 1960 1964 Education Less than high school 27% 56% 40% 38% 23% 65% 63% 68% 7% 18% 13% 12% Downloaded from High school 41 74 57 52 38 82 74 70 14 32 23 18 More than high school 49 84 66 61 33 83 78 72 25 49 43 36. College grad 64 96 68 71 41 84 82 72 32 67 55 59 Age

20-39 31 65 49 47 29 77 72 64 12 31 24 24 http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/ 40-59 38 70 53 51 32 75 72 74 15 32 26 24 60andover 38 70 53 51 19 66 67 72 11 29 27 24 Race White 37 54 51 30 74 71 14 27 25 Other 18 28 43 15 39 64 04 06 13 Sex Male 41 76 59 53 29 76 73 69 13 35 26 24 Female 30 63 45 47 27 72 69 71 12 28 25 24

Occupation at National Yang-Ming Univ. Library on July 7, 2016 Prof.- Managerial 52 88 68 65 40 84 85 70 24 52 50 40 White Collar 43 77 56 53 35 82 67 72 18 34 24 28 Blue Collar 31 68 51 44 29 71 66 65 07 23 18 15 Farm 29 58 39 41 11 54 74 70 12 37 23 24 Income Under $3,000 50 34 39 52 53 65 18 13 10 $3,000- $7,499 71 56 49 78 76 72 30 23 21 $7,500 and over 86 59 57 88 79 70 51 43 35 projecting these findings to all public affairs information. A study of two California communities between campaign years found - papers being used proportionally more than television for national public affairs information, and television being used distinctly more by the lower than by the higher educational groups.7 It is probable,

«The question in 1956 asked only if a person had used the media, not how fre- quently. 1 In the California community which more closely approximates national charac- teristics, from three to ten times as many people reported using the newspaper for national public affairs information between campaigns. But the proportion of high school dropouts using television for news was about twice the proportion of those who had graduated from college (Parker and Paisley, op. cit.). 200 WADE AND SCHRAMM therefore, that in campaigns the chief information comes from events —conventions, debates, addresses by well-known political figures, and the like—which are carried on television, and in which a viewer can participate vicariously in front of his picture tube. When a campaign is not under way, however, public affairs are more likely to be represented in the media by news stories and interpretations than by televised events; newspapers can cover a wider spectrum of this news, and in greater detail. Therefore, we probably should distinguish between news that may be obtained by directly experienc- Downloaded from ing an event, and news that must be reported. Suppose, however, people are asked to choose among sources of campaign information—to say from which source they felt they got the most information during the campaign. Then the trend to televi- http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/ sion becomes clear. The trends in answers about "major sources" are shown in Figure 1. Dependence upon newspapers has remained remarkably steady over the twelve years; magazines have continued to be the major source for a small and unchanging minority; but the dependence upon has decreased almost as a reciprocal of the increasing popularity of television. Television is more likely to be the major source of public affairs information for people with little education, for females, nonwhites, and farm and blue-collar workers at National Yang-Ming Univ. Library on July 7, 2016

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pi e 30 o 10 u — •—-•—.«.. Radio | \Magazines 1952 1956 I960 1964 Year FIGURE I : PROPORTION OF PEOPLE CITING DIFFERENT MEDIA AS MAJOR SOURCES OF INFORMATION ABOUT ELECTION CAMPAIGNS, 1952-1964 MASS MEDIA AS SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE 201 than for others; whereas the print media are more likely to be the major source for the highly educated groups, whites, males, profes- sional, managerial, and white-collar workers, and high-income groups, than for others.8 For the majority of the public, however, television remains the chief source of information during campaigns.

SOURCES OF SCIENCE INFORMATION This pattern does not describe the seeking of information about

science. Newspapers are as dominant in providing current knowledge Downloaded from of science as television is in providing campaign news. The pre- Sputnik survey conducted in 1957 by the Survey Research Center asked which media were preferred for science information. The answers from respondents who had a clear preference are sum-

marized in Table 2. http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/ TABLE 2 PROPORTION OF RESPONDENTS REPORTING PRIMARY SOURCB OF SCIENCE NEWS, BY SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS

Respondent Characteristic Newspapers Magazines Radio TV Sex

Male 41% 28% 2% 26% at National Yang-Ming Univ. Library on July 7, 2016 Female 41 23 5 28 Age 21-39 40 25 2 29 40-59 39 27 4 25 60 and over 39 22 6 26 Education Grade school 42 13 6 34 Some high school 43 19 6 30 High school completed 40 28 2 26 At least some college 39 44 1 15 Income Under $3,000 39 19 10 27 $3,000-5,999 40 23 5 29 $6,000 and over 40 32 2 23 NOTE: Percentages may not add to 100 because not-ascertained responses were omitted.

B This is supported by the results of a newspaper-oriented survey conducted by the Opinion Research in November, 1966 (N = 1,991 adults and 47g teen-agers) for the American Newspaper Publishers Association. Respondents were asked what they thought was the "best source" for finding out about each of iso varied news items. Twenty-eight per cent of the adults with less than a high school education and 40 per cent of the high school graduates preferred newspapers. Pref- erence for TV was inversely related to educational leveL See C. R. Bush, ed., ANPA News Research Bulletin, No. si, December 6, 1967. 202 WADE AND SCHRAMM Only among the college-educated does magazine use surpass de- pendence on newspapers for science information. While higher edu- cation and higher income lead to more reliance on magazines, the data indicate a clear preference for the newspaper regardless of socioeconomic status or family roles. Just as we have questioned whether the dominance of television would carry over into public affairs information outside election campaigns, so it is interesting to speculate whether television has become any more important for post-Sputnik science news, especially Downloaded from space science, now that launches and other dramatic events associated with the space program have been so commonly televised. We have no trend evidence on this point, but we should expect to find exactly the same situation as for campaign news: When public knowledge derives directly from events that are readily available http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/ for people to view, then television is more important as a source; when they must be reported or interpreted, then the advantage is with the printed media. One set of questions in the 1957 science survey enables us to record how many different media were used by given respondents for in- formation about science. It is chiefly men with better education and higher income who are more likely to seek science information in depth from more than one source. at National Yang-Ming Univ. Library on July 7, 2016

SOURCES OF HEALTH INFORMATION

Most of our survey knowledge of the sources of health information in the general public rests upon the national study done by the National Opinion Research Center in 1958. This study does not separate newspapers from magazines as sources, but does indicate quite clearly that these printed media together are the main pro- viders of health information. Women are more likely than men to read about health, and better-educated people more likely than less-educated ones to do so. In fact, the more education a person has, the less likely he is to turn to TV for health information. Generally, more people report that they read health information, except for nonwhites and persons without a high school education, who may pay more attention to broadcast health presentations be- cause of limited skills. Table 3 reports the mean frequencies of reading and viewing information about health, based on the questions, "Could you tell me if you read about health matters in newspapers or magazines [listen to radio and TV programs dealing witfi health or medicine] often, once in a while, or hardly ever?" The scales for responses to MASS MEDIA AS SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE 20S TABLE 3 RESPONDENT CHARACTERISTICS AND REPORTED FREQUENCY OF EXPOSURE TO HEALTH INFORMATION IN TWO KINDS OF MEDIA

Mean Reported Frequency Respondent Mean Reported Frequency of Viewing TV Programs Characteristic of Reading about Health on Health Sex Male 1.996 1.89 Female 2.19 1.90 Downloaded from Education Grade school 1.89» 1.97* High school 2.13 1.92 College 2.21 1.74

Race http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/ White 2.12 1.87* Nonwhite 1.90 2.06 Expected difficulty in paying large medical bill Hardly any 2.15* 1.86« Moderate 2.18 1.82 A great deal 2.00 1.98 at National Yang-Ming Univ. Library on July 7, 2016 SOURCE: Swinehart, op. cit. " Differences between subgroup means significant at .05 level or better. Signifi- cance levels are based on Chi-square values, since data did not meet assumptions for parametric statistics. * Differences between subgroup means significant at .001 level.

both questions were: often = 3, once in a while = s, hardly ever = 1. The classification of respondents by an income-related question— their ability to pay large medical bills—produced results consistent with differences found by race and education. Those persons we would expect to have greatest difficulty in handling a large bill for medical services would be nonwhite and less educated, and those groups reported more attention to broadcast health material. Responsibility for knowing about health seems to be part of the woman's role in the family; knowing about science seems to be part of the role a man is expected to play. As other figures from these surveys show, men do, on the average, have more knowledge about science, women about health.9 In each case the sex which is expected to know more is likely to make relatively more use of print than of television for the purpose.

• Schramm and Wade, Knowledge and the Public Mind, chap. s. 204 WADE AND SCHRAMM

SOURCES AND ACCURACY The Survey Research Center 1957 inquiry found that 82 per cent of the people who were able to answer correctly all four science questions asked reported that newspapers or magazines, rather than television or radio, were their principal sources. When we divided the answers according to the depth of information they revealed— that is, separated out die specific, vague, and "don't know" answers— we found that print users, on die average, had more specific in- Downloaded from formation than persons who said that their chief source was one of the broadcast media. This was the case at each educational level, and for males as well as females (see Table 4).

TABLE 4 http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/ PROPORTION OF RESPONDENTS WITHIN DIFFERENT EDUCATION LEVELS WHO HAD SPECIFIC INFORMATION ABOUT FOUR QUESTIONS, AND THEIR REPORTED MAJOR SOURCES OF SCIENCE NEWS

Less• than More than College Question High School High School High School Graduate Topic Print Broadcast Print Broadcast Print Broadcast Print Broadcast

Polio at National Yang-Ming Univ. Library on July 7, 2016 Vaccine 37% 30% 57% 46%- 62% 56% 70% 37%- Satellites 13 11 33 23 38 10» 57 50 Radioactive Fallout 21 18 42 28» 53 31* 71 50 Fluoridation 37 30 56 44" 57 56 83 62« N - 467 306 311 126 152 39 125 16 • p < .05. » p < .01.

Similarly, those who were able to name one or more symptoms for each of three diseases (polio, diabetes, and tuberculosis) in the National Opinion Research Center 1958 survey were more likely than those who could not to report regular attention to health items in print. This, also, held true regardless of educational level, and for both men and women. Furthermore, when the amount of knowledge (the number of symptoms a person could name) was measured against frequency of use of print or television for health information, a significant relation was found between amount of information and frequency of reading about health, but not between amount of information and frequency of viewing programs about health on television. On the other hand, whether a person reads about elections or views campaign programs on television seems to be associated with MASS MEDIA AS SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE 205 different amounts of knowledge only among those with a high school education or less,10 and here again it is the use of print as a major source of public affairs news which is associated with a higher proportion of correct answers to specific questions (see Table 5). These differences were not significant beyond the high school level, possibly because only minimal information was asked for and the proportion of correct answers was often so high as to create a ceiling effect.11 Also, as we have previously indicated, conclusions based on election-related questions during an election campaign may Downloaded from not be applicable to other kinds of public affairs knowledge.

TABLE S PROPORTION OF RESPONDENTS WITHIN DIFFERENT EDUCATIONAL LEVELS WHO WERE ABLE TO GIVE CORRECT ANSWERS TO CERTAIN QUESTIONS, http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/ BY THEIR REPORTED MAJOR SOURCES OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS INFORMATION

Less than More than College Question High School High School High School Graduate Print Broadcast Print Broadcast Print Broadcast Print Broadcast Johnson's

home state 95% 90% 100% 95% 98% 96% 100% 100% at National Yang-Ming Univ. Library on July 7, 2016 Who had Congres- sional majority 82 67 90 79 91 90 95 95 Heard of NAACP 90 79 96 89 98 97 100 100 Heard of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) 33 26 55 33 57 53 87 72 Heard of Birch Society 78 63 90 81 94 92 99 98 Heard of American Communist Party 79 69 93 77 90 88 97 95 SOURCE: SRC 1964 survey. 10 P. Tichenor, in his dissertation, "Communication and Knowledge of Science in the Adult Population in the United States" (Stanford University, 1965), found that on a number of survey questions relating to science, significant relationships between knowledge and other variables such as age, sex, and income appeared only in the least educated groups. 11 Most of the questions merely inquired whether a person had "heard of" so- and-so, and television can meet that need as well as print in most cases. 206 WADE AND SCHRAMM

SUMMARY We can sum up these findings in a few propositions: 1. All population groups use television regularly for information during a national election campaign, but education and life style determine what people make regular use of print for that purpose. 2. Television has increasingly come to be the source of information most depended upon for information during national election cam-

paigns. Downloaded from 3. Newspapers and magazines are used more than television as sources of public knowledge of science. 4. Better-educated persons and persons with high income are more likely than others to seek science information from more than one

source. http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/ 5. Print is more likely than television to be used as a source of public knowledge about health. 6. Whether print or television is the major source of information appears to make a difference in the amount and accuracy of knowl- edge.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

It is unfortunate that we do not have national data on inter- at National Yang-Ming Univ. Library on July 7, 2016 personal communication and adult education as sources of adult knowledge in these three fields. Although we have reason to believe that the mass media may be the chief sources of such knowledge after the school years, still they represent only part of the pattern of adult information-seeking. Given what we have, however, how can we explain the pattern we have found? It seems evident that an interaction between education and mass media use helps explain how much and what kind of current knowledge an individual has, and to some extent where he seeks it. Education, as we have seen, is a powerful predictor of mass media use. The social roles associated with sex and age have less to predict about the use of media sources, and career situations described by and income appear to be important only when a person has had less than high school education. But the more education a person has, the more likely he is to use print- as his major source of news and information. And, as we have seen, the choice of print as major source is likely to bring with it more knowledge and deeper knowledge—at least in the three areas we have been discussing. Another element to be considered is the parade of events through the . There is no doubt that many such events make enormous contributions to public knowledge. Some of their effects MASS MEDIA AS SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE 207 have been documented. For example, before the launching of Sput- nik, in October of 1957, the Survey Research Center had asked a national sample of adults about their understanding of satellites. A year later, when the name "Sputnik" had entered the American vocabulary, the same questions were asked of another national sample* Comparison of the before-and-after results in Table 6 will show that after the event the number of persons who had not heard of satellites had dwindled almost to zero, and much higher percentages of the public could talk about their political and scientific im- Downloaded from plications.

TABLE 6 PROPORTION OF RESPONDENTS AWARE OF SATELLITE PURPOSES AND

POSSIBILITIES, BEFORE AND AFTER LAUNCHING OF SPUTNIK, http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/ AND THE PRIMARY SOURCE OF NEWS THEY REPORTED

Newspapers Magazines Radio Television 1957 1958 1957 1958 1957 1958 1957 1958 Knew science information 22% 34% 38% 47% 10% 19% 16% 25% Knew of future

possibilities at National Yang-Ming Univ. Library on July 7, 2016 and political implications 1 40 1 33 2 44 1 41 Vagtie answers 15 18 17 14 16 29 16 24 Not heard, or had only misinformation 62 8 44 6 72 8 67 10 N -=• 654 405 401 257 62 93 425 395

These are most impressive changes. They occurred no matter what the preferred source of science information was, and they demonstrate that the mass media coverage of Sputnik contributed noticeably to public knowledge of science. The information could not have been acquired from school. But note that the chief differ- ences are in the political rather than the scientific understanding of satellites.13 People did indeed learn something about space, and orbital speed, and related matters, but in far greater numbers they learned about what the possession of satellites might mean in inter- national , and how the Soviet progress in this field compared with that of the United States. In other words, while some science n Those who had both scientific and political knowledge about satellites weTe coded at the top of the knowledge scale—i.e. as knowing science information about them. 208 WADE AND SCHRAMM learning did take place, the chief information that rubbed off was concerned with science politics rather than science itself, and with a general picture of environment rather than a deep understanding of it. This may be a key to the kind of learning that goes on as a result of the great events that move through the mass media. The Sputnik launching was not given the kind of television coverage that American space flights later received. However, there was a great event in 1963 which did receive enormous television coverage—the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The Na- Downloaded from tional Opinion Research Center conducted a large-scale study of public knowledge and feelings in the days immediately following the event, and some of the same questions were asked 19 months later. One of these questions asked respondents to name the Presidents who had previously been killed while in office. Immediately following http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/ the death of President Kennedy, 37 per cent of a national sample were able to name all three (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley). No one doubts that there would have been far fewer correct answers if the question had been asked a few days before the assassination. When the same question was asked later, the proportion able to name all three of the previously martyred Presidents had fallen to 16 per cent (see Table 7). The most interesting feature of the table is that the percentage at National Yang-Ming Univ. Library on July 7, 2016 of persons able to name Lincoln as an assassinated President varied hardly at all between surveys. That information doubtless was learned in school. As a result of the enormous given to the assassina- tion of Mr. Kennedy, a number of people learned other specific bits of information. When the issue was no longer critical, public knowl- edge "reverted" to a normal level, and many of these additional bits of information were forgotten. This fits with what we have found about the apparent difference between television as a source of election-related information during campaigns, and as a source of more general public affairs information between campaigns. Tentatively, we can say that the public affairs,

TABLE 7 PROPORTION OF RESPONDENTS ABLE TO RECALL NAMES OF ASSASSINATED PRESIDENTS

Names Recalled November 1963 June 1965 All three 37% 16% Lincoln and one other 31 30 Lincoln akme 22 41 Garfield or McKinley 2 2 None correct, no answer 8 11 N = 1,384 1,469 MASS MEDIA AS SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE 209 science, and health information to be learned from television is more closely related to events, more likely to capitalize on the present moment, than is the information to be obtained from news- papers and magazines, which can afford to offer more perspective. The data seem to suggest this model: From school we emerge with a cognitive map, with an organized life space, and with certain learning skills and habits. More education means more skills and wider interests—in other words, a more complex map. Through the media we chiefly fill in this map. From the parade of events Downloaded from through television, which is the most vivid and dramatic carrier of events, we tend to fill in facts and findings, but to add concepts and understanding we are likely to turn to the slower print media which can somewhat more easily offer perspective and interpretation. This, we can assume, is one reason why the printed media are more likely http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/ to serve as a source of long-term science and health knowledge, and the broadcast media as a source of political facts which are useful in an election campaign that calls them forth, and may be forgotten thereafter. at National Yang-Ming Univ. Library on July 7, 2016