DOCUMENT RESUME ED 376 530 CS 508 741 TITLE Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (77th, Atlanta, Georgia, August 10-13, 1994). Part VII: Media and Politics. INSTITUTION Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. PUB DATE Aug 94 NOTE 348p.; For other sections of these proceedings, see CS 508 735-744. For 1993 proceedings, see ED 362 913-925 and ED 366 041. PUB TYPE Collected Works Conference Proceedings (021) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC14 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Audience Analysis; Elections; Information Sources; *Mass Media Role; Media Research; News Reporting; *Political Candidates; *Political Issues; *Presidential Campaigns (United States); Television IDENTIFIERS Issue Salience; Media Coverage; Voters ABSTRACT The Media and Politics section of this collection of conference proceedings contains the following 11 papers: "Characteristics of Readers of Religious Publications for Political Information" (Judith M. Buddenbaum); "Is 'Nightline' Biased?: A Content Analysis of the Issue of Gays in the Military" (Chuck Hoy and Terry Scott); "Newspaper Coverage of the 1960 Civil Rights Act" (Sherrie L. Wilson); "Voters' Use of Schemata in Processing Political Information from the Media: The 1992 Presidential Election" (Karon Reinboth Speckman); "Marginalizing Perot: Visual Treatment of the Candidates in the 1992 Presidential Debates" (Larry G. Burkum); "Conceptions of Salience: Their Roles-in Voters' InformationProcessing of Issue Milieus" (David Domke and Dhavan Shah); "Anonymous Government Sources ill the 'New York Times' Coverage of the Middle East Peace Accords, the Conflict in Bosnia and the Clinton Health Care Package" (Bryan Denham); "An Analysis of Front Page Newspaper Photographic Coverage of the 1992 Presidential Election Campaign" (Sarah Wright Plaster); "A Case in Cynicism: Network Coverage of the 1992 Presidential Campaign" (Sandra Dickson and others); "Crossing the Line: Constructing 'Lesbianism' in the Achtenberg Debate" (Diane Helene Miller); and "Gender as a Factor in Newspaper Disclosures about the Private Lives of Politicians: A Comparative Study of Newsroom Managers" (Sigman Splichal and Bruce Garrison) . (NKA) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR EDUCATION IN JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION (77th, Atlanta, Georgia, August 10-13, 1994). Part VII: Media and Politics U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION UfficeoiEmicationalhosowchancilinefovoimm EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS fa/This document has boon reproduced as MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY received from the person or organization originating it Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality _ .. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necossanly represent official OERI position or policy TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." 2 BEST COPY AVAILABLE Characteristics of Readers of Religious Publications for Political Information by Judith M. Buddenbaum, Associate Professor Department of Technical Journalism Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523 Paper presented to the Mass Communication and Society Division of the Assciation for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, national convention, Atlanta, Georgia, August 1994. The author thanks the Center for Middletown Studies at Ball State University and the Ball Brothers Foundation, both of Muncie, Indiana, for providing funds for this research. 3 Characteristics of Readers of Religious Publications for Political Information Because of its potential political implications,research on religious television has proliferated inrecent years. However, very little is known about religious publications, whichalso may serve as a source of political information and a vehicle for political mobili- zation. Board estimates that there are at least 1000such publications with circulations ranging from a few dozento well over a quarter million.1 Ideologically both denominational publicationsand non- denominational ones range from thevery conservative to the very liberal. In contrast to religious television which generallyhas a conservative religio-political orientation, the diversityof reli- gious publications may mean theycan never become the force that religious television is sometimes perceivedto be. Still, the sheer number of religious publications and their reachsuggest their role in the political process should not be ignored. Although studies of the audience for religiouspublication do not appear in the communication literature, relatedresearch indi- cates that involvement in one form of religious activity,for exam- ple, church attendance, is correlated positively withother religious activities such as watching religious television2and reading reli- gion news.3 Therefore, readers of religious publicationsmost likely share demographic, religious, and politicalcharacteristics with church members and with the audience for religioustelevision and for religion news in daily newspapers. Demographically, church members,4 and the audienceboth for 4 religious televisions and for religion news in daily newspapers6 are largely made up of older, married women who are active in church and who are conservative in religion, politics and in their general approach to life. Those characteristics may also define the audience for religious publications. However, studies consistently indicate that men and those with higher socioeconomic status are more likely than women to use print media; women and those with lower education and incomes tend to be heavier users of television.' Therefore, the audience for religious publications may differ demographically from the audience for religious television. Regardless of demographics, users will almost certainly be active in their church and consider their religion highly important. Indeed, it hardly makes sense to hypothesize the opposite. Based on studies of church members8 and of the audience for religious televi- sion9 and religion news," they also may be quite conservative. However, here there may be substantial differences between religious traditions as well as heterogeneity within them. Working within the community ties tradition, Stamm and Weis found that, for Catholics, being active in a local congregation, identifying with it and subscribing to the diocesan newspaper were all positively correlated with each other and with subscribing to the local general circulation newspaper.1' However, there is little reason to believe that the significant, positive correlations they found in a Catholic population will also be found in all Protestant traditions. Both Catholic and Mainline teachings generally have a universal- ist orientation whileConservative Protestant churches, on the other hand, are more likely to promote a dualistic outlook that fosters 3 withdrawing from the world.12 As part of this withdrawal, members may also shun secular media. McFarland and Warren found that Fundamentalists expressed greater desire to read pro-fundamentalist articles than anti-funda- mentalist ones; however, they also found that those fundamentalists who measured higher on quest scales were more likely than others to express interest in reading both anti-fundamentalist articles and ones on secular topics.13 Religion-as-quest represents an aspect of mature religion." As such it taps a desire to view information which both supports and contradicts one's beliefs. Because measures of quest orientation are not merely a substitute for religious fundamentalism, but have demonstrated value in predicting selective exposure to belief-con- firming information regardless of religious beliefs,15 we might expect that quest orientation would be more strongly associated with use of mass media than with use of religious publications which would most likely support one's religiously inspired worldview, and there- fore provide little in the way of additional information or insight. For similar reasons, we might also expect that those for whom reli- gion is primarily a source of comfort would be motivated to use religious publications that support their general outlook instead of mass media. Therefore, scoring low on measures of religion-as-quest and high on measures of religion-as-comfort may be related to a general preference for religious sources over secular ones. Schultze notes that Evangelicals have a "love-hate" relationship with the mass media, which to them, represents "a marvelous technolo- gy" to use in bringing others to Christ and "an apostate culture of 4 despair" to be avoided lest it lead them astray." Consistent with that observation, Buddenbaum found that religious liberals were more likely than religious conservatives to use the mass media for politi- cal information in the context of a presidential election campaign.'? Therefore, use of religious publications for political information may be positively correlated with mass media use among Catholics and Mainline Protestants, but negatively correlated in more conservative Protestant traditions. Differences in religious beliefs and orientations also suggest that political interest and activity should be higher among users of religious publications in Catholic and Mainline churches than in conservative Protestant ones. However, that may not