THE MASS MEDIA AS SOURCES OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, SCIENCE, AND HEALTH KNOWLEDGE* BY SERENA WADE AND WILBUR SCHRAMM 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 data 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 Communication 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 Education, 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 audiences in the mass media, and therefore included much useful information 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 newspaper articles [or view television programs] about the elec- tion—regularly, often, from time to time, or just once in a while?" and "How many magazine 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. Newspapers and magazines, 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 health communication 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 California 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 news- 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.