Page 133 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

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RELIANCE VERSUS
free
First Amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the USE
flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern," Rehnquist
wrote.
SOURCE: Melvin I. Urofsky, ed., The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical
Dictionary, 1994.
Daniel J. Foley

RELIANCE VERSUS USE. Where do people get most of their news? Various
polls have been asking that for more than half a century. The best known of
these were the ones done by the Roper Organization that ask "First, I'd like to
ask you where you usually get most of your information about what's going on
in the world today—from newspapers, radio or television or magazines or talk-
ing to people or where?" When that question was first asked in 1959, news-
papers came out slightly ahead, but television soon moved ahead and in recent
years has led by 20 percent.
Yet other studies that have asked people about local news or state news or
specific kinds of news have found that newspapers were the main source. More
important, the answers to this type of question, which is really about reliance,
do not correlate with answers to knowledge questions or media use questions.
Media use is related to news knowledge.
It is important to recognize that most people get news from more than one
source. For political communicators this is an important point because it means
that they should not focus just on one medium. Furthermore, effective political
communication means striving for different messages in print media from those
in television. Otherwise, you are not using the capability of each medium to the
maximum.
SOURCES: Joey K. Reagan and Richard V. Ducey, "Effects of News Measures on
Selection of State Government News Sources," Journalism Quarterly, Summer 1983;
John P. Robinson and Mark R. Levy, with Dennis K. Davis, The Main Source: Learning
from Television News, 1986; Guido H. Stempel III, "Where People Really Get Most of
Their News," Newspaper Research Journal, Fall 1991.
Guido H. Stempel III

RESEARCH FINDINGS AND TECHNIQUES. See Opinion Measurement;
The People's Choice; Q Sort Method; Tracking Polls.

RHETORIC defines the study of persuasive communications. The philosophy
behind the study of rhetoric is that persuasive communications can be analyzed
on three levels:
1. Message conception.
2. Message composition.
3. Message presentation.