Page 158 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

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TRACKING POLLS
Over the next 15 years, Time became one of the most influential publications
in America, despite competition from two rival news weeklies, Newsweek and
U.S. News, both of which were established in 1933. Journalists in particular
admired and started to imitate Time's knowing style. Washington-based corre-
spondents in the mid-1930s, one survey found, read Time more than any other
periodical. ' 'Time has made itself indispensable,'' one magazine editor confessed
in 1937.
Time's circulation rose from 243,000 in 1929 to slightly more than 700,000
in 1938. Readers tended to be cosmopolitan members of the middle and upper
class in medium-size communities who sought a master summary of the week's
news. Many turned to Time because their local newspapers, defining news as
an endless series of individual events, resisted carrying news analyses or weekly
news summaries. The complications of 1930s America—the Great Depression,
the subsequent expansion of federal government, and the crises in Europe and
Asia—created a need, particularly among the middle class, for new types of
news presentation. Some began turning to the analytical news columns, pio-
neered by Walter Lippmann, and the weekly news reviews many larger news-
papers began in their Sunday editions, partly because of Time's success.
Time's politics eventually undermined its credibility with many readers. At
first, the periodical was more smart-alecky than partisan. Any bias seemed slight
when compared to the stridency of many dailies. But in the late 1930s, Luce,
who had assumed effective control of the magazine following Hadden's death
in 1929, started to insist that his publication echo his internationalist, liberal
Republican views. Time gradually became an extension of Luce's politics. By
1960, Newsweek began to compete effectively for readers and influence by po-
sitioning itself somewhat to the left of Time. By then, however, television news
had begun to undermine the position of all newsmagazines. Readers no longer
had to rely on them for an understanding of an ever-complex world; network
television newscasts appeared to present the same synthesis, every day.
SOURCE: James L. Baughman, Henry R. Luce and the Rise of the American News
Media, 1987.
James L. Baughman

TIMES MIRROR CENTER. See Pew Research Center for the People and the
Press.

TRACKING POLLS. This refers to a series of polls over a period of time to
see how effective a candidate's campaign is, how the public is responding on
various issues, and the impact of events during the campaign. Results of tracking
polls become a major basis for changing the campaign, abandoning some issues,
and raising other new issues. They are done by the candidate or the party, and
results are released to the public on a limited and selective basis.

SOURCE: Erik Bamouw, International Encyclopedia of Communications, 1989.
Guido H. Stempel HI