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Various operational problems confronting researchers working in the area of media gratifications are discussed. Strategies are delineated and difficulties inherent in each detailed Data from four studies are presented to provide solutions to some of these problems.

When media content diversifies : anticipating audience behaviors / Lee B. Becker and Klaus Schoenbach -- The Netherlands : the cable replaces the antenna / Frank Olderaan and Nick Jankowski -- Belgium : language division internationalized / Roselyne Bouillin-Dartevelle -- The U.K. : measured expansion on a variety of fronts / Barrie Gunter -- The U.K. : the constancy of audience behavior / Joseph Mallory Wober -- Sweden : opening the doors, cautiously / Ulla Johnsson-Smaragdi -- Switzerland : a multilingual culture tries to keep its identity / Heinz Bonfadelli and Walter Haettenschwiler -- France : experimenting with pay TV and viewdata / Isabelle Pailliart -- Federal Republic ofGermany : social experimentation with cable and commercial television / Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann and Ruediger Schulz

This article proposes a model of commitment to journalism among recent entrants to the occupation. The model is based on the concept of continuance commitment from the sociology of work literature. It is expected that workplace-related factors should affect level of occupational commitment, but it also is expected that greater investments made in pursuit of a journalism career during precollege and college years should lead to a higher level of commitment. The data show that job sentiments are strongly predictive of commitment, but precollege and college investments generally were not predictive in a direct way. Early socialization did indirectly predict pursuit of journalistic work. Once in the field, however, new journalists assess dedication to the occupation by extrapolating from organizational experiences. In general, data also suggest that commitment to journalism is predicted much like commitment to other types of communication occupations.

This department is devoted to shorter reports on research in the communications field. Readers are invited to submit summaries of investigative studies interesting for content, method or implications for further research.

Two experiments suggest that providing some instruction on new videotext technologies does not necessarily lead to a more positive initial experience or positive program evaluation, except where a system is complex and the user task difficult. Yet the experiments do suggest that as systems become more complex, personalized instruction on use may pay dividends in a number of ways.