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Changes in voters' cognitive strategies and in the relationship of cognitive strategies to political participation were examined in a cohort study of 628 students during the 1984 presidential campaign. The prevalence of four selected cognitive strategies was shown to shift during the campaign, and communication behavior differed between persons using the same strategies at different stages of the campaign. The study supports a growing body of evidence suggesting that campaign communication is not a simple function of partisanship and precampaign commitment, but is also related to the cognitive behavior of voters at particular times during a campaign.

The notion of religion defined as moral activism is embraced by journalists of all stripes, regardless of whether they identify themselves as people of faith or not. The finding is based upon a nationwide survey of American and Canadian journalists who were asked about their religious beliefs and how they put those beliefs into action in their professional lives. The study found that journalists surveyed indicated a strong general religious orientation. But even nonreligious journalists responded strongly to fundamental calls for moral action as long as they were framed as part of a journalistic, rather than a religious, mission.

Past research has proposed that the receiver's relationship to the content of a message will affect credibility attributed to the source. Current literature proposes explanatory mechanisms that require empirical distinctions among the various components of attitude, yet researchers often employ measures of "attitude extremity" that confound these components. This study follows Guttman's mathematical theory of attitude and its distinctions between four attitude components: direction, intensity, closure, and involvement. In a survey of 358 adults, relationships between trust in television news and newspaper coverage and each of the four components were tested for six current issues. Significant relationships were found for all four components. Results suggest that existing hypotheses relating credibility to attitude have not anticipated that credibility might be related to more than one component. Interactions occur in which the relation of credibility to one component would be modified by the presence of some other component. Theorizing that introduces contingencies into the consideration of questions dealing with credibility is suggested.

The impact of newsroom policies on job satisfaction was studied in an onsite survey of 429 newsroom staffers at twelve West Coast daily newspapers. The study found that newsroom policy changes are affecting journalists' job satisfaction, primarily through the perceived impact of such changes on newspaper quality and on the balance between business and journalism in the newsroom. If the newspaper's quality was perceived as improving, job satisfaction was higher; if journalism was perceived as taking a back seat to business, job satisfaction was lower. Also important were the amount of emphasis on profits (which lowered job satisfaction) and on journalistic policies (which raised job satisfaction). Newspaper size was not found to be a major factor in job satisfaction, but ownership structure was.

Journalists from 12 daily newspapers, surveyed on-site, confirmed what newspaper industry analysts have noted: Newspapers are becoming more reader-oriented and market driven. This is particularly true of group newspapers which, on nearly every level of measurement, showed a stronger market-oriented management. But there are some indications that greater devotion to business principles does not always come at the expense of good journalism and that business-oriented policies are not always viewed as disruptive to sound newsroom policy.

Several questions bearing on Janowitz's classic community-integration hypothesis were pursued in a survey of 500 members of a Catholic diocese in the Northwest. Church ties were positively associated with subscribing to the church newspaper, with participation in church groups having the strongest relationship. Some ties to local churches were positively associated with commercial newspaper subscribing, most especially participation in church groups. Ties to church and volunteer associations had separate and joint positive relationships to commercial newspaper subscribing, demonstrating evidence of an additive effect. All these results were consistent with the community integration hypothesis.

This study sought to more fully explicate the key variables involved in Noelle-Neumann's spiral of silence theory, which states that fear of isolation keeps individuals from expressing opinions perceived to be in the minority. We tested the theory in the context of public discussion about affirmative action policies, a domain seemingly ideal due to its moral and value-laden characteristics. Data from 217 randomly selected adults in October 1998 indicate that fear of isolation indeed prevents one from publicly voicing perceived minority opinions. Willingness to speak out on a controversial ballot initiative was predicted also by demographics, media use, and importance of the issue. However, it was perceived consonance of one's opinion with family and friends—rather than society at large—that predicted willingness to speak out.

While communications research has shown a contribution to citizens' knowledge of political affairs from newspapers and television, it has not shown a similar contribution for radio. This study questions those findings, asking if researchers' failure to find a contribution to radio is due to inadequacies in sampling and measurement techniques. In this study, commuters were sampled and asked about their attention to media coverage of the Contract With America, a topic of heavy discussion on talk radio. The authors found that radio made as large a contribution to respondents' knowledge of this particular political issue as newspapers and television. They suggest future studies of learning about political affairs for media should include radio in their analysis.

A survey of 187 editors at 13 Northwest newspapers found, contrary to anecdotal reports, that pagination is not responsible for widespread anger and unhappiness in newsrooms. The study found that pagination makes both positive and negative contributions to job satisfaction. Most of the editors still took pride in their newspapers and found editing a satisfying line of work despite changes in editing tasks brought on by pagination.