How television news programs use video news releases

Video news releases are an important public relations tactic, but use by television stations is difficult to evaluate. While electronic tracking exists, data are rarely shared or published. This study analyzed proprietary data regarding the use of 14 VNRs, which resulted in 4,245 airings across the U.S.Findings indicate all sizes of markets are likely to use VNRs, but smaller markets are more likely to use longer video segments, and to use them later in the day or days after the initial satellite feed. The most common use was as a voice-over story in an early evening newscast. VNRs associated with children and their safety or health got the greatest number of uses. The results have implications for public relations practitioners who need to make cost-effective decisions regarding tactics to target specific audiences.     

Bad news or good news: environmental politics and the mass media

Concern for the environment is a prominent feature of contemporary British politics and culture. Such concern is not new. Many of today's environmental pressure groups date from the turn of the century and a good deal of the legislation protecting the environment derives from the 1940s and 1950s. What is new, as Kimber and Richardson (1974) point out, is‘on the one hand, the global approach to the problem - both figuratively and literally - and, on the other hand, the popularisation of the issues by the mass media'. In this paper we will examine the media's role in popularising environmental issues and use our findings to qualify some of the prevailing assumptions about the political role of the mass media.     

Innovativeness,personal initiative,news affinity and news utility as predictors of the use of mobile phones as news devices

This study examines the predictors of the use of mobile phones as news devices and tests different roles of innovativeness and personal initiative in second-level adoption, which refers to the acceptance of a distinctive function serving a communication purpose other than that for which a technology device was originally designed. Taking the use of mobile phones to access news as a case of second-level adoption, findings indicated that personal initiative was a stronger predictor of mobile phone use than innovativeness, but the effect of innovativeness on mobile phone use moderated by personal initiative was not confirmed. News affinity was a significant predictor of the frequency and amount of time mobile phones were used as news devices, while news utility was a weak predictor of the frequency of mobile phone use. The findings partly confirmed the different roles of innovativeness and personal initiative in the context of second-level adoption.