THE IMPACT OF INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING ON PUBLIC OPINION AND POLICYMAKING TARGETING TOXIC WASTE

This article reports the fourth in a continuing series of casestudies that explore the impact of news media investigativejournalism on the general public, policymakers, and public policy.The media disclosures in this field experiment had limited effectson the general public but were influential in changing the attitudesof policymakers. The study describes how changes in public policymakingresulted from collaboration between journalists and governmentofficials. The authors develop a model that is a beginning steptoward specifying the cond6itions under which media investigationsinfluence public attitudes and agendas.     

Social Capital and the Care Networks of Frail Seniors

Le capital social a constitué un cadre important pour la conceptualisation de la place des liens sociaux dans la qualité de vie. La famille n'a pas fait partie des groupes d'intérêts dans les recherches sur le capital social. Néanmoins, dans le contexte de la recherche et de la politique publique sur le vieillissement, le discours contemporain sur les familles et sur les soins est congruent avec les hypothèses sur le capital social. Les auteurs s'inspirent de la documentation sur le capital social pour encadrer leur compréhension du capital social inhérent aux familles ayant des personnes âgées de santé fragile. Ils émettent l'hypothèse de leur capacité de bénéficier des soins des membres de la famille. Les données proviennent de l'Enquête sociale générale sur le vieillissement et le soutien social (ESG 2002) de Statistique Canada.
Social capital has been a key framework in conceptualizing the place of social ties in quality of life. Families have not been among groups of interest in social capital research. Yet within the context of research and public policy on aging, the contemporary discourse on families and care is congruent with social capital assumptions. In this paper, we draw on social capital literature to frame our understanding of the social capital inherent in families of frail older adults, and hypothesize their abilities to benefit family members. Data are drawn from Statistics Canada 2002 General Social Survey on Aging and Social Support.     

Uncovering Rape: The Watchdog Press and the Limits of Agenda Setting

This article reports the findings of the second in a seriesof field experiments on the agenda-setting effects of news mediainvestigative reports. The authors used a pretest-posttest quasi-experimentaldesign to assess the impact of a newspaper investigative seriesabout rape on a randomly selected group of Chicagoans and apurposive sample of policy makers. Unlike the first study, theseries had a minimal impact on public opinion and policy making,but affected profoundly the subsequent newspaper coverage ofrape.