WHO GETS THE NEWS? ALTERNATIVE MEASURES OF NEWS RECEPTION AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH

This article investigates patterns in audience reception of16 news stories that received prominent media coverage in thesummer and fall of 1989. Using a national sample of Americanadults, it compares education, self-reported rates of mediause, interpersonal communication, and prior levels of generalpolitical knowledge as predictors of individual differencesin recall of current news events. Results indicate that respondents'background level of political knowledge is the strongest andmost consistent predictor of current news story recall acrossa wide range of topics, suggesting that there is indeed a generalaudience for news and that this audience is quite sharply stratifiedby preexisting levels of background knowledge. Thus, in surveyresearch applications that require estimates of individual differencesin the reception of potentially influential political communications,a measure of general prior knowledge—not a measure ofnews media use—is likely to be the most effective indicator.The article further concludes that the tendency of individualsto acquire news and information on a domain- or topic-specificbasis fails to undermine the value of political knowledge asa general measure of propensity for news recall.     

SOCIAL IDENTIFICATION AND PUBLIC OPINION: EFFECTS OF COMMUNICATING GROUP CONFLICT

Public opinion formation is a social and communicative process,and individuals' opinions thus depend in many ways upon thesocial context surrounding public issues. Consequently thisresearch investigates the interaction between people's socialidentities and mass media reports of public issues emphasizingconflicts of opinion between social groups. Current theory andresearch on social identification and intergroup behavior areused to develop a three-stage model of the cognitive, perceptual,and behavioral processes which may be triggered by media reportsof group conflict. According to the model, a news report emphasizinggroup conflict over an issue (1) cues its recipients to thinkabout the issue through their particular group perspective,which (2) leads to polarized or exaggerated perceptions of groupopinions, and finally (3) leads to expressions of personal opinionconsistent with these exaggerated perceptions of group norms.Factors contributing to and inhibiting this kind of responseare also incorporated into the model. Analyses of experimentaldata from college undergraduates who read and responded to experimentallyprepared newspaper articles covering a campus issue are reviewed.The results are found generally to support the social identificationmodel and serve to illustrate how media reports emphasizinggroup conflicts may play an important role in the formationof public opinion.     

PERCEIVED IMPACT OF DEFAMATION: AN EXPERIMENT ON THIRD-PERSON EFFECTS

This paper explores the intersection of libel law and communicationtheory that occurs when libel juries assess the effect of adefamatory communication on others. The third-person hypothesissuggests that people often assume others will be more affectedby potentially persuasive communications than they are themselves.An experiment was conducted in which students were exposed toa variety of defamatory newspaper articles. The results confirmedseveral predictions. First, readers estimated that others wouldbe more affected by defamatory messages than the readers themselveswould be. Second, this effect was magnified as the "others"became progressively more distant from these readers. Third,when the defamation was attributed to a negatively biased sourcethe effect was also accentuated: readers themselves discountedthe message, while assuming others would be even more influenced.It is suggested that courtroom assessments of the effects ofdefamatory communications on others may be influenced by suchthird-person perceptions.     

ARE ESTIMATES OF SEX DISCRIMINATION BY EMPLOYERS ROBUST? THE USE OF NEVER-MARRIEDS

Current decomposition estimates of sex discrimination by employers are not robust. Many "unobservables," like motivation and attitudes toward work, are left unmeasured. We estimate sex discrimination with two plausible methods of controlling for a major unobservable, acceptance of male and female traditional roles in the household. The methods offer enormously different estimates of sex discrimination. One estimates sex discrimination at over 61 percent of the female wage, the other finds little sex discrimination and possibly favoritism toward women. The range in estimates is so large that point estimates of sex discrimination by employers are of little use to policymakers.     

INTERRACIAL WORKPLACE COOPERATION: EVIDENCE FROM THE NBA

Using data from the National Basketball Association (NBA), we examine whether patterns of workplace cooperation occur disproportionately among workers of the same race. We find that, holding constant the composition of teammates on the floor, basketball players are no more likely to complete an assist to a player of the same race than a player of a different race. Our confidence interval allows us to reject even small amounts of same‐race bias in passing patterns. We find some evidence of own‐race bias in situations where the outcome of a particular play is less important. Our findings suggest that high levels of interracial cooperation can occur in a setting where workers are operating in a highly visible setting with strong incentives to behave efficiently. (JEL J15, J71, L23)