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.