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While not completely the case, there is considerable overlap in issue emphasis between these two sources.

Using the same six positions for

both television news and newspapers will facilitate comparison of

these two alternative news sources.

Criteria for Media Effects

Two Criteria are used in assessing media effects:

1.

2.

On those issues covered by a medium, voters'
changes must occur in the direction of the
message conveyed by the medium.

These voter changes must be greater for those
voters with high exposure to the medium than

for those voters with low exposure to the medium.

The first criterion merely states that, if a medium is to be judged to have impact, voters must accept the messages it transmits. In the tables, any positive (+) number indicates most of the change was in the direction of the medium's message on that issue. A negative (-) number indicates most of the change was away from the mesObviously, a positive number is required for inferring media

sage.

effects.

The second criterion is that voters with high exposure to that medium must show greater movement in the direction of the messages than voters with low exposure. The following, for example, would indicate impact.

Low exposure voters
+5

High exposure voters
+12

In the example, high exposure voters show more movement (+12) in the direction of the message than low exposure voters (+5). This criterion is obviously necessary if the change is to be attributed to level of exposure to that medium rather than to some other source.

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In this section we discuss data showing the relationships between increased issue awareness and level of exposure to television news, newspapers, and televised political ads.

Our discussion is limited largely to change in awareness on the "average" issue. However, data for all 18 issues are presented in

each table, and the interested reader is encouraged to examine closely all of the evidence. A summary of the findings is presented at the end of this section.

Exposure and Increased Issue Awareness

The relationships between change in issue awareness and level of exposure to television news, newspapers, and televised political ads are shown in Tables 3 and 4. A careful reading of the tables results in only one conclusion: level of exposure to both newspapers and televised advertising is associated with increased issue awareness; however, level of exposure to television news shows no such pattern. Television News: Level of exposure to television news is not related to gain in voters' issue awareness (see Table 3). Both low and high television news watchers showed an almost equal change in issue

awareness.

On those issues emphasized in television news coverage, the average change was +29.3 among voters with low exposure and +26.8 among those with high exposure. High exposure voters showed greater change on only two of the six heavily covered issues, Nixon's han10 dling of inflation and McGovern's stand on Vietnam withdrawal.

*To arrive at change on the "average"issue, we simply added the changes for the issues and divided by the number of issues.

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Each figure represents difference between percentage of voter change in direction of media's message and percentage in opposite direction. Positive figure, therefore, means that more change occurred in direction of media's message. The larger the figure, the greater the amount of change in one direction.

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Voter change on the twelve issue positions given little or no television news coverage showed the same pattern. The change among low exposure voters (+19.0) was nearly equal to the change among high exposure voters (+21.8).

Newspapers: Level of newspaper exposure is strongly and consistently related to increased issue awareness (see Table 3). On all six heavily covered issues, high newspaper readers showed a greater gain than low newspaper readers. The average change among those with low newspaper exposure was +19.5 compared with a +33.7 gain among voters with high newspaper exposure.

Undoubtedly, these results overestimate newspaper effects. Because they are somewhat more politically interested and better educated, high newspaper readers tend to improve their issue awareness during a campaign for reasons other than exposure to newspaper content. This can be inferred from the changes in awareness on the lightly covered issues. Even on these issues, some of which received

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minimal newspaper coverage at best, the gain among high exposure voters (+29.2) is considerably greater than the gain among low exposure voters (+11.8).

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Televised Advertising:

Level of exposure to televised political

advertising is related to gain in voters' awareness on those issues heavily covered in political ads (see Table 4). The average change was +31.5 among voters with high advertising exposure and +23.7 among those with low advertising exposure.

Advertising effects occurred primarily on issues surfacing during the election year--Nixon's handling of the Soviet Union and China, the two candidates' positions on military spending, and McGovern's tax pro

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Table 4.

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Changes in Voters' Issue Awareness for Level of Exposure to Televised Political Advertising

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