Why has the public persisted in believing that violent crime is a widespread national problem in the U.S. despite declining trends in crime and the fact that crime is concentrated in urban locations? Cultivation theory suggests that widespread fear of crime is fueled in part by heavy exposure to violent dramatic programming on prime-time television. Here we explore a related hypothesis: that fear of crime is in part a by-product of exposure to crime-saturated local television news. To test this, as well as related and competing hypotheses, we analyzed the results of a recent national survey of perceived risk; a 5-year span of the General Social Survey (1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994); and the results of a recent survey of over 2,300 Philadelphia residents. The results indicate that across a wide spectrum of the population and independent of local crime rates, viewing local television news is related to increased fear of and concern about crime. These results support cultivation theory's predicted effects of television on the public.

This study argues that citizens base their opinions about world affairs in part on generalized beliefs about how much their nation can trust other nations. Using original data from a two-wave panel survey and a cross-sectional survey, we show that Americans hold stable, internally consistent, and largely pessimistic generalized beliefs about whether the United States can trust other nations. We find that social trust, political trust, partisanship, and age influence this form of trust, which we call international trust. We then demonstrate that international trust shapes whether Americans prefer internationalism to isolationism, perceive specific foreign nations as unfriendly and threatening, and favor military action against Iraq. The role of international trust in shaping opinion may be consistent with theories of low-information rationality, but competing interpretations are also plausible.

This analysis compares newspaper coverage of Elizabeth Dole's presidential campaign with that of former Texas Governor George W. Bush, Arizona Senator John McCain, and publisher Steve Forbes. The authors examined three months of coverage in the Des Moines Register, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Washington Post. Dole received less coverage than did Bush, but more than McCain and Forbes. However, the authors found qualitative differences in coverage that they attributed to Dole's gender. Compared to her male opponents, Dole received less coverage on her positions on the issues but more coverage on her personal traits. The authors conclude that these differences were due to stories written by male reporters covering the 2000 presidential campaign. The authors also found that Dole was quoted in different ways when compared to her male opponents: she was directly quoted at a lower rate, while her speech was paraphrased at a higher rate.

This study argues that citizens base their opinions about world affairs in part on generalized beliefs about how much their nation can trust other nations. Using original data from a two-wave panel survey and a cross-sectional survey, we show that Americans hold stable, internally consistent, and largely pessimistic generalized beliefs about whether the United States can trust other nations. We find that social trust, political trust, partisanship, and age influence this form of trust, which we call international trust. We then demonstrate that international trust shapes whether Americans prefer internationalism to isolationism, perceive specific foreign nations as unfriendly and threatening, and favor military action against Iraq. The role of international trust in shaping opinion may be consistent with theories of low-information rationality, but competing interpretations are also plausible.

Special Report With Brit Hume during 2005 about the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and compares that coverage with real-world indicators to address an important question: Did the news media over-report bad news from these conflicts, as claimed by the Bush administration and as one might expect given research into the press' negativity bias? This study finds that while both channels focused a fair amount on negative storylines, overall the news actually underplayed bad news from both countries. Fox News was much more sympathetic to the administration than NBC, suggesting that scholars should consider Fox as alternative, rather than mainstream, media.

This study tested 2 important theories in the history of mass communication research, agenda setting and cultivation, by comparing the effects of watching local television news with direct experience measures of crime on issue salience and fear of victimization. Direct experience was measured in 2 ways: (a) personal crime victimization or victimization of a close friend or family member, and (b) neighborhood crime rates. Using a random digit dial telephone survey of residents of theWashington, DC, metropolitan area, researchers found that local news exposure accounted for an agenda-setting effect but did not cultivate fear of being a victim of crime. By contrast, direct experience had no agenda-setting effect but did predict fear.

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The authors examine the relationship between media consumption and political trust, social trust, and confidence in governmental institutions in the year following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This period provides a unique opportunity to explore the effects of media use on trust, given that political and social trust surged in the immediate aftermath only to decline in the months that followed. Using data from a panel survey, the authors find that television news use was associated with higher levels of trust in government and confidence in institutions during the surge that followed the terrorist attacks. Individual-level change in trust and confidence over the year that followed was not, however, attributable to media use or changes in media use. In the case of social trust, the results suggest that television news and newspaper use were not associated with social trust in the immediate aftermath but were associated with individual-level change in social trust over the course of the following year. Specifically, those who watched television news exhibited declines in social trust and those who read newspapers exhibited increased social trust between fall 2001 and late summer 2002. The authors conclude by discussing how coverage in fall 2001 and changes in coverage over the following year may help to explain these results.