The Content of Political Participation: Letters to the Editor and the People Who Write Them

Abstract

Letters to the editor are an important but poorly understood form of voluntary political participation. To learn more about the content of letters to the editor and the characteristics of the people who write them we conducted a content analysis of 1,415 randomly selected printed letters from eight newspapers from 2002 to 2005. We also matched the letter writers from our sample to demographic and political information contained in a state voterfile.

“Since this is the editorial section I intend to express my opinion”: Inequality and expressivity in letters to the editor

“…Thus, hypothesis 1 is partially supported. As observed in prior studies of published letters (Cooper et al, 2009), letters to the editor are disproportionately written by men, Whites, and older citizens. Because the inequality is nearly identical among all letters written (not just those published), little of the effect documented by Cooper et al appears to be due to editorial gatekeeping.…”

“…Because the amount of space reserved for letters varies little among papers, but papers' target populations may differ by as much as two orders of magnitude, it follows that publication rates will be higher in papers with smaller target populations. Accordingly, the 47% rate is substantially lower than that experienced in many small-town newspapers, which print virtually all nonlibelous submissions (Cooper et al, 2009;Hart, 2001;Lauterer, 2006). meaningful distinctions were maintained.…”

“…An important recent study (Cooper, Knotts, & Haspel, 2009) finds that younger people, African Americans, and women are poorly represented among published letters, but could not examine the demographics of those seeking publication. Using a subset of the same data analyzed here, Perrin and Vaisey (2008) demonstrate that different kinds of topics evoke different kinds of arguments within the same letters column.…”

Media Influence and Frame Diversity in the Debate Over Same-Sex Marriage

“…Editors use their gatekeeping function to produce what they see as an open forum for public debate that is geared more toward the people than organized activist groups or politicians (Wahl-Jorgensen, 2001). Rather than introducing bias by favoring letters in support of editorial positions, editors try to ensure balanced debate either by publishing equal numbers of conservative and liberal letters or by choosing letters that go against editorial endorsements (Butler & Schofield, 2010;Cooper, Knotts, & Haspel, 2009). While editors certainly affect public debate through their choice of letters, their influence appears to be more over broad differences of opinion, not the particular arguments through which those opinions are expressed.…”

“…The audience of newspapers is older, more educated, of higher income, and more likely to vote than the remainder of the population (author analysis of Davis & Smith, 2007). Letter writers, also, tend to be older and are more likely male, White, and politically engaged (Cooper, Knotts, & Haspel, 2009;Hart, 2001). Despite these weaknesses, newspapers are the closest we have to a modern public sphere in which members of the public debate political issues without the influence of the state (Schudson, 2003).…”