News Media use and political Communication - you have to analyse a paper that I am attaching - Essay Example

The study aims to prove the importance of studying mediation in the study of the relationship between media and polities. A wide variety of literature ranging from Holbert & Stephenson 2003, Lazarsfeld, Berelsen & Gaudet 1948, McLeod, Kosicki, and McLeod 2002 are mentioned to show how intra-media mediation is overlooked in the traditional study of political communication and media. The writer finds the importance of his study in the fact that other studies in the same field have not taken intra-media mediation into consideration.

The previous studies largely overlooked the fact that the relationships among various forms of media may enable media to function as mediators of each other. In fact, the study is an extension of the O-S-O-R model of media as the basis for the media-related political communication. However, this new work presents an O-S-S-R framework which allows one set of stimuli to influence another set of stimuli, thus taking the intra-media mediation into consideration. The benefit of this framework is that it can be expanded to include the multiple stages of variables located in between the two sets of stimuli and after the latter stimuli.

The study is based on the assumption that the best predictor of a given type of media use at a later time is its use at a previous time. So, the research has its hypotheses to show the cumulative nature of media use. The first two hypotheses can be summarized as follows: Television/newspaper use at former time positively influences television/newspaper use at later time. Now taking into consideration the fact that the use of one form of media can lead to the use of other forms of media too, the third and fourth hypotheses take birth: television use at a former time positively influences newspaper use at a later time, and newspaper use at a former time positively influences television use at a later time.

Another point of consideration is the fact that at the heart of presidential election campaign, increased knowledge will be available through media about endorsement. So, the fifth and sixth hypotheses are: television news at a later time influences candidate endorsement knowledge, and newspaper use at a later time positively influences candidate endorsement knowledge. Now, to show the intra-media relationships, a combination of hypothesis are used: television news at a later time serves as a mediator in the relationship between television use at a former time and candidate endorsement knowledge, and newspaper use at a later time serves as a mediator in the relationship between newspaper use at a former time and candidate endorsement knowledge.

In addition, television news at a later time serves as a mediator in the relationship between newspaper use at a former time and candidate endorsement knowledge, and newspaper use at a later time serves as a mediator in the relationship between television use at a former time and candidate endorsement knowledge. As a part of the study, the information was collected in two phases. The first phase (the former time) was from July 21 to August 13, 2000 and the second phase (the later time) was from October 18 to October 31, 2000.

The first phase was before the Gore-Bush debate of October 17 and the second phase was after Gore-Bush debate, or at the heart of the election campaign. The questions asked were related to the audience’