l._ —. - r " *" fllllllljlllINN/lHill/111111”! ll’lll/lllllllll 241‘ if if {‘1 3 293 00612 2919 i “at L’ LIBRARY Michigan State University This is to certify that the - thesis entitled RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CABLE TELEVISION VIEWERSHIP ’ AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION presented by Patricia K. Morgenstern has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Masters degree in Communication Win at; ‘ Major professor Date February 91 1990 0-7639 MS U is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution PLACE N RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record. TO AVOID FINES totum on or baton one due. DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE 11 L__= [__ MSU Is An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CABLE TELEVISION VIEWERSHIP AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION BY Patricia K. Morgenstern A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of Communications 1990 ABSTRACT RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CABLEVISION VIEWERSHIP AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION BY Patricia K. Morgenstern The media environment is undergoing changes with the increasing popularity and availability of cable television. Past research studies have found that people learn about political candidates and gain greater interest in political campaigns from television. The underlying question in this research study was to examine the relationship of cable- vision viewers and one's political participation. A telephone survey was conducted following the 1988 presidential election. The respondents were queried con- cerning their participation in various political behaviors, their expressed interest in national and local politics and their knowledge of various national and local political candidates. The respondents were identified as pay cable- vision, basic cablevision and broadcast viewers based upon their self-report of their television viewing habits. A relationship was found between pay cableviewers and their likelihood of saying television was their primary source of information about politics. The author did not find relationships between cable viewers and one's likelihood of voting, interest or knowl- edge of political candidates. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I owe a special thank you to many family, friends and faculty members for helping me through my program at Michi- gan State University. To them I say thank you and may God bless. Two people in particular I will be forever grateful to: Larry D. Fowler and my wonderful and loving husband, David. If it hadn't been for Larry's encouragement to be- gin my educational program, I never would have had the courage or confidence to undertake such an endeavor. His faith in me gave me the strength I needed. Thank you Larry for caring. To my husband, I owe a special thank you. You helped me keep going when I became discouraged. We missed many social activities because I had to stay home and study. You never complained, and you were always there for me. You went the distance with me and for that I will always be indebted. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER 2 Review of the Literature. . . . . . . . Research Questions. . . . . . . . . . . Hypotheses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER 3 Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conceptual and Operational Definitions. CHAPTER 4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER 5 Discussion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv 39 43 53 LIST OF TABLES Demographic Information Viewership of Debates & Televised Political Ads . . . Expressed Political Interest . Unaided Recall of Political Candidates Voting Behavior . . . Political Participation CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION While there has been a considerable amount of research on the effects of television viewing on political partici- pation, there has been limited study on the effect of cable television and its impact on one's likelihood of political participation. This study is interested in addressing this particular issue. With the changes in technology, the media environment of the public has also changed. In particular, cable tele- vision viewers now have greater access to news, sports, public affairs programs, arts, adult entertainment and movie channels than traditional broadcast viewers. Webster (1986) cites that the most widely anticipated change in au- dience behavior as a response to the new media environment is the mass audience will be become increasingly more frag- mented. Traditionally, broadcast television programming has attempted to appeal to as many viewers as possible. Up un- til the advent of cable television, an appeal was made to the masses rather than to any segmented group. Webster cites that there is no significant difference in what a viewer can see on ABC, CBS and NBC. The U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census 1987, shows that in 1980, 19.8 percent of the homes in the U.S. had cable television. By 1986, that number had 1 2 increased to 46.8 percent. This figure is expected to con- tinue to grow. With the continued growth of cable television, it will be necessary for political advertisers and media planners to understand this changing media environment and how it effects the viewing habits of the public in order to make more effective use of their advertising dollars and pro- gramming formats. CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE The first scientific study of voting behavior and the impact of the mass media was conducted by Paul Lazarfield in 1940 in Erie County, Ohio. The study took place during the presidential election and gave rise to what has become to be known as the "two-step flow" model. This model suggests that information from the mass media is received by opinion leaders who were more knowledgeable and active within the social strata. The opinion leaders interpreted, filtered and then disseminated the information to the rest of the public. Personal relationships were perceived as having greater coverage as well as greater psychological advantages over the formal media. Since Lazarfield's study, numerous studies have been done to examine how individuals gain political knowledge, form political opinions, and these studies help give us greater insight and understanding as to why some individu- als engage in political behavior while others do not. A uses and gratifications theoretical approach guides this particular study. A uses and gratifications approach to mass communications research is often referred to as the study of "information seeking" (McCombs 1972). With greater amounts of information available to individuals due to advances in technology, the question arises as to what 4 purpose or purposes are individuals using the media and are these needs being satisfied by the media. According to Katz (1974), the uses and gratifications perspective is based on the following suppositions: 1. Media use is goal directed. The audience member is active rather than passive in their media selection and use. Individuals choose those media which satisfy their needs rather than, for instance, sitting passively in front of the television tube and absorbing all of the information they are receiving. Viewers are not unwillingly being ma- nipulated and controlled by the "powerful" media as once was thought the case by earlier social scientists. The uses and gratification approach suggests the populace has a purpose in mind when selecting their media menu. 2. Media use is in response to the individuals' felt needs. These needs may vary from individual to individual. Some may use television for information or relaxation while others may use television for excitement or escape. What- ever the felt need by the individual, the media channel is actively sought to fulfill that need. 3. The individual is responsible for initiating the media selection. Individuals must be motivated to make that selection. 4. The individual is capable of articulating the rea- sons for selecting and using the various media. Because it is assumed that the individual is consciously and actively aware of what gratifications are being sought when engaging 5 in the behavior of media usage, it is presumed that the in- dividual can express the reasons for his or her actions. Assuming that these five suppositions are correct, we must then look more specifically at how this might affect one's likelihood of participating in politics. We acquire the basic foundation for our political attitudes and behav- ior from our families, schools, churches and peers. How- ever studies have shown that learning from the mass media does take place. The degree or extent of what is learned varies and whether simple reinforcement of previously held attitudes or conversion from one's previously held belief to another takes place is contingent upon many variables. The media is just one of these many variables. One variable which has been given a considerable amount of attention is identification with a political party. Party identification still remains the single best predictor of one's likelihood of voting (Pamper, 1985 and Abramson, Aldrich, and Rohde, 1982). However, many politi- cal scientists believe there has been a weakened effect in recent years. The U.S. Bureau of Census shows voter turnout in the U.S. was close to 80% prior to 1900. In re- cent years this figure has dropped dramatically and statis- tics now show voter turnout has been closer to 50%. In addition to party identification, other variables have been examined to explain one's likelihood of political participation. Studies have found relationships between education, age, socioeconomic status, length of residence 6 in the community, membership in community organizations and one's political interest and one's likelihood of voting (Palmgreen, 1979 and Reagan, 1981). The role of the mass media in enhancing one's likeli- hood of political participation has also been given a great deal of study in recent years. One particular area of ex- tensive study by researchers has been the effect of expo- sure to the media. Palmgreen found media exposure does in fact affect one's level of political knowledge. This is important because learning is seen as a vital first step in the development of political attitudes and behavior. With- out that exposure to opinions and ideas outside an individ- ual's own reference group, learning would be more limited and restrained. Most researchers agree that the media plays an agenda setting function. This function by the media determines to what individuals will be exposed. Palmgreen looked at differences of agenda setting for national and local political affairs. He suggests a stronger agenda setting function at the national level than the local level because of the heavier mass media coverage at the national level. People do learn about important national political problems through the mass media. Access to national polit- ical information would be seriously limited without the me- dia. The local township meeting could keep one informed of local affairs in the community as had once been the case years ago, however, questions of national policy would 7 seriously be limited without the mass media keeping the public informed. Palmgreen's study looked specifically at newspaper and television usage. Atkin (1976) found that the role of the mass media is important because interested persons are more likely to vote in an election. He found the mass media (particularly radio and television) are very effective in creating inter- est in political campaigns. In addition to creating interest, Atkin also found that the voters' knowledge of the candidates and their issue positions are also moderately correlated with radio and television advertising exposure. Voters who had few prior or concurrent informational inputs may learn the most from advertising, and exposure stimulated the electorate's interest in the campaign. Political consultants are keenly aware that the more interested the electorate is in the campaign, the greater the voter turnout, the easier it is to recruit volunteers to work on the campaigns and it is easier to raise needed campaign funds. McComb also conducted a study that further supports the contention that as exposure to mass communication in- creases, one's political interest also increases. Robert Zajonc's (1968) "mere exposure" theory tells us that repeated exposure of the individual to a stimulus is a sufficient condition for the enhancement of one's attitude toward that stimulus. Using this basic premise, greater television exposure to political advertisements, news 8 stories and televised debates then should also enhance one's interest in political affairs. Atkin's study also found support for Zajonc's exposure theory in that he found exposure to political campaign ad- vertisements did produce a more positive affect toward the candidate as a person. Kraus and Davis found that people who during the po- litical campaign use one medium are more likely to use other media. Thus information seeking could snowball so that the individuals could become highly informed. People may see a news story on television which piques their in- terest. Wanting to get more details, they may check the newspaper or read a magazine article on the subject. They then may discuss the subject with co-workers or a spouse and ultimately become quite informed on the topic. Rust, et al (1984) found that newspaper readership and magazine readership were positively related to voting par- ticipation, while heavy television viewers were found to be less likely to vote. Reagan (1981) also found support that print media usage was a positive predictor of likelihood of voting while electronic mass media was a negative predictor. gable Television Studies. Looking particularly at cable television studies, the number of studies are considerably fewer. One author who has done a considerable amount of research on the subject is James G. Webster. 9 Webster (1984) found that differences between pay cable homes and homes with other types of reception were particularly pronounced. The heads of households in pay cable homes were on average younger. In an average week, pay cable households watched more hours of television and used more channels than those in the other reception types. He also found pay cable households had a larger number of household members than broadcast or basic cable homes. Webster suggests this may in part explain higher levels of television usage in that reception type. In each market type which Webster studied, he found that the local station's weekly share of the television viewing audience was highest among broadcast homes, smaller among basic cable homes and smaller still in pay cable homes. In other words, with more diversification and choice available to the cableviewer, the greater amount of this diversity was utilized. Webster found the results were consistent. This then raised the question of what im- pact this diversification would have on the lgggl televi- sion station. Webster found that "despite a substantial increase in the competition, there is no indication that cable and pay cable subscribers have totally abandoned their local sta- tions. In fact, the weekly ratings on local stations tended to be higher in nonbroadcast households." Again suggesting that individuals with cable simply watch more 10 television in general which includes watching more broad- cast stations. Becker (1983) also found that subscription to cable television is associated with increased time spent with television and that cable has been added to the pattern of normal news media rather than replaced it. He did find some evidence that use of the radio for news and weather information was adversely affected by the use of cable television. Viewers were turning to the cable weather channel and news channels for this information rather than the local radio station. As was mentioned earlier, few studies have speci- fically examined cable television usage and political participation. One of the few studies to date that has been conducted was done so by Hill and Dyer (1981). Their hypothesis was that distant signal television stations imported by cable divert local audiences from local news programming, which in turn diminishes citizen knowledge of and participation in 199;; politics. They too supported the contention that television viewing has been found to cause increased awareness of candidates, public officials, issues and public policies. In the Hill and Dyer study, only 47% of the diverters could recall the name of the mayor: however, 57% of non- diverters could recall the name of the mayor. However this difference was not statistically significant but it did raise questions concerning possible diversion. The 11 difference between diverters and non-diverters was more pronounced with regard to political participation. They found that of the diverters, only 22% reported voting in the most recent local election, compared to 43% of the non- diverters. The findings of Hill and Dyer prompted further investigation from Joey Reagan (1984). Reagan suggests that with the importation of "local" signals from distant cities, the cable user now has the option to view his or her own community's news or that from another community. He suggested that rather than switching AWAY from any of the local news, subscribers now can have much greater access to news media than non-cable subscribers. Reagan found that Cable Network News viewers and sub- scribers spent just as much time with local news as did non-subscribers and in some cases even more. Again, giving further support to Webster's finding that cable users spend a greater amount of time watching television. Reagan further suggests that differences in the commu- nities' media environment may result in different media ef- fects. Environments with a larger media menu to choose from will be less likely to divert to other communities be- cause the gratification sought will be filled by the local community and the need to divert will be minimized. Rea- gan's study did NOT investigate voting participation or interest. 12 RESEARCH QUESTIONS The specific research questions addressed in this study are: 1. Do cable television viewers differ from broadcast viewers in the amount of time spent watching television? 2. Do cable television viewers differ from broadcast viewers in their uses and gratifications for watching tele- vision? 3. Do cable television viewers differ from broadcast viewers in their levels or degree of political participa- tion? 4. Do cable television viewers differ from non-cable viewers in their interest of national and local political candidates when asked to use unaided recall? 5. Do cable television viewers differ from non-cable viewers in their political knowledge of national and local political candidates? 13 HYPOTHESES In an attempt to answer these research questions, the following hypotheses are offered: H1. Pay cablevision viewers will spend more total hours per day watching television than broadcast viewers. This is based on Becker's finding that viewers increase the amount of television viewing time when they subscribe to cable television. If the individual choses to have cable television in the home, he or she will watch it. H2. Pay cablevision viewers will be more likely to say television is their primary source for political infor- mation. Previous findings show pay cablevision viewers are younger and spend more time watching television. Because it is assumed more time is spent with television watching entertainment channels and more limited news and public affair programs, it would be expected that less time would be spent reading magazines and newspapers which offer more in-depth news coverage. It is expected also they spend less time listening to the radio. It would also be expected that they would turn first to television when they want information because this is the more familiar medium. H3. Pay cablevision viewers will be less likely to vote than broadcast viewers. Becker found that cable is added onto the pattern of normal news media rather than re- placed by it. His study did not look specifically at whether or not it was pay or basic cable. Because pay 14 channels are movie and entertainment channels rather than news or public affairs programs, that viewing time is now spent on entertainment. Interest in politics would be lower because of the more limited exposure to the news and public affairs programs. Again, based upon the data Webster found, pay cable- vision viewers were on the average younger and watched more hours of television than non-cablevision viewers. Both variables, age (younger citizens) and heavy television viewing, have in past studies been negatively linked to voter participation. Interesting to note, in Reagan's comparison between respondents in Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor, the demographic profile of respondents from Ann Arbor showed they were younger; however, they spent less time watching cable television. His findings lend support to past studies that show education as an important variable in relation to political participation. (Ann Arbor respondents were more highly educated than Grand Rapids respondents. Ann Arbor obviously being the home of a major university, thus having a more highly educated population concentrated in the area). H4. Basic cablevision viewers will have moderately greater interest in national and local political candidates than pay cablevision and broadcast viewers. This is based on the finding that basic cablevision viewers are exposed to more news and public affairs programs than the non-cable 15 viewer as was supported in the studies of Becker, Webster and Reagan, and it is anticipated this exposure will lead to greater interest in political campaigns as was supported by Atkin's findings with political campaign ads and Mc- Combs' findings wherein as exposure to mass communications increased, one's political interest also increased. H5. Basic cablevision viewers will have greater knowledge of both national and local political candidates than either pay or broadcast viewers. Because of greater access to news and public affairs programs, it would be ex- pected that they would also have greater knowledge of the various political candidates. CHAPTER 3 METHODS The research design of this study constituted a one- shot telephone survey. Telephone interviews were conducted during the week following the 1988 presidential election. Telephone calling began November 9 and was completed on November 16. The calling was conducted during the daytime and evening hours. The interviewers were given a training session on con- ducting the interview, screening the respondents, and com- pleting the questionnaire. A practice session was then conducted thus enabling the interviewers to practice on each other and to familiarize themselves with the format of the questionnaire before an actual interview took place. The training session as well as the supervision of the telephone banks was conducted by the author. A random selection of 300 phone numbers from the Lans- ing area phone book constituted the sample. If there was no answer at the telephone number called, the next number on the list was then called. A total of 108 respondents constituted the completed sample size. There were 72 incomplete calls or refusals. There were 120 no answers or answering machines. Respon- dents did not have to be registered voters -- simply 18 years or older. The first person answering the phone meet- ing this one requirement was queried. 16 17 The sample was selected from the Lansing area because of the availability of the three major broadcast networks in the area and the accessibility to cable television for those who chose to have it in their homes. Lansing has one major, local daily newspaper and 20 local radio stations. The media environment was conducive for this type of study. The occupational diversification was also a determin- ing factor in the selection of Lansing as the city from which to draw the sample. The labor force of Lansing is comprised of approximately 32% technical, sales and admin- istrative personnel; 23% managerial and professional; 17% laborers, operators and fabricators; 14% service occupa- tions and 2% farming (1980 U.S. Census Bureau). Because of the diversity of the population, it was se- lected as representative of the population. After a brief introduction as to who the caller was and the purpose of the call, a total of 40 questions were asked about the respondent's media behavior as well as his or her political behavior, interest and knowledge. The av- erage length of time for completion of each questionnaire took approximately 15 minutes. 18 CONCEPTUAL AND OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS Campaign Exposure. Campaign exposure is defined as the information seeking behavior of the respondents to gain political knowledge about the 1988 presidential election. Measurement of exposure was operationally defined as: 1. whether or not the respondents watched either of the two nationally televised presidential debates which aired shortly before the election; 2. the total number of hours they watched the debates; 3. whether or not they watched the half-hour news commentaries following the debate; 4. whether or not they saw the vice presidential televised debate, and; 5. how many political television ads the respondent saw one week prior to the election. Political Behavior. Political behavior is the con- scious, overt act of a person who engages in behavior with political orientations. Political behavior was measured by one or all of the following overt acts: 1. voting 2. attempting to influence someone's voting 3. opinion expression 4. working for a political party 5. wearing a campaign button 19 6. displaying a bumper sticker or yard sign 7. writing a letter to the newspaper editor 8. writing a letter to a political candidate The degree of political behavior increases as one pro- ceeds up this scale with voting being the minimal level of political behavior and writing a letter to a political candidate being the maximum level of political behavior. The measures were based upon the respondent's self-report. Political Interest. The respondents' political atti- tudes measured in this study were through his or her ex- pressed interest in politics. The respondents' interest is defined as one's conscious psychological involvement in ac- tivities of a political nature. The respondents' interest in national and local politics was measured by use of a Likert scale wherein the respondent was asked specifically, "How interested would you say you are in national political campaigns?" and "How interested would you say you are in local political campaigns?" (See Appendix A -- questions 17 and 18). Political Knowledge. Political knowledge was measured and defined by one's knowledge of the names of national and local elected officials when asked to use unaided recall in identifying the official. The names of both the U.S. Senator and the member of the U.S. House of Representatives were asked to measure the respondent's knowledge of 20 national political candidates, and the name of the local mayor as well as the name of the candidate who won the local sheriff's race were asked to measure one's knowledge of local political candidates. The name of the local, state representative was also asked in order to measure one's local political knowledge (See Appendix A -- questions 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30). The survey was conducted during a presidential year which traditionally has higher voter turnout and interest than non-presidential election years. There were incum- bents competing in both the U.S. Senate race as well as the U.S. House of Representatives race. At the local level, the office of the mayor of Lansing was not on the election ballot; however, the mayor has been in office for approximately 10 years and was considered a public official who should be readily identified by the re- spondents. To also measure local political knowledge, re- spondents were queried about who won the local sheriff's race. Both challengers for the sheriff's race waged a heavy media campaign. One challenger had also been in the news media on previous occasions for his drug busting ac- tivities when he served on the Metro Narcotics Squad of the City's police department. Pay, Basic and Broadcast Viewers. The respondents were categorized into pay cable television viewers, basic cablevision viewers, and broadcast television viewers based 21 upon their affirmative response to spending a percentage of their television viewing time with some or all of the three different media categories (See Appendix A -- question 16). If a respondent indicated he or she spent a percentage of his or her time watching pay cable, regardless of whether it was 1% of his or her television viewing time or 100% or his or her television viewing time, the respondent was then classified as a pay cablevision viewer. Conversely, if a respondent indicated he or she spent a percentage of his or her television viewing time watching basic cable television or a percentage of his or her television viewing time watching the broadcast stations, they were classified as a basic cablevision or a broadcast viewer respectively. The groups are not mutually exclusive. There is unavoidable overlap among them. Pay cablevision viewers could also be basic cablevision viewers and/or broadcast viewers. Because it was anticipated that there would be overlap among the three groups, and a large number of individuals could feasibly be pay cablevision viewers as well as basic cablevision viewers as well as broadcast viewers, the intent of this research was to study the differences in the entire sample and not individual differences. Thus no delineation was made in order to classify respondents' scores into a high or a low category. In this research study, "pay" cable channels included: HBO-movie channel, Cinemax, Disney, Playboy and PASS. These channels the television viewers pay an additional fee 22 which is above and beyond the cost of the basic cable service. "Basic" cable channels are defined as: MTV-music television, USA Network, Cable Health Network, C-Span, Arts and Discovery. "Broadcast" viewers do not subscribe to ei- ther the "pay" or "basic" cable systems. The "broadcast" channels include the three main stations -- ABC, CBS and NBC. Persons who reported not having cable television available in their area were classified as basic television viewers. The number of respondents who reported they did not have access to cable television was only 3 out of the 108 total number of respondents queried. CHAPTER 4 RESULTS Descriptive statistics of the demographic characteris- tics of the sample showed that 55% of the respondents had a household income below $30,000. Fifty-eight percent of the respondents had "some college or associate's degree". The five ordinally ranked categories were 1) less than high school 2) high school graduate 3) some college or associ- ates degree 4) bachelor's degree 5) graduate studies. The mean, median and mode were 3.0. The sample group was relatively young -- 43% were in either their 20's or 30's. The median age group was in their thirties -- the mean being 36. The mode was 20's. The seven ordinally ranked categories were late teens, 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, or 70's plus. Fifty-seven percent of the respondents were female (See Table 1). When inquiring as to the respondents' reasons for watching television (using a five-point Likert scale with a one representing almost never and a five representing very often), the following was found: -50.9% of the respondents said television was their primary source of information for political and public af- fair information. There was no statistically significant relationship between whether pay cable, basic cable or broadcast viewers said television was their primary source for political and public affair information. 23 24 moo.vm .2. « mo.vm «ma. «om.u oo. 46H. tea. Ho.u .«mm. oa.u mmmmmmmmm manna ZOHB m0< AmAmB 92¢ mm9 N mqm<8 ma.l mod and. coauMODUm a0. ummocmoum No.1 oflmmm mH.I >mm mmmmwm Hmflucmpflmmum 29 and watching the vice presidential debate (.17, .26, .20 and .31 respectively) (See Table 2). There was also a pos- itive correlation between watching the debates and voting in the 1988 election (.23, p<.01) and the more hours watched, the more likely the respondents were to have voted in 1988 (.36, p<.000). Interest. No statistically significant relationship was found among pay, basic or broadcast viewers and whether they expressed a greater interest in national or local po- litical affairs (See Table 3). Both education and age had a positive correlation with whether one expressed an interest in political affairs. Education had a strong positive correlation at the national level (.35, p<.005). There was a .14 correlation at the local level; however, it was not statistically significant. Age had a positive correlation at the local level -- a .23 relationship (p<.05); however, this relationship was not found to be statistically significant at the national level (See Table 3). Only 11% of the respondents reported being "very in- terested" in national politics and 21% said they were "very interested" in local politics. The rest were only "somewhat interested" or "not interested". Knowledge. There was also no statistically signifi- cant relationship between unaided recall of a national or 30 *«. mm. vH. no. 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