Communication and Community Integration: An Analysis of the Communication Behavior of Newcomers

Community integration for newcomers was more strongly related to general information seeking than to specific use of newspapers. Four hundred newcomers in Seattle were polled by phone. When newcomers arrive in a community, they need to fill many information gaps, and this study found that newspapers (which made no special effort to reach newcomers in the city studied) did not fill them especially well. People who were reluctant to leave their old community were most interested in becoming integrated into the new one, in terms of gaining information.