Media Attention, Media Exposure, and Media Effects

This study finds that audience exposure and attention to three media—newspapers, television news, and radio news—are separate dimensions, based on a telephone survey of 234 individuals 18 years old and up in Bloomington, Indiana. The relationships among exposure and attention and knowledge gain, opinion direction, opinion strength, and actual behavior are less clear, although there is evidence that newspapers are more likely to influence cognitive learning while television influences both cognition and attitudes. Radio news was less influential.