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Abstract
Comparing Nationwide Newspaper Coverage of FDA Regulation of Tobacco: Despite the fact that the use of tobacco and tobacco products has been described as the single most significant threat to public health, it is still a habit practiced by millions of adults and children. Recently, efforts have been made to regulate tobacco by the Clinton Administration. The goal is to have the Food and Drug Administration control the production and selling of tobacco products. The following study is being done to examine the effect society has on the reporting of this issue, linking city characteristics to media coverage. Specifically, this report discusses the way in which newspapers major cities across the United States have covered this issue. The community structure approach developed by Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien (1973, 1980), and elaborated by Pollock and others (1977, 1978, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998), suggests that the structures of communities, regarding certain demographics in particular, are linked systematically to the coverage of critical issues in its newspapers. The approach was used to create and test a set of hypotheses studying the correlation between city characteristics and newspaper reporting on FDA regulation of tobacco. A sample of articles with a minimum of 400 words was drawn from newspapers in fifteen major cities using the DIALOG database. They were all written between the years 1993 and 2000. The final total of 272 articles was then analyzed, focusing on content and direction. The content was based on article placement, headline size, word count, and direction. The direction (favorable, unfavorable, or balanced/ neutral) was then assigned to each article and used to calculate the Janis-Fadner Coefficient of Imbalance for each newspaper. The results showed that newspaper coverage varied widely throughout the nation, with coefficients of imbalance ranging from .246 to -.303. Results from Pearson and regression analysis revealed
two patterns. One can be called a "partisan" pattern. The
higher the percentage of Democrats working in a city (r=-.684; p=.002),
the more favorable the coverage of FDA regulation of tobacco. However,
the higher the percentage of Republicans working in a city (r= -.622;
p=. 007), the more unfavorable the coverage of FDA regulation. The second
pattern can be called a "lifestyle autonomy" pattern. Specifically,
the higher the percentage of: women in the work force in a city (r.
=. 637; p=. 005), or those with professional/ technical occupations
in a city (r=. 609; p=. 008), the more unfavorable the coverage of FDA
regulation of tobacco or nicotine. The third pattern is an "access"
pattern: The higher the percentage of people who have access to cable
(r=. 433; p=. 054), the more favorable the coverage of FDA regulation.
The community structure approach to measuring the link between city
characteristics and reporting on political and social change reveals
three patterns: partisanship, lifestyle autonomy and access. The partisanship
and access patterns are consistent with other community structure studies
on patients' bill of rights and social security privatization, while
the new lifestyle autonomy pattern deserves further study |