Attitudes toward local programming needs: A comparison of a northern and southern sample of community leaders and respective publics
Replicating salient features of a study perfomed in Michigan, it was found that the northern and southern community leaders differed in their programming requests. The two public samples were quite similar, however, in ranking their requests. The findings suggest that care should be exercised by concerned public agencies in evaluating community leaders’ opinions, since they differ from their publics’ unsystematically.
A study of broadcast station license application exhibits on ascertainment of community needs
The requirement that station licensees “ascertain the needs of their community” as part of the application for renewal of license is relatively new and, as this study plainly shows, is little understood by many broadcasters. The authors examined a large sample of applications filed in the Public Reference Room of the Federal Communications Commission to arrive at their conclusions. They particularly wish to thank William Dempsey, President and General Manager of WZZM‐TV, Grand Rapids, Michigan, who permitted experimentation in methods of ascertaining community needs in a series of studies conducted for the station. Dr. Thomas F. Baldwin is associate professor in the Departments of Television‐Radio and Communication, and Mr. Surlin is a graduate assistant in the Department of Communication at Michigan State University.
Cross-Class Interviewing An Analysis of Interaction and Communicative Styles
When an interviewer attempts to elicit information from a respondent, he is both in face-to-face interaction and in a communicative situation. If the respondent and interviewer are of different social classes, then an opportunity exists to watch interaction and communication of a rather special kind. Most conversations between classes probably occur in fairly formalized or routinized situations, rather unlike that which occurs during an interview—particularly when the interview is lengthy, personal, and only moderately structured. Analysis of cross-class interviewing—indeed of any interviewing—in terms of interaction and styles of communication ought rather quickly to pay rich dividends toward our understanding of these related matters.