{"id":1170,"date":"2026-08-07T17:56:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T17:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/?p=1170"},"modified":"2026-08-07T17:56:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T17:56:32","slug":"tantalizing-hints-from-other-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/tantalizing-hints-from-other-research\/","title":{"rendered":"“Tantalizing” Hints From Other Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

At least three other civic journalism research efforts are measuring the impact of issues-based journalism in the 1996 elections.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nBergen County, N.J<\/strong><\/span>
\nDavid Blomquist, Public Affairs Editor at\u00a0The Record<\/em>, has been following readers and non-readers through a hot Senate race in an intensely competitive media environment. The Pew Center is supporting the evaluation, which is using polls and focus groups to measure the impact of a daily issues-based page, called “Campaign Central,” promoted on page one.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"Blomquist presented his early findings at the Pew Center’s Annapolis workshop. The “Campaign Central” pages didn’t cut through the noise of the negative campaign ads, he reported. But a clear “winner,” he said, was a Voters Guide published the weekend before the election that distilled the newspaper’s issues stories into issues grids for each candidate.<\/p>\n

“This is what (readers) wanted in election coverage. Concise, side by side comparisons of issues in bullet form,” he said. And the focus groups indicated that information presented in grids had more credibility than narrative stories.<\/p>\n

“So far (our research) is suggesting that the public’s disconnection from politics is more than just changing the framework from\u00a0vox politics<\/em>\u00a0to\u00a0vox populi<\/em>… Much of the challenge for journalists is: Can we do this without becoming McPaper and McNews?”<\/p>\n

The research will be published in early spring.<\/p>\n


\nOrange County, CA<\/strong><\/span>
\nThe National Opinion Research Center is conducting an evaluation of the “Voice of the Voter” media alliance in Southern California. That alliance consists of the\u00a0Orange County Register<\/em>, KTTV (Fox), KCET-TV (PBS), KCRW radio in Santa Monica, KPCC radio in Pasadena, the\u00a0Santa Barbara News Press<\/em>, the\u00a0Riverside Press-Enterprise<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0La Opinion<\/em>,\u00a0The Los Angeles Times’<\/em>\u00a0Spanish- language paper. The research, supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts, should be completed in early 1997.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nTwenty Cities.<\/strong><\/span>
\nThe Poynter Institute and Phil Meyer, of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, are surveying election coverage in 20 cities–10 deemed to be high civic journalism sites and 10 low civic journalism sites–examining the media’s intent, the content, and the media’s effects on citizens. Media effects will be measured by citizens’ participation, knowledge, social capital and attitude strength.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Early results are signaling some measurable impact. “We have failed to prove that citizen-based journalism has no effect,” Meyer quipped at last month’s Annapolis workshop. “There is a tantalizing hint that it\u00a0does<\/em>\u00a0have some effect.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least three other civic journalism research efforts are measuring the impact of issues-based journalism in the 1996 elections. Bergen County, N.J David Blomquist, Public Affairs Editor at\u00a0The Record, has been following readers and non-readers through a hot Senate race in an intensely competitive media environment. The Pew Center is supporting the evaluation, which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,71,78,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catalyst-by-date","category-civic-catalyst","category-research-topics","category-winter-1997"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1197,"href":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions\/1197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev-testinglink.com\/projects\/civilorg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}