MEDIA DEPENDENCY AS INTERACTION

Abstract

Recent research on the differential effects of newspapers and television news has offered a wide variety of operationalizations of media exposure, reliance, and dependency. While these operationalizations have been drawn from the same general theoretic domain, they have led to contradictory findings and conceptual difficulties. This article examines media dependency as a complex construct involving the interactions of exposure to television news, exposure to nespapers, and expressions of reliance on one medium or the other. Data are from the 1976 University of Michigan CPS national election study. As hypothesized, reliance on a medium enhances positive associations between exposure to that medium and political efficacy and activity.