Social Control in the Newsroom: A Functional Analysis

Abstract

It will be noted that, in general, the groups with practically no deviation are those that rank relatively high on the autonomy scale and the groups with some deviation are those that rank relatively low on the autonomy scale. By the H-test of significance of differences,7 the indicated differences are found to be significant at the .05 level of significance, and at that level the null hypothesis of a common universe can be rejected. The rejection of the null hypothesis permits the adoption of a major corollary to the original hypothesis: The eJfectiveness of a group's control over the members of the group increases monotonically with increase in the autonomy of the group. Since the corollary has been both deduced from and substantiated independently of the manipulatorypotential conclusions outlined above, it offers support for the validity of those conclusions. At the same time, it must be remembered that the data utilized are crude, and further substantiation in additional studies is imperative.