Perceiving Political News Coverage : A Research Note on Newspaper Evaluation

Abstract

This study was designed to explore and analyze some features related to the evaluations and the perceptions Japanese university students held toward the political coverage of the press. In paticular, while replicating and extending earlier studies conducted in the U.S., the aims of the present paper are threefold : to examine the multifaceted evaluations of the newspapers' political stories while referring to specific dimensions in categories of competence/trust, community involvement/personalism, and bias/sensationalism; to follow systematically the way Japanese youth construct their image of the press' functifon; and to determine whether newspapers' image has any effect on selected demographic and media use variables. The findings reveal that the press is highly trusted in its political reportage, perceived as fulfilling and realizing its social role, and as presenting unbiased coverage as well as reflecting correctly the public opinion. More-over, frequency of general exposure to newspapers and television, reading or watching the political content of the news media, political interest, stances and knowledge of political events are all found to be associated with different degrees of perception of the printed media. From the comparative viewpoint, the study points out a diversity and variation of newspapers' images held in the U.S. and Japan and suggests further comparison surveys.