Alienation and Uses of the Mass Media

Jack McLeod; Scott Ward; Karen Tancill

The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 4. (Winter, 1965-1966), pp. 583-594.

Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0033-362X%28196524%2F196624%2929%3A4%3C583%3AAAUOTM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H

The Public Opinion Quarterly is currently published by Oxford University Press.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtainedprior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content inthe JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/journals/oup.html.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academicjournals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers,and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community takeadvantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

http://www.jstor.orgFri Feb 8 05:13:34 2008

ALIENATION AND USES T H E MASS MEDIA

BY JACK McLEOD, S C O T T WARD, A N D K A R E N T A N C I L L

Alienation, defined as a rejection of social institutions and processes, plays a n important role i n sociological theory and research. Here a measure of the degree of alienation is examined with respect to mass media exposure, in- terest in sensational content, and gratifications obtained from the media.

Jack McLeod is Assistant Professor of Journalism and Mass Communica- tions and Associate Director of the Mass Communications Research Center a t the University of Wisconsin. Scott Ward is a graduate student in Mass Communications at the University of Wisconsin. Karen Tancill is Assistant Editor, T h e World Book Encyclopedia.

"NEW LOOK" in mass media audience studies has appeared

Ain recent years. The earlier emphasis was largely confined to questions of how much time people spent with a given me- dium and to which categories of content they paid particular

attention. The content categories were formal subject-matter classifica- tions like the "local news" and "sports" of newspaper readership studies, and the audience was characterized by standard demographic variables like education, income, age, and sex.

The late forties saw a departure from the earlier pattern. Largely evolving from the Lazarsfeld and Stanton series, media research be- came more "audience-oriented" and less exclusively "media-oriented."l Looking at the audience member as a person with personality and so- cial needs, researchers began to probe into the uses people make of the mass media. Berelson's investigation of the function of newspaper reading represents a particularly notable step in the development of the "gratification" study.2

As Katz and Foulkes have pointed out, however, the gratification studies of the forties tended merely to report lists of functions without attaching to them specific characteristics of the person for whom the medium performed its function.3 More recently, gratification studies

1 See Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank N. Stanton, eds., Radio Research 1941, New York, Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1941;Radio Research 1942-43, New York, Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1944;and Communications Research 1948-49, New York, Harper, igqg.

2 Bernard Berelson, "What Missing the Newspaper Means," in Lazarsfeld and Stanton, op. cit., 1949,pp. 111-129.

3 This trend in gratification studies is pointed out by Elihu Katz and David Foulkes, "On the Use of Mass Media as 'Escape'," Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 26,

1962, pp. 377-388.

584 JACK McLEOD, SCOTT WARD, AND KAREN TANCILL

have begun by looking at the person in terms of certain personality or social characteristics and then seeking to connect these characteristics to gratifications obtained from the mass media. In searching for ante- cedents of various gratifications, these studies have tended to go be- yond the customary demographic variables to find attributes that tie more directly into social-psychologically oriented theories.

Alienation, a central concept in sociology, has been suggested as an antecedent to using the mass media as escape.4 Found to be useful in predicting political apathy, authoritarianism, suicide, and a variety of other phenomena, alienation is better known for its consequences than for the clarity of its definition and measurement.6 Seeman has, how- ever, clarified the situation by specifying five alternative formulations of alienation as the person's feeling of: powerlessness over the en-vironment; meaninglessness of life's alternatives; normlessness or rule- lessness of individual conduct; isolation from cultural and social in- stitutions; and self-estrangement from one's own role.6

In application to escapist uses of the mass media, variables de- scribed as being akin to alienation have been empirically related to escapelike media content.7 For the adult population, Katz and Lazars- feld reported greater use of confessional fiction and soap operas among women who worried more, while Pearlin showed that the enjoyment of television programs "that help us forget personal problems and troubles" was associated with stress as measured by feelings of occu-pational frustration and attitudes of personal mistrust and ineffective- ness.8 Among children and adolescents, television time was correlated with difficulties in parent-child relations, lack of achievement, and low self-esteem, while another study found isolation from peers to be an important factor in the attention to adventure stories.9

These studies of escape use of the mass media constitute an impres-

4 Ibid. 5 For the relationship between alienation and political apathy, see Morris Rosen-

berg, "The Meaning of Politics in Mass Society," Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 15, 1951,pp. 5-15,and Dwight Dean, "Alienation and Political Apathy," Social Forces, Vol. 38, 1960, pp. 185-189.For alienation as a determinant of authoritarianism, see Theodor W . Adorno et al., T h e Authoritarian Personality, New York, Harper, 1950, p. 618. Suicide is seen as a consequent of alienation by Elwin Powell, "Occupation, Status, and Suicide: Toward a Redefinition of Anomie," American Sociological Re- view, Vol. 23, 1958, pp. 131-139.

6 Melvin Seeman, "On the Meaning of Alienation," American Sociological Review, Vol. 24, 1959, pp. 783-791.

7 Katz and Foulkes, op. cit. 8 Elihu Katz and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Personal Influence, Glencoe, Ill., Free Press,

1955, p. 378; Leonard Pearlin, "Social and Personal Stress and Escape Television Viewing," Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 23, 1959, pp. 255-259.

Q See Eleanor Maccoby, "Why Children Watch TV," Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 15, 1951, pp. 421-444;Wilbur Schramm, Jack Lyle, and Edwin Parker, Tele-vision i n the Lives of Our Children, Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 1961,

585 ALIENATION AND USES OF T H E MASS MEDIA

sive array of findings; however, to call them "alienation" studies is to define alienation as almost synonymous with personal maladjustment.1° This is to depart from the more traditional use of alienation as a con- dition of society manifested in a personal disillusion with societal in- stitutions and processes. This may or may not be accompanied by personal dissatisfaction, and anxiety. There is a need, then, to relate escape and other gratifications to alienation as indexed by attitudes toward social institutions and processes.

Nevertheless, the results of these empirical studies tie closely to the traditional depictions of the consequences of alienation. At least, they present some rough hypotheses regarding alienation and mass media use and gratifications. They suggest, first, that the alienated person should spend more time using the mass media in order to compensate for a lack of satisfaction with more personal communication. This should hold particularly for the "fantasy-oriented" electronic media. Second, within a given medium, the alienated person should select content that agrees with his image of a hostile and unpredictable world. Having rejected the institutions of the society, he should be lit- tle interested in governmental news or any type of content that de- pends on empathy with abstract institutions. He should attend to content like news of accidents and violence that fulfills his hostile world image and provides excitement, and should like media fare that permits identification with glamorous and nonthreatening personages.

The research presented here attempts to test the above hypotheses using not only alienation but education, which should represent a force in opposition to alienation in integrating the person into the society.11 Our measures of alienation represent a sampling of items from a variety of alienation studies.12 All items meet the objections

pp. 129-131; John W. Johnstone, "Social Structure and Patterns of Mass Media Con- sumption," University of Chicago, 1961, unpublished dissertation; and Matilda W. Riley and John Riley, Jr., "A Sociological Approach to Mass Communications Re- search," Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 15, 1951, pp. 444-450.

10 This is similar to a point made by Gwynn Nettler, "A Measure of Alienation," American Sociological Review, Vol. 22, 1957, p. 672; and also by Seeman, op. cit.

11 Education is often a good predictor, but why it predicts is seldom conceptual- ized. A variety of properties of education can be specified. For a discussion of several of these, see Merrill Samuelson, Richard Carter, and Lee Ruggels, "Education, Available Time and Use of Mass Media," Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 40, 1963, PP. 491 -496.

12 The sources of these items included: Leo Srole, "Social Integration and Certain Corollaries: An Exploratory Study," American Sociological Review, Vol. 21, t956, pp. 709-716; Nettler, op. cit.; Dwight Dean, "Meaning and Measurement of Allena- tion," American Sociological Review, Vol. 26, 1961, pp. 753-758; Arthur Neal and Salomon Rettig, "Dimensions of Alienation among Manual and Non-manual Work- ers," American Sociological Review, Vol. 28, 1963, pp. 599-608; and Russell Middleton, "Alienation, Race and Education," American Sociological Review, Vol. 28, 1963, pp. 973-977.

586 JACK McLEOD, SCOTT WARD, AND KAREN TANCILL

discussed above in avoiding the possible confusion of alienation with personal maladjustment.

METHOD

Personal interviews were conducted with a probability sample of 180 adults within the city of Madison, Wisconsin. Dwelling units were selected from the city directory, with the respondent randomly selected from within the household. The central urban-renewal sec- tion of the city was oversampled in order to obtain a socio-economic composition more nearly approximating most other American cities of a similar size. The interviewing, conducted during December of 1963, represents completed interviews from 83 per cent of the occu- pied dwelling units drawn. When the obtained interviews, with pro- portions adjusted for oversampling, were compared with the 1960 city census on various demographic characteristics no major differ- ences were found.

We were interested in which media were used, how much they were used, what was used within a given medium, and, finally, what grati- fications were obtained. For television, radio, and the newspapers we asked how much time was spent on an average day; for magazines this became how much time per week. The respondents were also asked if they had read any books during the past month. The content used within each medium was determined. Special attention was devoted to the newspaper by including a set of ten hypothetical headlines.l3 Each headline was read, and the respondent was asked whether, if he saw the headline in a local paper, he would read the whole story, a small part of the story, or pass on to other news.

Gratifications associated with reading newspapers were obtained by reading a list of nine different reasons and asking the respondent to indicate for each whether this reason applied to him generally, a little, or not at all.l4 While, ideally, more subtle and indirect means should be devised to ascertain gratifications, we should not overlook the use of direct questioning. At least we found that respondents could an-swer such questions and we were spared the necessity of making unre- liable inferences from more indirect measures.

The respondents were given a set of 13 items, each purporting to measure some aspect of alienation.15 For each item, the respondents indicated whether they "strongly agreed," "agreed," "disagreed," or "strongly disagreed." The items were rotated in direction, which di-

13 Similar headlines were used in Steven Withey and Jack McLeod, Detroiters and Their Newspapers, Ann Arbor, Mich., Survey Research Center, 1957, pp. 25-29.

14 These were taken largely from Berelson, 09. cit. 15 Srole, op. cit.; Nettler, op. cit.; Dean, op. c i t , 1961; Neal and Rettig, 09. cit.;

and Middleton, op. cit.

587 ALIENATION AND USES OF T H E MASS MEDIA

minished the possibility of response set being a factor in our total Alienation score obtained by summing across the 13 items. Some sam- ple items included:

The world is run by a few people in power, and there is very little the average citizen can do about it.

In spite of what some people say, the lot of the average man is getting worse.

Being successful in your job is the result of hard work; luck has very little to do with it. (Reverse-scoring item.)

In addition to alienation, education and other standard socio- economic measures were obtained. Finally, questions were asked re- garding the extent of the respondent's participation in society. In- cluded were measures of religious, political, organizational, and social activity.

RESULTS

T i m e spent with the media. Little support is given the prediction that alienation will be positively correlated with time spent using the mass media (Table I ) . The only significant correlation shown indi- cates that the more alienated are less apt than other respondents to read books. This is contrary to our first hypothesis. The subsidiary part of this prediction, that the alienated would give special attention to the "fantasy-oriented" media, is given some rather weak support. The two largest positive correlations between alienation and media time are with radio and television, while negative correlations are shown with two of the three print media.

Education appears to bear a stronger relationship to time spent with the media. I t is also apparent that the association of education

TABLE 1

CORRELATIONS AMOUNT TIME USING EACH MEDIUM WITH ALIENATION,OF OF EDUCATION, VARIABLESAND OTHER DEMOGRAPHIC

Demographic Variables

Income Occupational Medium Alienation Education of Head Prestige Age

Television + . l o 3 - ,419' -. 101 - ,325' + .200b Radio + ,109 -.166° - .012 - ,065 - ,025 Newspapers + .013 +.077 +.028 - .064 + ,049 Magazines - .078 + .293° + .203b +.177" - .095 Books* - ,278" + .43Sc + .092 + .294 - .281C

-

* Bi-serial correlation ( 7 6 ) is used for books because a dichotomous "read" or "not read" were the only responses possible. All other correlations are product- moment.

a = p < .05. b = p < .01. = p < .OOl.

588 JACK McLEOD, SCOTT WARD, AND KAREN TANCILL

with media time is highly contingent on the particular medium rather than as a correlate of total time spent with the mass media. Significant negative correlations of education with television and radio time are shown in Table 1 , whereas education is positively associated with each of the print media.16 While the preference for the "reality-oriented" media among the more educated supports the conceptuali- zation of education as increasing informational needs and reducing the need for escape and other forms of noninformational gratifica- tions, alternative explanations obviously are possible. For example, the skills for the use of printed material are presumably developed in the educational process along with the interpersonal skills and moti- vations for informational content.

The correlations of media time with other demographic variables are also shown in Table 1. From this, we can see that education is the key demographic variable in terms of the strength of its association with media time. While certain of the associations between media time and income, occupational prestige, and age are significant as zero-order correlations, the magnitude of each of these correlations is reduced below the significance level when the educational variable is par- tialed out (controlled). This tends to hold for other analyses as well, and we have therefore eliminated these other demographic variables from subsequent tables.

Interest i n headlines. Since the time spent with a mass medium is a rather gross measure of use, it is logical to go further to specify the content that is used. For the newspaper, this is usually a matter of using simple descriptive categories: foreign news, sports, comics, etc. These categories, however, do not get us much closer to the psycho- logical processes underlying their use. Our first step in this direction was to get the respondent's reaction to a set of ten hypothetical news- paper headlines that had been judged either "sensational" or "non- sensational" by a team of journalism graduate students prior to the in- terviewing.

Our prediction was that, the more alienated the respondent, the more likely would be his interest in the "sensational" headlines that present a hostile and threatening world. We also reasoned that, hav- ing rejected the utility of societal institutions, the more alienated re- spondents would be relatively uninterested in the "nonsensational" headlines devoted to political and economic affairs.

The data in Table 2 show that alienation is associated with lower 16 See Paul Lazarsfeld and Patricia Kendall, Radio Listening i n America, New

York, Prentice-Hall, 1948; Malcolm MacLean, "Mass Media Audiences: City, Small City, Village and Farm," Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 29, 1952, pp. 277; Withey and McLeod, op. cit.; Jack Lyle, "Impact of a Double Newspaper Merger," Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 39, 1962, p. 151; and Lloyd Bostian and John Ross, Mass Media and

589 ALIENATION AND USES OF T H E MASS MEDIA

interest in "nonsensational" headlines (r = -.286). This was as pre- dicted, but the hypothesis of a positive association of alienation and interest in "sensational" headlines was not supported. In fact, the alienated respondents tended to show lower interest than others (r = -.093). Perhaps the informational value of even these "sensational" headlines is great enough to attract the less alienated people and counterbalance the excitement value of these same headlines for the more alienated respondents.

TABLE 2

CORRELATIONS IN WITHOF INTEREST HEADLINES ALIENATION OFAND EDUCATION RESPONDENT

Headline Alienation Education

Nonsensational: Income Tax Brackets Revised January 1st - .22Sb + .182° Saturn Rockets Fired Successfully - .286' +.072 Stock Market Recovers From Assassination Drop - .037 + .081 Bus Strike Threatens Milwaukee - .061 - .I36 DeGaulle Plans Independent Nuclear Force - ,3170 + .203&

Sensational: Police Thwart Robbery on Capitol Square - .033 - .157" Bobby Baker Scandal Rocks U. S. Senate - .170a +.138 Madison Bus Kills Newsboy and Dog - ,028 - ,204' Another Buddhist Monk Burns to Death in Saigon - .I04 - .082 Ships Collide in St. Lawrence Seaway, 8 Dead - .049 -. 125

Total: Nonsensational headlines - .286' +.141 Total: Sensational headlines - .093 - .I38

Assuming that among the functions of education are the develop- ment of interest in political and economic affairs and of the ability to make meaningful contact with others (making vicarious contact un- necessary), it is reasonable to predict greater "nonsensational" interest and less "sensational" interest the more education received. In direc- tion, this is borne out in Table 2; however, the low correlations with the total "nonsensational" and "sensational" headlines (r = +.141, -.138) do not reach the .05 significance level. Four of the ten head- lines show significant correlations in the predicted direction. The total correlations would have been higher except for the unanticipated way in which two of the headlines related to education. Despite the scan- dal as an element of sensationalism, the headline "Bobby Baker Scan- dal Rocks U. S. Senate" had more appeal for the more educated

the Wisconsin Farm Family, Madison, University of Wisconsin Research Bulletin 234, 1962, pp. 21-22.

590 JACK McLEOD, SCOTT WARD, AND KAREN TANCILL

respondents, while "Bus Strike Threatens Milwaukee" was more at-tractive to the less educated. Perhaps the Bobby Baker tie with ~ O V -

ernmental affairs accounts for its upper-educational-level appeal, whereas a bus strike is more relevant to a working class which uses public transportation and is more involved in strike activity.

Gratifications of reading newspapers. Trying to find out why peo- ple use a mass medium is much more complex than finding out the time spent with the medium or the content that is attended to. While other approaches are possible, we chose the most direct path of ask- ing respondents to what extent each of nine possible uses applied to them. Three of these reasons (information, interpretation, and keep- ing up) appeared to deal with information for its own sake, and we classified these as "informational reasons." Three others (escape from daily worries, bringing excitement, and taking part in the lives of others) seemed to deal only indirectly with information and instead to serve as a substitute for more direct personal interaction. These we called "vicarious reasons." The motivation of the last three reasons (solving problems, providing conversational items, and the pleasure of reading) was somewhat unclear, and these were examined s e p arately.

The data indicate that the more alienated the respondent, the less likely he was to think informational reasons applied to him (r = -.282) and the more likely was his acceptance of vicarious reasons (r = +.261) as gratifications connected with his newspaper reading (Table 3). No significant correlations are shown between alienation and the final three reasons.

The greater the education of the respondent, the more likely he was to claim informational reasons (r = +.256) and the less likely he was to believe vicarious reasons applied to him (r = -.189). The more educated respondents also tended to attribute less importance to their use of newspapers as an aid in solving problems.

We thus found that both alienation and education are clear, though not strong, predictors of gratifications attributed to reading news-papers. We should also consider whether alienation and education are independent predictors of gratification. The correlation between aliena- tion and education is -.nql. The effect of partialing out education re- duces each of the correlations of alienation and gratifications only slightly. Similarly, partialing out the effects of alienation on the edu- cation-gratification correlations reduces neither the total Informational nor the total Vicarious correlations below significance. Alienation and education may then be considered as largely independent factors re- lated to newspaper gratifications.

Media use, social participation, and newspaper gratifications. We

ALIENATION AND USES OF T H E MASS MEDIA

TABLE 3

CORRELATIONS REASONS READINGNEWSPAPERSWITHOF GIVENFOR ALIENATION AND EDUCATIONRESPONDENTSOF

Reasons Given for Reading Newspaper Alienation Education

Informational reasons: For information For interpretation of important events To help me keep up with things

Vicarious reasons: To help me get away from daily worries To bring some excitement into my life To feel as though I am taking part in others'

lives without actually being there

Other reasons: As an aid in solving problems To give me something to talk about with

others For the pleasure of reading

Total: Informational reasons Total: Vicarious reasons

also wanted to see how the gratifications of newspaper use would re- late to the time spent with the various mass media. As shown in Table 4, giving informational reasons is rather definitely related to time spent with newspapers and magazines and to the reading of books. It is also associated with increased time spent with the newspaper during the past five years.

Giving vicarious reasons, on the other hand, is relatively independ- ent of time spent with the mass media except for a weak association with reading a greater number of newspapers. In direction, there is a tendency for these "vicarious" users EO spend more time with the elec- tronic media, where "fantasy content" is presumably more common. Perhaps the most interesting finding is for perceived changes in time spent with newspapers in the past five years-the information seekers say they spend more time, while the "vicarious" seekers are no more likely than others to make this claim. This may indicate that the news- paper is becoming more important for the information seekers, while it has only held its own with the "vicarious" seekers.

We also investigated the extent of social and political participation, because participation can be seen as both a stimulus to and a conse- quence of the gathering of information about the world. For this reason, we expected a positive correlation between informational rea- sons for newspaper use and each of our measures of participation. As shown in Table 4, significant correlations in the expected direction

592 JACK McLEOD, S C O T T WARD, AND KAREN TANCILL

TABLE 4

Informational Vicarious Reasons Reasons

Media use: Television time Radio time Newspaper time Magazine time Reading of books* Number of newspapers read Time spent reading newspapers compared

with five years ago

Social participation: Religious attendance Voting in the last election* Affiliation with either political party* Number of organizational memberships Organizational leadership* Travel to other cities Number of relatives visited regularly Number of friends visited regularly Perception of self as an opinion leader

* Bi-serial correlation ( r b ) is used for these items because only a dichotomous response choice was possible. All other correlations are product-moment.

a = p < .os. b = p < . O l . = p < . O O l .

were found for 7 of the g measures of participation. I t seems clear that leadership rather than sheer number of organizations belonged to is the key to information seeking and that the visiting of friends is cru- cial rather than the visiting of relatives. Perhaps being a follower in an organization and a family participant do not require the informa- tion that leadership and nonfamily friendships do.

The nonparticipant might be expected to compensate for his lack of contact by more strongly emphasizing escape, excitement, and pseudo-interaction in his use of the newspaper; alienation, earlier re- lated to vicarious gratifications, was also shown to be negatively corre- lated with almost all of our measures of participation (not shown in the tables presented). Table 4, however, shows no clear relationship between participation and vicarious gratifications. In fact, the only two significant associations do not support the prediction: those ac-cepting vicarious reasons do more visiting with relatives and friends than other respondents. The need to receive vicarious gratifications from the newspaper may, then, have roots other than withdrawal from participating in the society.

ALIENATION AND USES OF T H E MASS MEDIA

SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION

Our purpose was to explore the implications of alienation-a rejec-tion of societal institutions and processes-on use of the mass media. Previous research has been rather loosely interpreted as indicating that highly alienated persons use the mass media as an escape from the realities of life. Using standard measures of alienation, we found little evidence that alienated adults spend more time with the mass media generally. Education, on the other hand, showed the customary positive correlation with print-media time and negative associations with the electronic media.

Alienation was related to a lack of interest in a set of five "nonsensa- tional" hypothetical newspaper headlines, but the predicted tendency to be attracted to "sensational" headlines was not supported. In terms of gratifications attributed to their newspaper reading, the alienated respondents were less likely than other respondents to accept "infor- mational" reasons and more apt to feel that the "vicarious" reasons applied to them. Education was associated with greater importance given to "informational" reasons and less to the "vicarious" reasons.

Alienation does, then, show promise as an explanatory factor in the use of the newspaper. While the correlations shown are not high, they are as high as those of education with these same media-use variables and considerably higher than those of other demographic variables customarily used in media studies.

Our analysis should not obscure the media patterns common to all respondents. Of course, even the least alienated respondents spent more time with television than with the print media. They, too, tended to show more interest in the sensational headlines than in the less sensational content. Informational reasons were predominant for almost all respondents-only 1 1 per cent thought "information" did not generally apply to them-while more than half the sample de-nied that each of the vicarious reasons applied to them.

We must also avoid being unduly satisfied with our procedures. We learned, for example, that our categorization of headlines into sensa- tional and nonsensational did not clearly relate to alienation and edu- cation in the predicted way. At least two of the headlines might better have been switched in our classification. Although our gratification measures revealed promising results, they suffer from the usual disad- vantages of all such direct measures-the inability of the person to say why he does what he does. In addition to trying to develop more indirect gratification measures, we feel the gratifications should be ex- plored for the other mass media. Within the vicarious reasons, an as- sessment of the dimensionality of the various reasons should be made.

594 JACK McLEOD, SCOTT WARD, AND KAREN TANCILL

In our present data, the correlation of "escape" and "contact with other people" was only +.og7, perhaps indicating the presence of two or more vicarious subdimensions.

Finally, our analyses of the quantity of participation indicate that the antecedents for using the newspaper for vicarious purposes are not merely a reflection of nonparticipation and isolation from other people. Quality of interaction rather than quantity may be a better explana- tion for the seeking of vicarious gratifications. T h e uses of the media are too complex to be explained by simple theories of replacement in any case.

You have printed the following article:

Alienation and Uses of the Mass MediaJack McLeod; Scott Ward; Karen TancillThe Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 4. (Winter, 1965-1966), pp. 583-594.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0033-362X%28196524%2F196624%2929%3A4%3C583%3AAAUOTM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H

This article references the following linked citations. If you are trying to access articles from anoff-campus location, you may be required to first logon via your library web site to access JSTOR. Pleasevisit your library's website or contact a librarian to learn about options for remote access to JSTOR.

[Footnotes]

3 On the Use of the Mass Media as "Escape": Clarification of a ConceptElihu Katz; David FoulkesThe Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 3. (Autumn, 1962), pp. 377-388.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0033-362X%28196223%2926%3A3%3C377%3AOTUOTM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2

4 On the Use of the Mass Media as "Escape": Clarification of a ConceptElihu Katz; David FoulkesThe Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 3. (Autumn, 1962), pp. 377-388.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0033-362X%28196223%2926%3A3%3C377%3AOTUOTM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2

5 The Meaning of Politics in Mass SocietyMorris RosenbergThe Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 1. (Spring, 1951), pp. 5-15.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0033-362X%28195121%2915%3A1%3C5%3ATMOPIM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-0

5 Alienation and Political ApathyDwight G. DeanSocial Forces, Vol. 38, No. 3. (Mar., 1960), pp. 185-189.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-7732%28196003%2938%3A3%3C185%3AAAPA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-0

http://www.jstor.org

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 1 of 4 -

NOTE: The reference numbering from the original has been maintained in this citation list.

5 Occupation, Status, and Suicide: Toward a Redefinition of AnomieElwin H. PowellAmerican Sociological Review, Vol. 23, No. 2. (Apr., 1958), pp. 131-139.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28195804%2923%3A2%3C131%3AOSASTA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N

6 On The Meaning of AlienationMelvin SeemanAmerican Sociological Review, Vol. 24, No. 6. (Dec., 1959), pp. 783-791.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28195912%2924%3A6%3C783%3AOTMOA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2

7 On the Use of the Mass Media as "Escape": Clarification of a ConceptElihu Katz; David FoulkesThe Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 3. (Autumn, 1962), pp. 377-388.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0033-362X%28196223%2926%3A3%3C377%3AOTUOTM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2

8 Social and Personal Stress and Escape Television ViewingLeonard I. PearlinThe Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 2. (Summer, 1959), pp. 255-259.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0033-362X%28195922%2923%3A2%3C255%3ASAPSAE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D

9 Television: Its Impact on School ChildrenEleanor E. MaccobyThe Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 3. (Autumn, 1951), pp. 421-444.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0033-362X%28195123%2915%3A3%3C421%3ATIIOSC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-R

10 A Measure of AlienationGwynn NettlerAmerican Sociological Review, Vol. 22, No. 6. (Dec., 1957), pp. 670-677.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28195712%2922%3A6%3C670%3AAMOA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W

http://www.jstor.org

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 2 of 4 -

NOTE: The reference numbering from the original has been maintained in this citation list.

10 On The Meaning of AlienationMelvin SeemanAmerican Sociological Review, Vol. 24, No. 6. (Dec., 1959), pp. 783-791.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28195912%2924%3A6%3C783%3AOTMOA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2

12 Social Integration and Certain Corollaries: An Exploratory StudyLeo SroleAmerican Sociological Review, Vol. 21, No. 6. (Dec., 1956), pp. 709-716.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28195612%2921%3A6%3C709%3ASIACCA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-7

12 A Measure of AlienationGwynn NettlerAmerican Sociological Review, Vol. 22, No. 6. (Dec., 1957), pp. 670-677.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28195712%2922%3A6%3C670%3AAMOA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W

12 Alienation: Its Meaning and MeasurementDwight G. DeanAmerican Sociological Review, Vol. 26, No. 5. (Oct., 1961), pp. 753-758.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28196110%2926%3A5%3C753%3AAIMAM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3

12 Dimensions of Alienation Among Manual and Non-Manual WorkersArthur G. Neal; Salomon RettigAmerican Sociological Review, Vol. 28, No. 4. (Aug., 1963), pp. 599-608.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28196308%2928%3A4%3C599%3ADOAAMA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z

12 Alienation, Race, and EducationRussell MiddletonAmerican Sociological Review, Vol. 28, No. 6. (Dec., 1963), pp. 973-977.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28196312%2928%3A6%3C973%3AARAE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I

http://www.jstor.org

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 3 of 4 -

NOTE: The reference numbering from the original has been maintained in this citation list.

15 Social Integration and Certain Corollaries: An Exploratory StudyLeo SroleAmerican Sociological Review, Vol. 21, No. 6. (Dec., 1956), pp. 709-716.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28195612%2921%3A6%3C709%3ASIACCA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-7

15 A Measure of AlienationGwynn NettlerAmerican Sociological Review, Vol. 22, No. 6. (Dec., 1957), pp. 670-677.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28195712%2922%3A6%3C670%3AAMOA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W

15 Alienation: Its Meaning and MeasurementDwight G. DeanAmerican Sociological Review, Vol. 26, No. 5. (Oct., 1961), pp. 753-758.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28196110%2926%3A5%3C753%3AAIMAM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3

15 Dimensions of Alienation Among Manual and Non-Manual WorkersArthur G. Neal; Salomon RettigAmerican Sociological Review, Vol. 28, No. 4. (Aug., 1963), pp. 599-608.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28196308%2928%3A4%3C599%3ADOAAMA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z

15 Alienation, Race, and EducationRussell MiddletonAmerican Sociological Review, Vol. 28, No. 6. (Dec., 1963), pp. 973-977.Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28196312%2928%3A6%3C973%3AARAE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I

http://www.jstor.org

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 4 of 4 -

NOTE: The reference numbering from the original has been maintained in this citation list.