Publications

Publication details [#37720]

Protess, David L., Fay Lomax Cook, Thomas R. Curtin, Margaret T. Gordon, Donna R. Leff, Maxwell E. McCombs and Peter Miller. 1987. The impact of investigative reporting on public opinion and policymaking: Targeting toxic waste. Public Opinion Quarterly 51 (2) : 166–185.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
University of Chicago Press
ISBN
0033-362X

Annotation

This article reports the fourth in a continuing series of case studies that explore the impact of news media investigative journalism on the general public, policymakers, and public policy. The media disclosures in this field experiment had limited effects on the general public but were influential in changing the attitudes of policymakers. The study describes how changes in public policymaking resulted from collaboration between journalists and government officials. The authors develop a model that is a beginning step toward specifying the conditions under which media investigations influence public attitudes and agendas.