Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1986

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Communication

Major Professor

Jack B. Haskins

Abstract

As the business-media adversarial relationship has progressed, there appears to be increasing incidences of executive media paranoia. This phenomenon was investigated in terms of one possible contributing factor—selective perceptions of media messages by business executives.

Data were colleted from the population consisting of 176 members of the Kentucky Tomorrow project using a self-administered mail questionnaire. Three subpopulations were defined as business executives, educational administrators and other elites.

Each subpopulation was administered two treatment levels of three treatment conditions. The 27 news stories and headlines which comprised the treatment conditions were selected from the Lexington Herald Leader, Louisville Courier Journal, New York Times and USA Today.

Respondents rated the news stories and headlines using Haskins News Direction Scale. Results were analyzed using the student's t statistic with an alpha level of .05. The response rate was 42 percent.

The study found business executives rated business news content significantly more negative than non-business news content, and they rated business news content significantly more negative than did non-business elites. Additional analysis showed business executives rated business news content significantly more negative than either educational administrators rated education news headlines and content or other elites rated general interest news content.

Educational administrators rated education story headlines and content significantly more positive than non-education story headlines and content. There was no significant difference between the educational administrators ratings of education story headlines and content by non-education elites.

Education elites were significantly more positive in their ratings of education news headlines and content than other elites were in rating general interest news headlines and content.

Other elites rated general interest news headlines significantly more negative than non-general interest news headlines. There was no significant difference in their ratings of general interest news content and non-general interest news content.

The other elites rated general interest news headlines and content significantly more positive than the business/ education elites rated the same headlines and content.

The major conclusion drawn from the study was that business executives had very different perceptions of news stories than their counterparts in education or other elites. This selective perception of media messages is a contributing factor to executives' media paranoia.

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