Masters Theses

Date of Award

8-1998

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Communication

Major Professor

Candace White

Committee Members

Eric Haley, Mark Miller

Abstract

Introduction: The Internet is perhaps the most rapidly developing communications technology in history (Eighmey and McCord 1998). In January 1995, there were 4.8 million people online. By January 1996, the number had almost doubled to 9.5 million (Lottor 1996). Today there are an estimated 110 million people worldwide using the Internet (NUA 1998). Most studies indicate that the primary use by consumers of the Internet is exploration and entertainment (Pitkow and Recker 1994: Eighmey and McCord 1998). However, consumers are not the only people using this new technology. Many businesses are trying to take advantage of this new commercial outlet. They are using the Internet for many facets of business like product information, customer relations, marketing, and advertising (Cross 1994). Advertising is a growing area on the World Wide Web (a part of the Internet), but most of the revenue is concentrated on as few as ten large commercial sites (Resnick 1996). But what has caused such an interest in the power of the Internet over the last few years? One cause may be the increase of mass media stories about the topic.

Many theories have focused on the fact that all mass media tend to cover the same topics and, that once one reporter decides to cover a topic, he points "the herd" in the same direction (Sabato 1991; Crouse 1973). According to some researchers, 1995 was the year the Internet really took off with more hosts being provided (see Appendix A) and more people going online (Gray 1996; Lottor 1996: Evenson 1995; Zakon 1998). Since the Internet began booming around 1995, media reports on the Internet probably began surfacing more in 1994 because the media's agenda reflecting in the public agenda has a lag-time of two to six months (Stone and McComb 1981).

The purpose of this study is to provide some insight on media coverage of new communications technology over a four-year period by looking at one newsmagazine to show what was covered.

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