Television news and the informed public : an information - processing approach.

There is a growing evidence that television may be less useful than newspapers or word of mouth at conveying information to the public. Based on two sets of large- scale national surveys in 1983 and 1985- 1986 an analysis is made. Most differences by amount of TV news viewing are either insignificant or are in the "wrong" direction, that is, those who view TV newscasts or who claim TV newscasts to be their main information source have lower comprehension sources.