PERCEPTIONS OF NEWS MEDIA PERFORMANCE WITH ALIENATION FROM GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS CORPORATIONS: AN OHIO CASE STUDY By

Printed media, television news and advertisements have been systematically analyzed to reveal sources of information and influence on people toward the learning of party platform, election issues, etc. in presidential as well as off-year elections, and studies have revealed that these news media have had an impact as important information sources. Other scholars and commentators, though, express concern over the role of news media. There is concern that the news media may be actually undermining the system by creating apathy and cynicism among the public of important institutions such as the government, big business and financial corporations, and even of the media themselves. The objectives of this study, then, were to examine the relationships between satisfaction with news media performance (in getting news and discussion of public affairs), and perceptions of news media performance with feelings of alienation from government, and from business/financial corporations in the immediate aftermath of the historical 2008 US presidential election. The target population for the study was students of a mid-sized university in Ohio, USA. A non-probability quota sampling method was used to select respondents (N=659) for a survey using a structured questionnaire. Our findings did not support the notion that news media are cultivating disaffection by distancing people from important institutions. Instead, the findings provided support to a plethora of research that has disputed the conclusion that the media may be contributing to voter alienation. Key Words: News Media Effects, Alienation and Media, News Media Performance, News Media Satisfaction JCMRJournal of Communication and Media Research, Vol. 3, No. 1, April 2011, 1 – 12.