Citation

Beaudoin CE. Commun. Res. 2009; 36(5): 611-636.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0093650209338905

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The current study assesses the association between news use and social capital—and whether this association varies by ethnicity and medium. Ordinary least square regression analysis indicates that social capital is predicted by newspaper exposure, but not TV national news exposure or TV local news exposure. In addition, there are two significant interaction terms between the news exposure measures and ethnicity in predicting social capital. First, the association between newspaper exposure and social capital is more positive for Whites than Latinos. Second, the association between TV national news exposure and social capital is less positive for Whites than Blacks. Of four potential contributory factors, the most viable factor is communication culture. Specifically, the relative oral and literate traditions of American ethnic groups are most suitable for explaining how the association between news use and social capital varies by ethnicity and medium.