Lipinski & Neddenriep 2004 Using New Media To Get Old Media Coverage

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DOI: 10.1177/1081180X03259819 2004; 9; 7 The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics

Daniel Lipinski and Gregory Neddenriep Court Journalists

Using "New" Media to Get "Old" Media Coverage: How Members of Congress Utilize Their Web Sites to

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10.1177/1081180X03259819 ARTICLEPress/Politics 9(1) Winter 2004Lipinski, Neddenriep / Using “New” Media

Using “New” Media to Get“Old” Media CoverageHow Members of Congress UtilizeTheir Web Sites to Court Journalists

Daniel Lipinski and Gregory Neddenriep

The Internet is often viewed as a replacement for “old” modes of communication, atool used by news seekers, including public officials, to bypass traditional news media.However, the authors show that the arrival of this “new” media has not caused offi-cials to forsake journalists and abandon traditional media. Instead, they are utilizingthe Web as a new method for seeking coverage from the old media. By conducting acontent analysis of the official Web sites of every member of the U.S. Congress, theauthors reveal that about three-quarters of these legislators explicitly employ theirsite to try to attract journalists and traditional reporting. In addition, the authorsexamine the types of features that are included to make congressional Web sites“media friendly” and the extent to which each of these is used by members. Finally,they discuss some of the factors that explain the variance among legislators in regardto their use of Web sites for this purpose.

Keywords: Congress; journalists; Internet; media; Web sites

The Internet is often viewed as a replacement for “old” forms of mass communi-cation, a tool used to bypass traditional news media and communicate directlywith the public. For example, political actors can use this new medium to cir-cumvent journalists who may filter their strategic messages to the public. Whilethis capability makes the Internet especially appealing to public officials, theimplications for representative democracy can be troubling. If the need for newscoverage is obviated by the net, journalists will have a much more difficult timeserving as the necessary watchdogs of the political system. While other scholars

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Press/Politics 9(1):7-21DOI: 10.1177/1081180X03259819© 2004 by the President and the Fellows of Harvard College



have demonstrated the appeal and the increasing importance of this newmedium for direct mass communication by government officials, it is essential toremember that coverage by the traditional media is still vital to these individuals.In fact, to witness the continued importance of old media to public officials inthis new media era, we need only examine the same Web sites being used tocommunicate around journalists. We demonstrate this through our analysis ofthe Web sites of members of the U.S.Congress. In this article, we first reveal theextent to which representatives explicitly use their sites to garner traditionalnews coverage. Next, we show the types of features that are included on thesesites to make them “media friendly” and facilitate the work of journalists.1

Finally,we discuss some of the factors that explain the variance among legislatorsin regard to the extent to which their Web sites are media friendly.

The Need for Traditional Media Coverageby Members of Congress

Members of the U.S. Congress are usually assumed to have three main goals:reelection, good public policy, and power (Fenno 1973). In pursuit of thesegoals, especially the primary goal of reelection, legislators attempt to communi-cate strategic messages to the public. To win reelection, they transmit messagesdesigned to build the support of constituents in their district/state whose votesthey need. When members pursue their policy goals, they may try to rally sup-port for a cause by expanding the scope of conflict (Schattschneider 1960) or byusing an “outside strategy” where they encourage citizens to pressure other rep-resentatives to endorse their legislation (Davis 1992). This requires communi-cating to the public outside of the district/state represented to garner supportfor certain policies. When pursuing policy in this manner, legislators are oftensimultaneously advancing their goal of power inside the institution. The pursuitof power on the outside involves attempting to gain support from citizens whomay vote for the representative as a candidate for a higher office such as governoror president.

Sending messages through the news media is one important way that manymembers of Congress seek to communicate with the public to achieve theirgoals. Whether they seek local or national news coverage at any particular pointin time depends on the goal they are pursuing. When pursuing reelection, manyseek coverage by local news outlets because they are targeted at the member’sconstituents, and, according to some commentators, the local news coverage ismore predictable (Davis 1992) and less trenchant (Robinson 1981). It is, there-fore,not surprising that press secretaries in the House prioritize local media out-lets over national ones (Cook 1988; Hess 1991). While some senators may seekcoverage from national news media as they search for reelection, local news is ofcritical importance.When members pursue their policy and inside power goals,

8 Press/Politics 9(1) Winter 2004



they will court the national media because they need to influence a larger audi-ence. In seeking higher office, legislators may want local and/or national cover-age depending on the office they are aspiring to win.

While communication through the news media is an efficient way to reach alarge audience, it is not an ideal method for members who are trying to get theirmessages out. One problem is that members, especially those in the House,receive little coverage from local (Vinson 2002) or national (Kimball 1994)news media.Even when they appear in the news,they may not receive the type ofcoverage that they want. The job of a journalist is not to act simply as a conduitfor officials’ messages to the public, but, instead, journalists are supposed tomediate by choosing which stories to cover and how to cover them.2 Thus,mem-bers have an incentive to embrace direct communication so they can controlthe information that they are sending. Techniques such as mailings, member-controlled public-access cable television programs, speeches, and other publicappearances by members are important ways that messages are communicatedin an unmediated fashion. These communication opportunities (many of whichthey provide for themselves with official expenses) are sometimes credited withgiving incumbents a significant advantage when running for reelection.

Some members of Congress have little interest in using the news media toadvance policy and power goals, and they are satisfied that their direct communi-cation does enough to virtually ensure reelection.The members who fit into thiscategory do not put much effort into garnering media coverage, but most mem-bers do seek coverage because unmediated communication has some drawbacks.First, direct communication is not very useful in sending messages to those out-side of a member’s district/state because public funds can be spent only to facili-tate communication with constituents.3 Second, and more important, all formsof direct communication lack the legitimacy that is instilled when messages areconveyed by an unbiased third party.4 Sophisticated audiences may perceive apolitician’s direct communication as self-serving, while they are more likely totrust information coming from journalists who are ostensibly neutral.The tradi-tional media provide members with legitimacy that they cannot achieve throughunmediated self-promotion. Thus, despite the considerable resources put intodirect communication, most members still have an incentive to put significanteffort into attracting news coverage.

Use of the Web for Communicationby Members of Congress

Since the 1990s, the Internet has provided representatives with a new way tocircumvent the news media and directly communicate with the public. TheHouse of Representatives joined the Internet revolution in the 103rd Congress(1993–94) when it set up a gopher site to provide information such as “listings of

Lipinski, Neddenriep / Using “New” Media 9



members along with committee memberships and party leadership lists” (Davis1999: 123). At the same time, a few senators established their own gopher sites.With the Republican takeover in 1995, the House “took major strides towardusing the Internet as a tool for disseminating political information” (Davis 1999:123). Today, every member of Congress (except one, noted below) has a Webpage that can be accessed through the House or Senate Web site and is main-tained with official (government) funds.

A few good analyses have been performed on the content of congressionalWeb sites.One of the earliest works examined Web sites that existed in 1996 andfound that members used them to advertise themselves as “attractive, approach-able, and helpful public servants” but presented “no discussion of legislation”(Owen et al. 1999: 25). A study conducted the following year—when manymembers still did not yet have a site—explored the variance among members inwhether their office took advantage of this new technology. In this seminal work,Adler et al. (1998) demonstrated that young Republicans representing affluentdistricts had a greater likelihood of maintaining a site. However, neither senior-ity nor vote margin were significant predictors of whether a member had a site.5

Other studies have analyzed congressional sites and rated how valuable theircontent is to constituents. Two extensive studies by the Congressional Manage-ment Foundation (2002, 2003) examined every personal, standing committee,and leadership site and gave each a grade from A to F.The earlier study tended tocriticize the content and noted a great disparity in the quality of sites, while thefollow-up study in 2003 cited vast improvements and complemented Congresson its remedial efforts. The cumulative grade-point average for all congressionalsites rose from 1.76 in 2002 up to 2.30 in 2003, but Republicans maintainedhigher marks than Democrats in both years. These studies demonstrate that useof this technology is still in its infancy; as would be expected, the sites are gettingbetter, but they have significant room for improvement.

While research on Congress and the Internet has revealed how members usethis medium as a new way to send messages to constituents, the findings showthat employment of this technology has by no means eliminated the use of sometraditional methods of direct communication. The content of the Web sitesdemonstrates that mailings, speeches, and public appearances remain impor-tant. What the Web does is enhance and expand the use of these traditionalmethods. Savvy members, for instance, can advertise their upcoming appear-ances online so the political functions they plan to attend receive more attention;after the event, they can post carefully selected highlights—in text, audio, orvideo—to convey a certain message. Newsletters that were sent through themail or speeches that had been carried on C-SPAN can be placed on Web sites sothat constituents have another opportunity to see them. The Internet has notreplaced these old forms of communication.




How the Internet Serves JournalistsWhile the Internet is often viewed as a threat to traditional media and hence

to journalists, it can also serve as a valuable tool in the practice of journalism. Injournalism schools today, students learn how to take advantage of the Internet(e.g., see Callahan 2003). Most journalists have to work under tight deadlines;they need to get a story and get it quickly. Surfing the Web can be a quick andcost-effective way to obtain necessary information.Given that journalists reporthaving heavier workloads and receiving less assistance when compiling their sto-ries (Public Relations Tactics 2000), it is not surprising that they are turning tothe Internet to ease their burdens. One recent survey conducted by the firm ofMiddleberg and Ross found that 91 percent of editors at daily newspapers andmagazines reported that either they or their staff used online services to researcharticles (cited in Hachigian and Hallahan 2003: 44). Similarly, a poll by the Con-gressional Management Foundation (2002) suggests that journalists who coverCongress rely heavily on the Internet. Almost all respondents to the survey hadvisited a congressional site in the past year; most said they used such sites morethan 20 times while 35 percent indicated that they used them more than 100times (Congressional Management Foundation 2002: 70).6

Corporations and public relations firms have acknowledged this trend amongjournalists and are reaching out online by doing things such as shifting the place-ment of their advertorials from print publications to the Internet (Brown andWaltzer 2001). The Norman Nielsen Group recently conducted a study thatreflects corporate America’s awareness that it is important to create Web sitesthat are media friendly (Coyne and Nielsen 2003). In assembling their study, thegroup interviewed journalists about how they used the Web to gather informa-tion about companies.They found respondents visited Web sites to (1) locate thename and phone number of a contact person, (2) verify basic facts, and (3) learnabout the company’s “spin” on events (Coyne and Nielson 2003: 3). Journalistsdid not frequent sites to find new stories, but they went there to fill out storiesthat were already in progress. Corporations that failed to provide this informa-tion in a simple, easy-to-access format risked not receiving the favorable cover-age they desired. Many respondents agreed that “poor website usability couldreduce or completely eliminate their press coverage of that company” (Coyneand Nielson 2003: 1). Journalists covering Congress are likely to visit members’Web sites for similar reasons, but there is little empirical evidence on this point.In the 2002 Congressional Management Foundation survey, reporters wereasked what type of information they were seeking from congressional sites. Thestudy found reporters were looking for press releases, photos from events, sum-maries of national issues, lists of the members’ accomplishments, and press con-tact information.

It is also important to recognize that Congress is covered by journalists work-ing for a wide variety of outlets that focus on different types of news, including




national, local (to each legislator), local Washington, and specialty news (such astrade publications). Another important distinction is between different mediasuch as television, radio, and print publications. Depending on the outlet forwhich they work, journalists will have varying informational needs.A local jour-nalist, for example, is likely to search congressional sites so she or he can developinteresting local slants to national events. Such a person might be concernedwith how her or his particular representative voted,why the lawmaker voted theway he did, and how the outcome will affect the district. In contrast, a nationaljournalist might try to identify which members are exceptionally active on anissue or how one of these high-profile members reacted to a vote implicating hiscause (e.g., John McCain’s reaction to a vote affecting campaign finance). Inthese instances, it is unlikely that Web sites will be the only place that journalistswill look, but a site with crucial information may mean the difference between arepresentative being included or excluded from the story. Web sites usually willnot serve as the only connection between a representative and a journalist, butthey are more likely to be the motivation for the journalist to personally contactthe member or someone in the member’s office.

Analysis

We performed a content analysis of all the official Web sites maintained byindividual members of Congress in October and November of 2002. To ensurethe sites we viewed were indeed the “official” ones, we accessed them throughlinks posted on the House and Senate Web pages. At the time of the study, all themembers maintained such a site with the exception of Representative Jesse Jack-son Jr. (D-IL) (who instead relies on a private site that the House neither subsi-dizes nor regulates.)7 Employing an approach similar to that of Brown andWaltzer (2001) and Callison (2003), we first coded each of the 531 sites forwhether it contained a section (usually a separate link) specifically labeled asbeing intended for members of the news media. These “online newsrooms,”according to some public relations firms (e.g., Vocus, Inc. 2002), are the bestway to reach journalists because they provide a wealth of news-oriented infor-mation in an organized format. We found that members were using thirty-sixdifferent labels to identify this section, including titles such as “Breaking News,”“Media Services,” and “Press Gallery.”8

If an online newsroom existed, we recorded the various features placed onthat site to help journalists write a story about the member. It is important tonote that we coded only for media-friendly features found inside the onlinenewsrooms and disregarded those located in other areas of the Web sites. Weused this coding scheme because we were concerned with members’ overtattempts to attract the news media rather than the inclusion of information that




journalists could encounter by happenstance. As one scholar put it, “Scatteringmaterials throughout a Web site does little to make a journalist’s life easier”(Callison 2003: 35).

Since we believed that many members would be using their Web sites toattract traditional media coverage, we expect a high percentage of members inboth chambers to have a section intended specifically for journalists. Our analy-sis reveals that about three-quarters of the members (391 out of 531, or 73.6percent) utilize online newsrooms to attract journalists. While use of this tacticis not ubiquitous, as was mentioned previously, it has never been the case that allmembers seek media coverage. Therefore, the large percentage of memberswho maintain this section on their Web sites demonstrates that members stillseek news coverage and they are using their Web sites to try to garner it.

We next examined the content of these online newsrooms. Our codingreveals that twenty-nine different features appeared within the online news-rooms (see Table 1). Each newsroom varies to a significant extent in regard tothe number of different features available for journalists. The number foundinside any single newsroom ranged from one to fifteen. Only a handful of thenewsrooms were near the top of the distribution, with only one containing fif-teen features followed by two with eleven features. It was much more commonfor the number of features to fall somewhere toward the lower end of the range,as members tended to rely on a small number of key items they believed wouldbe useful to journalists. The mean number of features inside the newsrooms was3.38,while the median and mode were 3 and 1,respectively. In short, journalistsvisiting the online newsrooms will encounter helpful materials presented in anorganized format, but they most likely will not be able to find a smorgasbord ofitems.

The thirty-six different labels used for online newsrooms, the twenty-nineassorted features within the newsrooms, and the disparity in the number of fea-tures utilized by each member demonstrate that there is not a uniform way inwhich members construct online newsrooms. One explanation for this findingwould be that members and their staffs do not have a considerable interest inlearning and providing the type of information that journalists seek. This couldlead one to question the real importance of these online newsrooms and hencethe significance of our findings. However, we are not surprised by the lack ofstandardization considering the results of the Congressional Management Foun-dation studies. Since the content designed for constituents is generally poor andvaries significantly in quality, we should expect the same for the contentintended for journalists. We suggest that this is a sign that these online news-rooms, along with congressional Web sites in general, are still at an early stage ofdevelopment. As time goes on, we expect that staffers in congressional officeswill gain experiences that will help them find a more consistent set of features




that are attractive to journalists. The fact that so many offices make an effort tohave online newsrooms suggests the importance that members of Congressalready place on this new way of reaching journalists.

Looking specifically at the types of features included in online newsroomsgives us a better understanding of how members are trying to gain news cover-age through this medium. Our analysis demonstrates that the items inside thenewsrooms were mostly other forms of direct communication or traditionalmethods of attracting journalists that had been organized and posted online (seeTable 1). This was especially true for the key items that dominated the content.Press releases, the ubiquitous and time-tested method of gaining news coverage,were unequivocally the most common feature found, appearing in more than 96percent of the newsrooms. Speeches given by the member—either during a


Table 1Features inside online newsrooms

Feature Frequency Percentage with the Feature

Press releases 377 96.4Text of speeches 151 38.6Columns or op-ed pieces 141 36.1Links to other Web sites 78 19.9Audio or video clips 64 16.4Newsletters 59 15.1The official photo 54 13.8Photos of people and events 53 13.6Press contact information 52 13.3Articles about the member 51 13Sign-up for online newsletters 46 11.8The member’s biography 32 8.2Official statements 25 6.4Updates on recent events 23 5.9Public appearances 18 4.6Calendar of events or schedule 17 4.3List of positions on issues 13 3.3Sponsored legislation 10 2.6Letters to colleagues 9 2.3Reports or documents 9 2.3Interview transcripts 8 2List of accomplishments 5 1.3Bills (description or text) 4 1Online chat capability 4 1Facts about the home district or state 4 1Grants procured by the member 4 1Member’s voting record 4 1Testimony from hearings 3 0.8Member’s committee assignments 3 0.8



public function or during official business in Congress—were a distant secondand were present in 38.6 percent of the newsrooms. Newspaper columns or op-ed pieces written by the member rounded out the top three items and were pres-ent 36.1 percent of the time. It was foreseeable that these items would be preva-lent given that members have historically relied on them to garner media atten-tion and to cultivate support among voters. Members are continuing to utilizethese mainstays, and they are trying to get more mileage out of them by postingthem online in hopes of reaping more interest from journalists.

There were only two features that we found in online newsrooms that aredependent on new technology. One gives journalists the opportunity to sign upto receive periodic e-mails that contain press releases, newsletters, or alerts thatmight be of interest to journalists covering the member. Only forty-six mem-bers (11.8 percent of those with online newsrooms) have Web sites that containsuch a feature,but as e-mail becomes more prevalent and accessible, it is likely toincrease in importance. The other feature that relies on Internet technology isthe opportunity to participate in online chats with the member.Only four mem-bers make this available for journalists. Again, use of this feature may increasewith advances in technology that make this more practicable.

The overall pattern of media-friendly features found in the online newsroomsfits with what we would expect from the use of a technology that is in an earlystage of development. Members are using the Internet to enhance the old waysthat they sought media attention, just as they are using it to enhance the oldmethods of direct communication to constituents. In addition, we found widevariance across sites in the content of the online newsrooms designed for jour-nalists, just as others have found wide variance in the content of Web sitesintended for constituents. We expect that as this use of the Internet develops,there will be more standardization in the newsrooms and greater use of newtechnological innovations.

Our final step was to analyze a few of the factors that we believed wouldexplain some of the variance among legislators in regard to the level of mediafriendliness of their Web sites. We tested our expectation that senators wouldput more effort than House members into making their site attractive to journal-ists. Our data show that 87 percent of senators maintained online newsroomswhile only 70.5 percent of representatives did (see Table 2). This differencebetween the chambers was statistically significant (and measures of associationindicated that the strength of the relationship was fairly strong).9 Senators alsotend to put more effort into their newsrooms as measured by the greater num-ber of features.On average,senators have 4.36 items in their newsrooms in com-parison to 3.10 items for House members; this difference is also statistically sig-nificant (t[389] = –5.015, p < .01).

These discrepancies between the chambers probably occur because senatorsare more likely to seek news coverage and journalists are more likely to want to




cover senators.Senators are more attractive to the news media because they gen-erally have more power than representatives. This power inequality resultsbecause there are only 100 senators (as compared to 435 House members), sen-ators sit on more committees than representatives, and Senate rules give each ofits members a greater ability to affect the legislative process on the chamberfloor. The more power an individual has, the more attractive he or she is to thenews media. In many media markets, senators are also more likely to be attrac-tive to journalists because their actions are relevant to all of the potential audi-ence, as opposed to House members who may represent only a portion of themarket. In addition, senators are more likely to seek media attention; a goodnumber aspire to become president (outside power goal), and many seek to usetheir power to move policy (policy goal). For these reasons, senators havegreater incentives to make their Web sites attractive to journalists, and journal-ists have greater incentives to visit senators’Web pages; this, in turn, encouragesthe senators to improve their online newsrooms. In other words, a cycle basedon the unique needs of senators and journalists spurs senators to put more effortinto constructing media-friendly Web sites.

Based on prior research, we suspected that Republicans may put more effortthan Democrats into having media-friendly Web sites.While we found 76.3 per-cent of the Republicans maintaining online newsrooms compared to 70.9 per-cent of their Democratic counterparts, this difference was not statistically signif-icant. Our other indicator yielded a similar finding with Republicans, onaverage, displaying 3.45 items inside their online newsrooms while Democratstypically displayed 3.31 items. When we consider the two chambers separately,however, there is a partisan difference.Republicans in the House are significantlymore likely to have an online newsroom (75.6 percent to 65.4 percent,p < .05),while in the Senate, Democrats are more likely to do so (94.0 percent to 79.6percent, p < .05) (see Table 3). These findings suggest that among individualmembers, Republicans are not clearly “ahead” of Democrats in using the Web toreach journalists but that there are intrachamber partisan differences that may beattributable to the efforts of party leaders. This result demonstrates the need for


Table 2Presence of online newsrooms by chamber

House Senate Total

Online Newsroom Present % n % n % n

Yes 70.5 304 87 87 73.6 391No 29.5 127 13 13 26.4 140Total 100 431 100 100 100 531

Note: χ2 (1, N = 531) = 11.336, p < .01 (one-tailed); Yule’s Q = 0.473.



further study of the technological leadership exhibited by the parties in eachchamber.

Finally, we surmised that younger members would be more likely to use newtechnologies because they came of age when computers were becoming moreprevalent. Dividing all members into five age groups—younger than 40, 40 to49,50 to 59,60 to 69,and older than 69—indicates that there are no remarkabledifferences across these groups when comparing members’ usage of onlinenewsrooms. Similar evidence emerged when we looked for a connectionbetween age and the number of features within the newsrooms. Relying on thesame five age groups, we found that each group’s average fell somewherebetween 3.27 and 3.55 features, and a one-way ANOVA verified that the differ-ences between these means were not statistically significant. Splitting the cham-bers, we found similar results regarding age in the House. In the Senate, though,there was a downward trend in the percentage of members who had an onlinenewsroom as we move up the age categories (see Table 4). However, the smalldifferences and small number of senators in each category produce results thatare not statistically significant. The lack of striking age differences perhapsreflects the growing awareness of the importance of the Internet. It appears thateven the elder statesmen in Congress realize that their Web site has tremendouspotential as a communication tool, and they are now employing staffers whoknow how to construct and maintain Web pages that reflect this.

Conclusion

The Internet has been viewed primarily as a threat to traditional news media,but it can also complement the old media by facilitating the work of journalists.While other scholars have shown how members of Congress take advantage ofthe Internet to send unmediated messages, our analysis reveals that they also


Table 3Presence of online newsrooms by party and chamber

House House Senate Senate

Online Republicans Democrats Republicans Democrats

NewsroomPresent % n % n % n % n

Yes 75.6 167 65.4 136 79.6 39 94.0 47No 24.4 54 34.6 72 20.4 10 6.0 3Total 100 221 100 208 100 49 100 50

Note: For House: χ2 (1, n = 429) = 5.354, p < .05 (one-tailed); Yule’s Q = –0.242. For Senate:χ2 (1, n = 99) = 4.504, p < .05 (one-tailed); Yule’s Q = 0.601. Independents were treated asmissing data.



recognize that this new medium can aid journalists and hence can serve as a goodmedium for attracting news coverage. But use of the Web for this purpose is stilldeveloping, as demonstrated by the wide variance in the media-friendly contentof these sites and the small number of features made available on most.Nearly allof the items within the newsrooms were simply traditional forms of communica-tion that had been posted online in an organized manner.This is typical usage of anew mode of communication; as time passes, we expect we will see moreInternet-only features in online newsrooms and the uniformity across congres-sional offices will increase.

We also were able to demonstrate some of the factors that explain the vari-ance among members in the media friendliness of their Web sites. Our datarevealed that senators were more likely than House members to put the effortinto making their sites media friendly. This can be accounted for by the fact thatfundamental differences between the chambers result in senators’having greaterincentives to seek media coverage and journalists having more reasons to coversenators. In contrast, we found mixed evidence for the propositions that a mem-ber’s age and party affiliation influence his or her use of online technologies,which may reflect the proliferation of newer technologies into our society. Butthere is still more work to be done in this area, including analysis of many otherfactors that may explain variation among members in their use of online news-rooms. We are presently working on a study of the potential impact of race, gen-der, ideology, seniority, electoral security, district median income, and leader-ship position on the media friendliness of members’ Web sites. As time goes on,it will be essential for scholars to continue exploring the use and development ofthis important link between old and new media.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank David Houston for his assistance on this article. Pro-fessor Lipinski would also like to thank Paul Herrnson and the Center for


Table 4Presence of online newsroom by age in Senate

Online ≤ 39 Years 40–49 Years 50–59 Years 60–69 Years ≥ 70 Years

NewsroomPresent % n % n % n % n % n

Yes 0 0 91.7 11 88.6 31 86.8 33 80 12No 0 0 8.3 1 11.4 4 13.2 5 20 3Total 0 0 100 12 100 35 100 38 100 15

Note: χ2 (4, n = 100) = 0.564; Cramer’s V = 0.033.



American Politics and Citizenship at the University of Maryland for supportduring a visiting research fellowship.

Notes

1. We would like to thank Clyde Brown and Herbert Waltzer for the inspiring the idea ofapplying such a measurement to political Web sites and for supplying the phrase “mediafriendly.”

2. There are scholars who claim that the news media serve too much as direct conduits for rep-resentatives rather than mediating (see Bagdikian 1974), while others provide evidence tothe contrary (see Tidmarch and Pitney 1985);we will leave those arguments aside for now.

3. For example, the congressional frank can be used only to send mail within a member’sdistrict/state. Also, members can spend public funds to travel back to their district/state togive a speech, but they cannot spend this money to travel elsewhere.

4. Again, we leave aside claims that journalists shill for members of Congress.5. Adler et al. (1998) also found that more vulnerable members were more likely to solicit

casework on their Web sites, demonstrating that content can be affected by the reelectiongoal.

6. Unfortunately, both the aforementioned studies were limited in their explanatory capacitybecause they either had a low response rate or an extremely small number of responses.TheMiddleberg and Ross study, according to Hachigian and Hallahan (2003), mustered only a10-percent response rate, while the Congressional Management Foundation based its con-clusions on the responses from only thirty-one reporters.

7. Our N dropped from 535 to 531 once we took into account vacant seats and Jackson’sunique situation.

8. The thirty-six labels revealed by our content analysis included the following: BreakingNews, Communications, For the Press, Hot News, In the News, In the Press, Issues &News, Latest News, Media, Media Corner, Media Information, Media Services, News,News Archive, News Briefs, Newscenter, News & Commentary, News Flash, News &Information, News & Media, News & Press, News Room, News Stand, News Update,News & Views, Press Box, Press Corner, Press Desk, Press Gallery, Press & More, Press &News, Press Office, Press Room, Press Shop, Press Statements, and Recent News.

9. Even though we are considering an entire population and not just a sample,we include mea-sures of statistical significance. We do this for two reasons: First, we want to expand theinferences we make beyond the exact point in time when the content analysis was per-formed; second, these measures provide a good point of comparison regarding the size ofthe differences we find between populations.

References

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Biographical Notes

Daniel Lipinski is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University ofTennessee. He received his Ph.D. from Duke University in 1998. He has published numerousarticles including most recently “What Happens When House Members ‘Run with Congress’?The Electoral Consequences of Institutional Loyalty” (Legislative Studies Quarterly 2003).His bookCongressional Communication:Content and Consequence examines the strategic messages that mem-bers of Congress send to their constituents and will be published in 2004 by the University ofMichigan Press.




Address: Department of Political Science, University of Tennessee, 1001 McClung Tower,Knoxville, TN 37996-0410; phone: (865) 974-7186; fax: (865) 974-7037; e-mail: [email protected].

Gregory Neddenriep earned his J.D. from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1999.He iscurrently a doctoral candidate at the University of Tennessee where he is writing a dissertationabout how race relations within city councils affect the substantive representation of minorityinterests.

Address: Department of Political Science, University of Tennessee, 1001 McClung Tower,Knoxville, TN 37996-0410; phone: (402) 894-4897; e-mail: [email protected].




Lipinski & Neddenriep 2004 Using New Media To Get Old Media Coverage

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