Political news on television: A reconsideration of audience orientations

This study was a systematic attempt to determine and explain the range of use and avoidance orientations that people have to presidential campaign coverage on television network evening news programs. Previous research shows a dependency on a limited range of gratifications measured. Our attempts to understand the role of gratifications in media effects may be subverted by a failure to explore more diligently the range of gratifications relevant to political communication. The results indicated that some of the more latent, socially awkward, and possibly systemically dysfunctional gratifications can be articulated by respondents and, more importantly, can be understood empirically. Political interest, communication exposure, demographic, psychological involvement (in politics), and political activity variables are used to explain six orientations to political news: (1) Avoidance, (2) Conversation, (3) Para‐Social Guidance, (4) Issue Guidance, (5) Entertainment, and (6) Selectivity. The results illuminate latent characteristics of orientations found in earlier research. Especially important is a clarification of the traditional concept of surveillance which is provided in a distinction between para‐social and issue vote guidance.