Abstract
The idea of geography is fundamental to local newspapers, both in the sense of community news and news from a community perspective. It has been suggested that “geography is dead.” This idea was tested through a self-administered mail survey of a sample of adults living in Maricopa County, Arizona, using geographic and online senses of community measures to determine the importance of geography in today's Internet-rich environment and determine if geography is really “dead.” The analysis focused on evaluating the mean sense of community measures among groups, and examining the use of newspaper weblogs in light of the print newspaper's coverage of a particular geographic area. Results rebuff suggestions that geography is “dead” and indicate that respondents are still attached to their geographic communities. In the struggle to find new models of journalism, newspapers must find a way to remain geographically relevant in print and on the Web.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to gratefully recognize the guidance provided to her in this research by Emeriti Professor Philip Meyer and Rhonda Gibson, PhD, both of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Notes
1. or the final mailing, 200 randomly selected packets were sent via Priority Mail. The response rate for Priority Mail was more than double that for respondents sent the final contact via First-Class mail.
2. espondents included in this category indicated they read at least one of azcentral.com's weblogs “less than once a month,” “once a month,” “several times a month,” or “once a day or more.”
3. eferring to the range 0.05= p=0.15, John Tukey has said that the significance “leans in a positive direction” (Abelson, Citation1995).
4. =0.101.