The New Research Findings Relate Media Involvement to Civic Engagement

“Civic Engagement in American Cities:
Who, What, When, Where, Why and So What?”

By Greg Markus, Professor
Center for Political Studies
University of Michigan

Markus presented preliminary findings from nearly two years of research involving nearly 6,000 people in 14 cities. The research measures civic participation in each city to examine the impact of that participation upon citizens, institutions and the life of those cities.

Among his findings:

• “There’s a fairly strong relationship between the amount of, and quality of, citizen participation in these cities and the quality of life, the quality of decision-making, the sense that government is doing what it’s supposed to be doing and a whole variety of measures that relate to the quality of life in these cities.”
• “People have lots of reasons for engaging in public life. But, far and away, the most prominent reason for why people said they take part in public life in their cities was ‘a desire to make their community a better place to live.’ For three out of four respondents across all of these cities, that was their primary justification.”
• “Other factors that enhanced the effectiveness of civic participation in cities was the prevalence of effective mediating institutions and leadership in those institutions. We’re here to talk about civic journalism and the press. Newspapers, local newspapers, local television stations are certainly among those mediating institutions and among the leadership.”
• In exploring reasons for the decline in civic participation, “it’s probably less worthwhile to look at individual-level factors (such as people watching too much TV or the rise of women in the workforce) and more worthwhile to look at macro-level, institutional type factors.” For example:
• “Business relocations, mergers, the increase in non-resident management have stripped away from many cities that kind of corporate-level leadership that is useful and valuable in communities.”
• The rise of a vicious cycle between ineffective public policy and low civic involvement. “Policies tend to be less effective when citizens are not involved in policy making. Poor public policy discourages people from participating, which in turn leads to more poor public policy.”
• “A third factor is what political scientist E. E. Schattschneider called ‘the mobilization of bias.’ If the ‘one-person, one-vote’ arithmetic of democratic politics is intended as a counterweight to the ‘one-dollar, one-vote’ arithmetic of the marketplace, there are then interests who are perfectly delighted that citizens not participate in public life and not participate in decision-making and public policy.”

To obtain a copy of this study, contact Professor Greg Markus at:
University of Michigan
Center for Political Studies
P.O. Box 1248
Ann Arbor, MI 48106
Tel: (734) 763-3284
E-mail: gmarkus@umich.edu

“Will Any Kind of Talk Do?”

Teri Pinney, Program Manager
The Harwood Institute
Bethesda, Maryland

The Harwood Institute conducts qualitative research, focus groups, interviews, case studies and fieldwork. Pinney presented findings based on 10 years of research in the areas of public life and community building and talked about the implications for journalists.

Three reasons that people engage in civic life:

• To understand and be understood.
• To connect with others, to feel part of something larger than themselves.
• To show their care and concern for their community.

Four barriers to civic engagement:

• Lack of time and lack of reward.
  Lesson for journalists: “Often times our outreach to people and our stories are about people taking action, doing things. And people read this and say ‘I can’t do that. I can’t start a non-profit. I can’t dedicate my life. This is too much for me.’ “
• Lack of personal confidence.
  Lesson for journalists: “People can and will engage on issues as long as they can do so from their vantage point – that is, being citizens. As a citizen, what I know is my life. What I know are values. What I know are my neighbors, hopefully, and what trade-offs we’re willing to make when it comes to decisions. But don’t ask me to debate policy. Don’t throw numbers and stats at me, facts and figures, and expect me to be on the academic level of someone who studies this for a living.”
• The feeling of being cornered, labeled or manipulated.
  Lesson for journalists: “Often times when we write our stories, they’re based in conflict: He said this, she said this; done. But most people don’t live in that black-and-white world and they need to hear and see other perspectives … so they can find themselves on that spectrum and figure out for themselves what they believe.”
• Fear of being misunderstood.
  Lesson for journalists: “People fear they won’t be able to explain themselves … ‘I better not even engage. I am not going to open my mouth because I might be misquoted. I’ll be thrown up on the news sounding like an idiot or someone will hate me afterwards. I don’t have the room to explore my feelings. I don’t have the room to give nuance to my opinions so I’m not going to say a word.’ “

Six principles for helping people engage

• Allow people room to vent their feelings.
  Lesson for journalists: “A lot of times our efforts jump straight to solutions … The thing is, though, people do need a little room to (complain). It’s an emotional barrier they have. ‘If you can’t hear me whine a little bit, I’m not going to hear what you have to say.’ But what we say is, let’s not stop there. Because if you stop there, like many civic engagement processes do, then you end up with just venting and complaining and no resolution and no feeling of forward progress.”
• Tap people’s aspirations.
  Lesson for journalists: “Ask people to dream with you. It’s an incredibly powerful force just to use your imagination.”
• Promote norms that create a safe environment for people to engage.
  Lesson for journalists:
• Give people time to explain themselves.
• Allow people to change their minds.
• Respect different points of view.
• Help people connect their private concerns to public ones.
  Lesson for journalists: “Privately, citizens are consumers, but publicly they need to rise above their self-interests for the common good. That’s what we need to promote to help people be citizens. Challenge them to be citizens.”
• Connect engagement to people’s every-day lives.
  Lesson for journalists: “Give people questions to discuss around the breakfast table; things to think about through the day. That’s also engagement.”
• Provide clarity of knowledge over quantity of information.
  Lesson for journalists: “What we hear over and over, especially from journalists, is that people hope and expect you to help them make sense of all the data that’s out there; not just throw it at them.”

To obtain a copy of this study, please contact The Harwood Institute at:
The Harwood Institute
4915 St. Elmo Ave., Suite 402
Bethesda, Maryland 20814
(301) 656-3669

If You Build It and They Come – Then What?
Citizen Attitudes and Behavior after Participation in Public Journalism Projects

Robert Daves
Director of Polling and News Research
Star Tribune, Minneapolis

Christina Fiebich
Ph.D. Candidate
Minnesota Journalism Center, University of Minnesota

Daves and Fiebich polled participants in two Star Tribune projects – the 1996 Minnesota Citizens Issues Conference and the 1998 Minnesota Citizens’ Forum – to see if their participation had made them better-informed, more engaged citizens. Daves and Fiebich were able to compare the results of their poll, conducted in April 1999, with a poll the Star Tribune conducted of the same group of people before the projects began. Using rather complicated formulas for measuring “political knowledge,” Fiebich and Daves found “an increase in knowledge after participating in these two public journalism events.” Daves summarized the findings in the table to the right this way:

“So public journalism, within the bounds of these two projects and these measures appears to have been able to fulfill the criteria for providing people with the knowledge that they need to become active citizens and the criteria of providing them with the opportunity to participate.

“These findings suggest that public journalism practitioners may be able to lead participants in these kinds of projects to water but may not be able to, and maybe should not try to, make them drink from the deep well of public life.”

Civic Journalism Projects Increased Participants’ Political Knowledge

To obtain a copy of this study, please contact Rob Daves at:
Minneapolis Star Tribune
425 Portland Ave. South
Minneapolis, MN 55488
Tel: (612) 673-7278
E-mail: daves@startribune.com

Evaluating Television Programs that Promote Civic Engagement:
Lessons for Civic Journalism

Kenneth Rasinski
Senior Study Director
National Opinion Research Center
University of Chicago

The National Opinion Research Center has developed a design for evaluating television programs that attempt to promote civic engagement. Rasinski has used the design to evaluate five television civic journalism initiatives. Drawing on his experience with two of those projects – a question-and-answer program about a California ballot issue and free television time given to Clinton and Dole just before the 1996 Presidential election – Rasinski shared lessons learned about designing effective civic journalism programming.

Evaluation Design:

• A random sample of potential viewers is obtained and they are contacted by telephone before the television program is broadcast.
• Sample members are interviewed to determine background characteristics, media habits, knowledge, attitudes, opinions and behavior related to the issues addressed in the television program.
• The sample is randomly divided into two parts. One part is asked to watch the program. The other is not told about the program.
• A follow-up survey, assessing changes in attitudes and the likely psychological determinants of change, is conducted shortly after the program is broadcast.

Lessons for Civic Journalism:

• Producers must assure the program message is strong because it has to cut through many distractions among the viewing audience.
• Increasing viewership increases a program’s impact, thus producers should advertise the program as heavily as possible, appealing to civic duty and the importance of the issue to the citizen. Also, giving the programs’ different time slots is important to increasing viewership, along with having a series of programs instead of a one-time-only report.
• Producers should think about who the likely audience is for the program and how they are most likely to be affected. Should the program be designed to change their attitude? Increase their knowledge? Or affect their values?
• Producers should consider what the program’s goal is, specifically. A program with a target audience, a focus and a goal will be more effective than a program that encourages civic engagement in general.

To obtain a copy of this study, please contact Kenneth Rasinski at:
National Opinion Research Center
1155 East 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: (773) 256-6278
E-mail: ken_rasinski@norcmail.chicago.edu