Scholarship suggests that self-interest, racial attitudes, and philosophical values shape antibusing sentiments. Analysis of survey data from Nashville, Tennessee, shows that they do there as well. More important, though, further analysis shows that perceptions of busing s failure, which seem to be misguided, have a substantial impact on whether respondents want busing to end, even when race, self-interest, and ideological values are controlled. Perception, as mis-perception, is therefore a potentially salient factor in policy evaluation. Perceptions of policy sucess or failure may be socially constructed by media, elites, or people themselves.
Additional research is clearly necessary.
This study extends research on media and democracy at the local level through a detailed content analysis of the community issue coverage of a local newspaper that serves an unusually well educated, financially secure, and politically active population. Data suggest that media do not serve democracy even in a context in which the limitations imposed by a politicaly disengaged audience are not present. We examine the relationship between career stakes, or the fit between workers current jobs and their long-term career plan, and employee deviance. Most prior research has focused on the link between job satisfaction and deviance, but career stakes may be a more salient and theoretically relevant measure of workers investments in their present positions, particularly in young adulthood. We hypothesize that people whose current jobs match their long-term career goals have made a social investment with their employers that inhibits deviant behavior.