Journalism and Social Science: A New Relationship?

This article argues that the use of social science perspectives and methods by journalists is not a recent phenomenon, but one which began to develop long ago within the dominant humanistic philosophy of professional journalism. Changing definitions of news in recent times, however, are likely to enhance the role of the social sciences in both professional journalism and journalism education, especially as some journalists seek to move beyond the reporting of specific, isolated events to providing a context which gives them meaning. If journalistic and social science methods are to become more closely wedded, one very important condition, in addition to interest by editors and availability of talent, is financial support from those who own and control mass media. David H. Weaver is an Associate Professor of Journalism and Director of the Bureau of Media Research at Indiana University. Maxwell E. McCombs is John Ben Snow Professor of Newspaper Research at Syracuse University and Director of the Communications Research Center in the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Professors Trevor Brown, Edmund Lambeth, David Nord, and G. Cleveland Wilhoit of Indiana University's School of Journalism made helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. Public Opinion Quarterly Vol. 44:477-494 ?) 1980 by The Trustees of Columbia University Published by Elsevier North-Holland, Inc. 0033-362X/80/0044-477/$1.75 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.33 on Wed, 12 Oct 2016 04:14:58 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 478 WEAVER AND McCOMBS interests among journalists and the burgeoning use of polling as a management and planning tool in political organizations. The two have converged, more strongly in 1980 than ever before, to create a major category and source of political news. The heavy emphasis on the reporting of political polls and growing use of in-house polls created by news organizations themselves represent small half-steps into social science research. The major position of politics in news coverage and long-standing use of polls for news stories made it easy for many journalists to become polling practitioners. Once this step was taken it was natural to explore other public affairs topics involving public opinion as a major element of the story, and then to apply social science research skills to such emerging news topics as consumerism. In short, polls and survey research have established themselves in many newsrooms. Polling has provided journalism with a new perspective on news, and it has made journalists more aware of the news value of quantitative data. One current result is a high level of interest by journalists in the 1980 census. Nearly 200 journalists attended four workshops sponsored by the Bureau of the Census and the News Research Center of the American Newspaper Publishers Association during the first quarter of 1980, and at least one major newspaper, the Detroit News, has established a demography beat. Activities such as these support a prediction that the early 1980s will witness an unparalleled volume and depth of use of census data by journalists. For the lover of quantitative data, or the person who simply feels comfortable with data, there is a great appeal in the massive volumes and vast computer tapes of the census, with their myriad information about every person, household, neighborhood, town, county, and state in the United States. The decennial census comes close to the ultimate as a source of quantitative data. Earlier censuses were reported in a cursory way as news events. Changes in the population of a town or region were chronicled, but little effort went into real analysis of the data or the tracking of social trends. But many journalists now see the census as a major source of social indicators. The lag between academic and journalistic interest in social indicators is about 15 years, which is not bad in the history of social diffusion. The important point is that this will widen the perspective of journalists on the news of the day. Beyond the political polls of election years and the decennial census, this evolving relationship will be fostered by the increasing computerization of all kinds of information in our society (McCombs, 1970; 1971). This includes both traditional news sources, such as This content downloaded from 207.46.13.33 on Wed, 12 Oct 2016 04:14:58 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms JOURNALISM AND SOCIAL SCIENCES 479 public finance records and tax rolls, and newer kinds of data generated by an interest in social indicators. This emerging genre of journalism as an applied social science stands in sharp contrast to the traditional stance of journalism as a humanistic enterprise. But it represents more than the emergence of a social science approach that stands beside an older tradition. As we shall see, a social science orientation began to develop long ago within the dominant humanistic view of professional journalism. While historically there have been crossovers between journalism and both literature and social science, initially the most traveled road was the one connecting journalism and literature. To a considerable degree, traffic along the minor route between journalism and social science is expanding because we stand on the threshold of a new set of news values. Periodically in its history, journalism underwent a major shift or modification in its professional conception of news. The values of "yellow journalism" spawned by Pulitzer and Hearst are best known. But there are other examples, such as the shifts influenced by the introduction of the telegraph in the nineteenth century, and the need for more interpretive reporting since World War I. We stand now on the edge of another such shift in which social trends are beginning to compete with more circumscribed news events for space and time in the news. This shift toward situational reporting, indexed in part by editors' interest in social indicators, marks a significant modification in journalistic conceptions of news. In this new definition of the basic commodity with which journalism deals, social science plays a larger role. Here we attempt to trace the major historical antecedents of this evolving relationship between journalism and social science. Journalism Education and Social Science