Luce Media — In print, in truth: predicting and understanding the consequences of newspaper reporting on conservation issues

Greetings!

I've posted a comment in the discuss section under the heading "Help!'  Any ideas why I can't create a new thread? ...then again, some would argue that I need help ;)

Lindsay, here are links to the data sources you requested:

basic demographics: http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html

CA election results: http://vote.sos.ca.gov/

newspaper distribution areas: http://www.accessabc.com/products/index.htm

prop 23 info: http://www.ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_Proposition_23_(2010)

and finally...

very interesting & relevant study: http://fwp.mt.gov/doingBusiness/reference/montanaChallenge/reports/analysis.html

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Abstract

The media has an immense capacity not only to inform but to shape the 
perceptions, decisions, and choices of the public with respect to 
environmental and conservation issues. While academics rely primarily on 
peer-reviewed publications to evaluate conservation issues, decision 
makers, resource managers and the general public tend to rely on 
newspapers and other media outlets to get their information and develop 
opinions (Nisbet et al., 2002). There are nearly 1500 newspapers in the 
United States (Newspaper Association of America) and almost all of these 
are local papers that represent the primary source of print news for 
those communities. By combining information about local communities 
(demography, political leaning, education, etc.) with information 
extracted directly from the newspapers, we can delve deeply into the 
causes and drivers of public opinion about conservation issues. We can 
then also evaluate potential consequences of media coverage of 
conservation issues by evaluating voting behavior by district. 
Newspapers therefore offer an unprecedented and largely underutilized 
resource to understand how public perception of conservation issues are 
formed and influenced.