ABSTRACT

With increasing news media outlets, audiences now can choose media that agrees with their ideology and tune out messages that do not reinforce their belief systems. Researchers such as Harold Laswell and Paul Lazarsfeld have decreed that media has a limited effect on its audience and that in fact, audiences choose their media based on cognitive dissonance (Stone; 1999). For the purpose of this research, a survey was developed to determine how people in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley and its surrounding region choose news media.