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Abstract
This study investigates the influence of season of birth on media use and media genre preferences later in life. An impressive body of research in Europe and Japan shows that the month of birth has a significant impact on one's temperament: People born in the winter of the northern hemisphere, for instance, tend to be less cheerful, lively and self-assured. Reasons seem to be the experience of less light, of coldness and of living mostly inside the home. Mood-management theory suggests that media entertainment may be used to compensate for that lack of cheerfulness and liveliness. In this explorative study, we assume that in countries north of the equator, but with extremely hot temperatures, summer is the season with fewer outdoor activities. So, there, individuals with more summer months in their first half year of life should be comparatively less cheerful – which they may regulate by using more media entertainment. Indeed, a secondary analysis of large-scale surveys in six countries in the Middle East and North Africa in 2016 supports this assumption, albeit conditionally: In the countries with particularly hot summers, but also for younger people in general, the duration of summer directly after birth is correlated significantly with consuming more media entertainment as well as with preferring comedy and drama as genres on TV and online video.

Some of our strongest ideas about media and their audiences are myths - simple, but plausible and poetic, explanations of the world: the defenceless audience, the `disappearance of childhood', the `plug-in drug' and the hyperactive media user of the future, to name just a few. Typically, they have often not stood the test of reality but are widely believed. They even have real - good and bad - consequences for our everyday lives: they inspire laws to protect the audience against the bad influence of mass media; they cause people to spend fortunes on new media technology; they lead to blaming the media for not changing the world for the better. Myths seem to be necessary: the `super codes' behind the myths of media and audiences are Manichaeic views of human nature that reconcile us with the world of our senses and help integrate society.

AbstractThe question how offline media use is related to online media use has been heavily debated in the last decades. If they are functionally equivalent, then advantages like low costs, rapid publication cycles, and easy access to online news could lead to them displacing offline news. Data from a large-scale survey with detailed questions about media use in the Netherlands show that, interestingly, the functions that online and offline media are used for are often the same: Those who use online media to gain a broad overview of the news, for fast updates, or for background information use offline media for the same purpose. There are some differences, though: For many citizens, the need of a broad overview of the news seems to be fulfilled by repertoires consisting of several outlets of different types, while they seem to have favorite specific outlets for news updates or background information, respectively. This suggests that outlets can especially focus on the latter two functions to distinguish themselves.

In an information-rich environment with ample choice, do citizens still get exposed to what is going on around them in society? Or do they become 'information hermits', only interested in their personal hobbies? In contrast to widespread fears, the results of a large-scale survey, representative for the population of the Netherlands, suggest that most citizens still get an overview of what is going on in the world, and that television news is still the most popular source for that information. In addition, news on the Internet reaches those who are unlikely to seek news offline and wish to be entertained instead of informed. In detail, the study examines (1) which factors influence total news-overview avoidance, but also (2) what determines the amount of news exposure for those who do not skip the news.

The 'trap' effect of television is the presumed impact of that medium on those who are not really interested in politics. Television, it says, is capable of influencing political opinions & behaviors in that group better than other media are. Previous research, however, has already shown that this effect is not very impressive. Historically & internationally comparative analyses of election campaigns in Europe & the US reveal that it exists, albeit weak, if there are not many TV channels to choose from. Also, first-order (eg, presidential) elections, as opposed to second- or third-order ones (eg, the elections to the European Parliament), seem to support a trap effect. 4 Tables, 27 References. Adapted from the source document.

This article looks at how political reporting has changed over time in the Bild, Germany's most widely read newspaper. The authors content analyzed the political coverage during the seven weeks prior to the federal elections in 1990, 1994, 1998, and 2002. They found increasing emphasis on the campaign in the news from one election to the next, which can be explained by the fact that the elections themselves became more competitive and thus had more news value. They also find increasing negativity toward the two main parties between 1990 and 1998 and toward the SPD (Social Democratic Party) since 1998. The Bild's editorial decision to include more commentary pieces in 2002 is at least in part responsible for the strongly negative coverage of the SPD and the chancellor in that election, but the greater negativity was also due to the increased volume of other political news stories that also contained negative evaluations.

This article looks at how political reporting has changed over time in the Bild, Germany's most widely read newspaper. The authors content analyzed the political coverage during the seven weeks prior to the federal elections in 1990, 1994, 1998, & 2002. They found increasing emphasis on the campaign in the news from one election to the next, which can be explained by the fact that the elections themselves became more competitive & thus had more news value. They also find increasing negativity toward the two main parties between 1990 & 1998 & toward the SPD (Social Democratic Party) since 1998. The Bild's editorial decision to include more commentary pieces in 2002 is at least in part responsible for the strongly negative coverage of the SPD & the chancellor in that election, but the greater negativity was also due to the increased volume of other political news stories that also contained negative evaluations. 2 Tables, 6 Figures, 30 References. [Copyright 2003 Sage Publications, Inc.]

Examines changes in political reporting in the German newspaper, focusing on a content analysis of coverage during the seven weeks prior to the federal elections in 1990, 1994, 1998, and 2002.

The "trap" effect is the alleged ability of television (a) to disseminate political information to those who are not interested in politics and (b) to influence them more strongly than other channels of political information, such as newspapers, can. These ideas are tested in 12 European countries for the campaign of the European election in 1999: Was television really more powerful than newspapers among the many citizens who did not care about that election? The authors' analyses show that the trap power of television was far from being impressive. Also, seemingly favorable national conditions for a trap effect of television, such as more TV news coverage on the European elections and fewer TV channels to evade that coverage, did not help. Instead, personal conversations better persuaded the uninterested to turn out and vote than television (and newspapers) did.