A telephone survey of 206 adults was conducted to test hypotheses concerning past information seeking, source preference, and media consumption. Subjects who had obtained information from “expert” institutional sources were predicted to have greater drug knowledge and interpersonal communication experience. Higher print consumers were predicted to have greater knowledge, increased favorability toward marijuana decriminalization and exhibit a less punitive orientation toward drug users. Support was found with regard to drug knowledge and interpersonal communication. Partial support was found with regard to other hypotheses.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, Marijuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding, Washington, D. C., U. S. Government Printing Office, 1972; National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, Drug Use in America: Problem in Perspective, Washington, D. C., U. S. Government Printing Office, 1973; WaldP. and AbramsA., “Drug Education,” in Dealing With Drug Abuse, New York, Praeger, 1972.
2.
Drug Use in America: Problem in Perspective op. cit., also the decision by the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention to curtail distribution of all funded drug abuse materials for six months in 1973 in order that they might be inventoried and reviewed.
3.
Marijuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding, op, cit.; LangerJohn H., “Educational Approaches for Drug Abuse Prevention,” in Guidelines for Drug Abuse Prevention Education, Washington, D. C., U. S. Government Printing Office, pp. 5–12.
4.
HannemanGerhard J., “Communicating Drug Abuse Information Among College Students,”Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 37, 1973, pp. 171–191; AtkynsRobert L. and HannemanGerhard J., “Illicit Drug Distribution and Dealer Communication Behavior,”Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 1974, Vol. 15, pp. 36–43.
5.
TroldahlVerling C., Robert Van Dam and George Robeck, “Public Affairs Information Seeking from Expert Institutionalized Sources,”Journalism Quarterly, 1965, Vol. 42, pp. 403–412.
6.
GriffenhagenG. B., “Sources of Drug Abuse Information,” in WittenbornR.SmithJ. and WittenbornS. (Eds.) Communication and Drug Abuse: Proceedings of the Second Rutgers Symposium on Drug Abuse, Springfield, Ill., Charles C. Thomas, 1970.
7.
WadeS. and SchrammWilbur, “The Mass Media as Sources of Public Affairs, Science, and Health Knowledge,”Public Opinion Quarterly, 1969, Vol. 33, pp. 197–209.
8.
Marijuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding, Appendix, op. cit.
9.
HannemanGerhard J. and McEwenWilliam J., “Televised Drug Appeals: A Content Analysis,”Journalism Quarterly, 1973, Vol. 50, pp. 329–333.
10.
SmartReginald G. and KrakowskiMark, “The Nature and Frequency of Drugs Content in Magazines and on Television,”Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education, 1973, Vol. 18, pp. 16–22.
11.
McEwenWilliam J. and HannemanGerhard J., “The Depiction of Drug Use in Television Programming,”Journal of Drug Education, 1974, Vol. 4, pp. 281–293.
12.
TroldahlVan Dam and Robeck, op. cit.
13.
Wade and Schramm, op. cit.; Marijuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding, op. cit.
14.
ParkerEdwin B. and PaisleyWilliam J., “Patterns of Adult Information Seeking,”Washington, D. C., U. S. Office of Education, 1966, ERIC No. ED 10294; FriedsonE., Patients' Views of Medical Practice, New York, Russell Sage Foundation, 1961.
15.
The response rate for this study (just over 50 percent) was affected by a rather large number of refusals (101), a function of the necessity of using previously inexperienced (though trained) student interviewers and of the personal and private nature of questions of drug abuse. While the final sample indicated a fair match to census data, the possible over-representation of drug-information actives must be considered.
16.
The knowledge items were drawn from an NCDAI booklet, “The Most Frequently Asked Questions About Drug Abuse,”Washington, D. C., U. S. Government Printing Office, 1972 and from a Connecticut Kiwanis Club Survey reported in the Hartford Times, September 18, 1970.
17.
Such an explanation seems in accord with the review of information-seeking studies reported by Jonathan Freedman and David O. Sears in “Selective Exposure,” in BerkowitzLeonard (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 2, New York, Academic Press, 1965, pp. 57–97.
