Nixon and the Media: A Study of Non-Immediacy in Newspaper Editorials as Reflective of Geographical Attitude Differences

Abstract

Seven Northern and seven Southern newspaper editorials discussing President Nixon's 3rd of November 1969 speech on the “Vietnamization” of the Vietnam War were analyzed for their attitude toward President Nixon and his proposals. Measures of attitude were manifest ratings and non-immediacy ratings. Although the manifest ratings did not indicate a difference between North and South editorials, the non-immediacy scores did show that Northern editorials were more non-immediate or less favorable toward President Nixon. As predicted, non-immediacy scores were higher for editorials rated as being less favorable. Implications for theory, further research, and applications were discussed.