Political ideologies and support for censorship: Is it a question of whoseox is being gored?

Two studies are described, one of 381 university students and the other a s tatewide survey of 295 adults, both of which examine the relationship betwe en attitudinal support for censorship and political ideologies. The results of these studies are interpreted as challenging the view of Suedfeld, Stee l, and Schmidt ( 1994) that support for censorship is a Function of both th e works in question and the political ideologies of the respondents. In bot h studies we find that support for censorship is somewhat consistent across messages and images of differing political content, and that support for c ensorship is generally greater among those with conservative political atti tudes, regardless of the content of the works in question. A model of polit ical attitudes (Maddox & Lilie, 1986) that conceptualizes American politica l ideologies as consisting of two relatively independent dimensions, rather than a single left-right dimension, is proposed as a more effective means of conceptualizing this issue.