Television reliance and political malaise: A contingency analysis

The relationship of media reliance with political powerlessness and politic al cynicism was elaborated in terms of three measures of political involvem ent-sense of citizen duty, campaign interest, and importance of political a dvertising. Data were collected and analyzed from a RDD sample of 459 Seatt le voters. The results suggest that Robinson's videomalaise hypothesis is s ubject to a number of contingencies that limit its generality, including th e possibility that newspaper reliance may actually contribute to reduced po litical malaise.