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Notes

(1) All other major TV newscasts were chosen by far fewer participants than CNN Headline News (each less than 10% of total responses). Additional analyses were run to look at those participants who chose CNN as their most frequently used television news source. The dummy-coded variable was not found to have a significant main effect on either dependent variable.

(2) Exploratory factor analyses (EFAs; Principle Axis, Direct OBLIMIN) were conducted on the full eight-item political gratifications scale for national television news viewing and The Daily Show viewing, respectively. The separate factor analyses were run to reduce data in an effort to create identical political gratifications indexes for the two types of viewing. The two EFAs revealed divergent Ioadings across national television viewing and The Daily Show viewing. The four items used to form the respective political gratifications dependent variables in this study were the strongest loading and most consistent items found in both EFAs. The four items utilized in these analyses form a single factor for national television news viewing and The Daily Show viewing, respectively. This was not true of the other four items listed by Perse (1994), either for national television news viewing and/or The Daily Show viewing.

(3) The following are the zero-order correlations between the study's covariates and dependent variables: preexisting television news use-preexisting The Daily Show use, r = .20, p < .01; preexisting television news use-national television news viewing gratifications, r = .35, p < .001; preexisting television news use--The Daily Show viewing gratifications, r = .03, ns; preexisting The Daily Show use-national television news viewing gratifications, r = .11, ns; preexisting The Daily Show use-The Daily Show viewing gratifications, r = .18, p < .05; national television news viewing gratifications--The Daily Show viewing gratifications, r = .32, p < .001.

R. Lance Holbert (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Delaware. His research interests include political communication, persuasion, and structural equation modeling.

Jennifer L. Lambe (Ph.D., University of Minnesota) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Delaware. Her research interests include audience attitudes about First Amendment issues, free expression theory, and media content regulations.

Anthony D. Dudo (M.A., University of Delaware) is a doctoral student in the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research interests include science and environmental communication, political communication, and media effects.

Kristin A. Carlton (M.A., Florida State University) is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication at Florida State University. Her research interests include media effects, entertainment theory, and persuasion.

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