In the 1948-49 edition of Communication Research, Bernard Berelson of Columbia
University published a study that was cited in textbooks and other research
papers for the next five decades. "What 'Missing the Newspaper' Means" was an
analysis of the 1945 New York newspaper delivery strike through the eyes of the
would-be readers who didn't get their usual daily paper. Berelson was not alone
in researching the impact of the strike. He refers to two other research
projects in his explanation of why he conducted his own study. Other research
groups conducted surveys to tally the methods people used to keep up with the
news while the strike was on, what parts of the paper they missed most and to
what degree their pining for the newspaper increased as the strike continued
(Berelson, 1949, Pages 111-112).
But Berelson had an educated hunch that "missing the newspaper" was less a
statement of physical loss than it was of social and psychological trauma. He
wanted to know what people felt when the paper didn't arrive, and why.
This study, like Berelson's, employs the folk axiom "absence makes the heart
grow fonder" in examining why people read a newspaper. More specifically, it
lets people who have been denied their regular daily newspaper explain the
societal and personal values that make this common medium important to their
lives. As a full blackout of newspapers is now unlikely, even in the event of a
strike (suburban papers, national papers and television fill the gap), this
project sought another avenue to the "missing the paper" syndrome. That avenue
was found in the daily list of "miss" complaints to a newspaper by subscribers
who had not received their paper. By contacting these complainants shortly
after they called the publishing company, the researcher hoped to capture the
same mood and crisis-enhanced articulation that Berelson found with his
strike-deprived readers.
Like Berelson, this study uses a series of intensive interviews with people who
normally read a newspaper every day, but suddenly did not get their daily dose
of the news. It also uses Berelson's formula of structured questions to spark
explanatory conversation, then grounded theory for analysis of the comments and
historical comparison with the literature in an attempt to determine "what
missing the newspaper" really means.
Berelson's face-value research question was "what does it mean when people say
they 'miss the newspaper'?" Embedded in this is the more direct question of
"why do people read the newspaper?" Researchers have addressed that last
question for at least a half century, with no conclusive answer. The intent of
this study, then, is to echo Berelson and turn the question back to the reader:
Can newspaper readers articulate why they feel a need to read?