An application of the niche metrics of ecological theory to media use of advertising resources from 1935 to 1980 charts the effect of "invading populations"-radio and television-on the patterns of coexistence and competition.The emergence of new technologies poses fresh challenges for research and theory in mass communication. One central question of interest to the public, media practitioners, and researchers alike centers on the new media forms' impact on the existing industries of mass communication.Yet, research and theory have remained relatively silent on the effect of the growth of new industries on the viability of older media forms.One consequence of the communication field's preoccupation with audience research and the attendant microtheory is that the field is not well equipped to deal with macroquestions regarding the relative viability of entire industries. While the diffusion perspective (see 5 ) andMcCombs's work on the principle of relative constancy (16, 17) have advanced our macrolevel knowledge of newspapers, broadcasting, and movies, there is currently no body of theory within the field that elucidates the conditions under which entire media industries, such as newspapers or television, can coexist through adaptation or, at the extreme, perish in the face of competition.John Dimmick is Associate Professor in the

A long tradition of social theory has emphasized the importance of communication to individuals' ties to their communities. Two major types of such ties are treated here: affective attachment and cognitive and active involvement. Datafrom a sample survey of 400 adult residents of Iowa are used to examine a structural equation model linking community attachment and involvement to newspaper use, local television news use, age, education, number of children in the home, localism, and population density. Among the results, we show that newspaper reading makes important contributions to both attachment and involvement, independently of the other variables in the model, while television news viewing does not. Error paths and correlations between the errors of the equations are estimated to aid future modeling work. Ovemiew. In Habits of the Heart, Bellah et al. argue that active involvement in group life is necessary to individual satisfaction.1 Happiness, in other words, derives from the meaningful contributions we make to the lives of others we care about. Bellah and his colleagues borrow this themefrom Tocqueville's Democracy in America? "Habits of the heart" is Tocqueville's evocative definition of mores, a definition that emphasizes the role of sentiment in the habits of action that weave the webs of social relation. Tocqueville was concerned with the power of the individuating forces that shape Americanculture and the organization of Americanlife. Thenecessary benefits of theinterdependency could belost if individuation went unchecked. Without theinvestment of energy and attention, thewebof interdependencies in which we are embedded fails, in turn, to support us. In public associations, party politics, organized religion, and importantly from our point of view, the newspaper, Tocqueville saw the possibility of a vital connection between the individual and the social surround. These were the forces countervailing an overweening individualism, and the newspaper was as important as any of them. "A newspaper is an advisor who. . . talks to you briefly every day of the common weal. . . . Newspapers therefore become more necessary in Eric W. Rothenbuhler is associate professor of communication studies at the University of Iowa. Lawrence J. Mullen is assistant professor of telecommunication at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Richard DeLaurell is assistant professor of communication studies at Southern Methodist Uniwrsity. Choon Ryul Ryu isadoctoral candidate in communication studies at the University ofIow(l. Parts of this project were supported by Downloaded fromproportion as men become more equal, and individualism more to be feared. Tosuppose that they only serve toprotect freedom would be to diminish their importance: they maintain ci~ilization."~ Communication activities, then, especially the use of public communication media, are seen as essential for the growth and maintenance of attachments to and involvement in the communities in which we live. In turn, community attachment and involvement are seen as ess...

As the number of competing firms declines, so does the number of hit r e c o r k 0 that fewer hits are being released b y fewer producers.In many of the industries of mass communication, concentration is a fact of life (4): a few firms dominate the production and distribution of cultural products. While on the surface, the competitive structure of mass media industries might seem of interest only to economists or lawyers in the antitrust field, the level of concentration directly affects the choices offered to media consumers. Concentration in cultural industries, as in other sectors of the economy, leads to an increasing homogenization or lack of diversity in cultural products. For example, a study of network television showed that as a consequence of the oligopolistic nature of the industry, diversity in programming declined sharply across two decades (5).Similarly, an inverse relationship has been demonstrated (15) between the degree of concentration and diversity in the popular music industry in the years 1948-1973: periods of high concentration coincided with low diversity and periods of competition with less homogeneity in popular songs. Diversity, as measured by the rate of turnover in the top slots on the popularity charts, declined in periods when the number of firms competing in the market was relatively small and rose when the number of competing firms was relatively large. The importance of this relationship between concentration and diversity is magnified by the fact that the output of the popular music industry constitutes the input of those radio formats that rely on popular music. Therefore, the level of concentration affects not only the range of Eric W. Rothenbuhler is a graduate student and John W. Dimmick is Associate Professor, both in the

Watching the Olympics m telwis&mproved to be a mediu event for which people planned tbeir ukwing, paid close attention to the television, and arranged to have visitors wttb w b m they a&, drank; and taIked about what they saw.This article is about the pattern of celebratory activities in U S . homes that accompanied watching the 1984 Summer Olympic Games on television. On the one hand, this is the story of individuals and their activities, the things they do with and around their television sets. The study of media audiences has told us that a tremendous range of uses can be made of even the most meager of media diets (e.g., 1, 35). As we will see, Americans used the broadcast of the Olympic Games as an opportunity to gather with family and friends, to eat and drink, and to talk and enjoy each other's company while also enjoying the drama, excitement, spectacle, and ritual of the games presentation.But this is also the story of a remarkably consistent social pattern in how people used the Olympics broadcast. How can we explain this pattern, which held across individuals, social classes and ranks, and ethnic and cultural groups (39)?Both for the theoretical reasons addressed most usefully by Parsons (31; but also see 8,431 and because causal explanations have not proved overwhelmingly profitable in communication studies, I explain social patterns as the volEric W. Rothenbuhler is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies, University of Iowa.The analyses reported in this article were performed while I was a member of the Annenberg (University of Southern California) Olympics Research Project team and were first reported in my dissertation, certain short passages of which are reproduced here in revised form. Peter Clarke and Susan Evans were principal investigators; the team also included Bob Meadow and Vicki Owens. Although we all collaborated on the survey and content analysis instruments, Susan Evans deserves special thanks; she saw to it that we got into the field on time with usable interview forms. As teachers and friends, each made important contributions to my work. Two anonymous reviewers made useful comments on an earlier draft.

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