Audience Responses to Media Diversification: Coping with Plenty

Audience Responses to Media Diversification: Coping with Plenty

Excerpt

The idea for this book grew out of a discussion between the two editors in Munich in the summer of 1985. It matured over the next months, taking shape during the spring and summer of the following year.

During the spring of 1986,Lee Becker was a visiting professor in the Institute of Mass Communication at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The support of Professor James Stappers of that institute is particularly acknowledged. During the summer of 1986, the two editors were able to work together in Hannover in West Germany with the support of the German National Science Foundation.

The editors were able to come together in the final stages of the project as a result of support given to Klaus Schoenbach by the Department of Theatre Arts at San Jose State University in the United States. The assistance of the chairman of this department, Professor Stanley Baran, is acknowledged.

The editors also acknowledge the support provided by their home institutions, The Ohio State University and The Academy for Music and Theater, Hannover.Lee Becker was given special assistance as part of the Distinguished Research Award program at his university.

All of the contributors for this volume were recruited to write specifically for this project. Contributors were provided with an outline of the project and a draft of the first chapter to the book and asked to fashion their contributions along the lines specified. Several of the contributors were able to meet with the editors in the summer of 1987 at the conference of the World Association for Public Opinion Research in Montreux, Switzerland, to discuss a preliminary draft of the concluding chapter.