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The Content of Political Participation: Letters to the Editor and the People Who Write Them

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2009

Christopher Cooper ,
H. Gibbs Knotts  and
Moshe Haspel
Christopher Cooper
Affiliation:
Western Carolina University
H. Gibbs Knotts
Affiliation:
Western Carolina University
Moshe Haspel
Affiliation:
Emory University
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Abstract

Letters to the editor are an important but poorly understood form of voluntary political participation. To learn more about the content of letters to the editor and the characteristics of the people who write them we conducted a content analysis of 1,415 randomly selected printed letters from eight newspapers from 2002 to 2005. We also matched the letter writers from our sample to demographic and political information contained in a state voterfile.

Type
Features
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , January 2009 , pp. 131 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2009

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