[Air-l] citations sought: email and journalists

[D. Silver]

Folks,

Vimla Sriram, a graduate student at the University of Washington, asked me
to post the following query to air-l.  If you have any suggestions, please
email her directly at <vimla at u.washington.edu>.  Thanks!

david silver

***

I am interested to find out if the ease and efficiency of using e-mail
has induced a significant amount of people to communicate to newspaper
journalists, and whether the journalists are able to reply to their
readers.

I am aware of Brian L. Massey and Mark Levy's research on leading
Asian newspapers that published online, and while their research mainly
focused on how the newspapers utilized interactivity, they found that
even though newspapers provided e-mail addresses of journalists it seemed
that it was more for "appearance than for functionality." I am looking for
similar research, hopefully where the primary aspect being studied is the
e-mail flow between people and a specific group (journalists, in my case).

Has there been any other research documenting e-mail feedback to
journalists? Tanjev Schultz published an exploratory study in Media,
Culture and Society. He questioned journalists from the NYT about the
e-mails they receive, and how they deal with it. I haven't come across
anything else.

Any and all suggestions are welcome!

Vimla Sriram
vimla at u.washington.edu