[Air-l] Anthrax scare pushes requests for electronic letters to the edito r

Jennifer Stromer-Galley jstromer at asc.upenn.edu
Wed Oct 17 09:26:21 PDT 2001


I subscribe to the Benton Foundation's Email list (www.benton.org/news), and
I found this little tidbit synopsized by them from CNET news. Only months
(weeks?) ago we were worried about viruses being passed through email, now
we are worried about bacteria passed through postal mail. I would not have
predicted a year ago that people would be urging electronic mail over postal
mail. 

~Jenny Stromer-Galley
Annenberg School for Communication
University of Pennsylvania
jstromer at asc.upenn.edu




E-MAIL A SAVIOR AMID ANTHRAX SCARE
Issue: Internet
A number of corporate entities, as well as Congress, have begun urging
people to communicate through e-mail instead of sending traditional letters
through the U.S. Postal Service. This week, the Arizona Daily Star announced
that the newspaper would no longer accept regular postal mail addressed to
"Letters to the Editor." Instead, editor and publisher Jane Amari told
readers the paper is asking people to send all correspondence by e-mail, fax
or through an online calendar. The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) sent
an e-mail to its members urging them to send e-mail in conjunction with mass
mailing campaigns. "This is not something that we just thought up Tuesday,"
said Lou Mastria, director of public and international affairs for the New
York-based DMA, the oldest and largest trade association for users and
suppliers in the direct, database and interactive marketing fields. "This is
a practice that's been developing for some time...It increases response
rates normally, but it's particularly effective in this kind of environment,
when people are concerned about their mail." More than half of all Americans
use e-mail, for an average of a half-hour each day, according to a recent
report by Forrester Research. Jupiter Media Metrix predicts that by 2006 140
million Americans will be "active" e-mail users.
[SOURCE: CNET News, AUTHOR: Rachel Konrad and Paul Festa]
(http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7546301.html)




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