International Journal of Public Opinion Research Advance Access originally published online on May 7, 2008
International Journal of Public Opinion Research 2008 20(3):386-397; doi:10.1093/ijpor/edn023
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The World Association for Public Opinion Research. All rights reserved.
The Death of Rosmarie Voser: The Not-so-harmful Consequences of a Fatal Medical Error
Address correspondence to Professor Dr Peter J. Schulz, Institute of Communication and Health, Facoltà di scienze della communicazione, Università della Svizzera italiana, Via Giuseppe Buffi 13, 6904 Lugano, Switzerland, E-mail: peter.schulz@lu.unisi.ch
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Most studies of the societal impact of events on public opinion have been focused on the area of politics and dealt with intentional events. For example, four studies which the Public Opinion Quarterly published in 1969 concerned the assassinations of John F. Kennedy (Sicinski, 1969) and Martin Luther King (Hofstetter, 1969; Meyer, 1969) or an assault in South Africa (Lever, 1969). Other more recent event studies investigated the impact of the attacks on September 11 on public opinion (Noelle-Neumann, 2002; Worcester, 2002; Huddy, Khatib, & Capelos, 2002). However, less is known about the impact of tragic events which were not intentionally caused. Two major obstacles to studies about the impact of events on public opinion are the lack of baseline data (Sorrentino & Vidmar, 1974) and the problem of sorting out the effects of events-as-events, and effects of the events-as-news, that is
| BACKGROUND OF STUDY: THE DEATH OF ROSMARIE VOSER |
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| RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES |
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| METHODS |
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CONTENT ANALYSIS: SAMPLE AND CODING PROCEDURES
CONTENT ANALYSIS: MEASURES
SURVEY: SAMPLE
| RESULTS |
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THE TIDE OF MEDIA ATTENTION TO ORGAN DONATION FOLLOWING VOSER'S DEATH
AFFECTIVE REACTIONS IN THE MEDIA AND PUBLIC RESPONSE
INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE
WILLINGNESS TO DONATE ORGANS
| DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS |
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