Message from the Media: Drinking and Driving in Newspapers

Estep, Rhoda; Wallack, Lawrence Marshall · 1985 · ROSA P / United States. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

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Summary

This study, conducted by Rhoda Estep and Lawrence Wallack for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), examines the content and messaging of U.S. newspaper coverage regarding drinking and driving between September 1983 and August 1984. The research was motivated by a documented increase in media attention to alcohol-impaired driving and a lack of empirical data on how newspapers portrayed the issue. The authors sought to determine whether media coverage emphasized legislative sanctions, enforcement, or prevention, and how these portrayals varied by newspaper type and article format. The methodology involved a content analysis of a random sample of 300 articles drawn from a larger NHTSA collection of 1,753 articles. The sample was geographically representative of the U.S. Coders analyzed the articles for characteristics such as newspaper frequency and distribution, article type (news report, feature, editorial), and detailed content including themes, implications, and tone. Reliability testing yielded an overall intercoder agreement coefficient of 0.86. The coding instrument focused on legislative, judicial, enforcement, and educational aspects, excluding stories focused on individual victims to protect privacy. The findings reveal that legislation was the most dominant theme, particularly concerning raising the legal drinking age and increasing sanctions for driving under the influence (DUI). The most frequent implications conveyed to readers were that punishment for DUI was becoming more certain (34% of articles) and more severe (24%). Significant variations emerged based on newspaper characteristics. Daily metropolitan and nationwide newspapers focused primarily on legislative and judicial matters, whereas rural and weekly newspapers emphasized education, prevention, and the activities of citizen groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Furthermore, article type influenced tone: editorials strongly advocated for increased legislative activity, news reports presented factual accounts of legal proceedings, and features highlighted prevention programs. The study concludes that the media landscape in the mid-1980s largely supported increasing activities to reduce drunk driving, with a heavy emphasis on punitive legislative measures in major dailies and preventive education in rural papers. The authors suggest that while the media publicized deterrent laws, the effectiveness of these messages in shaping public perception remains an open question. The report highlights a divergence in media framing, where metropolitan press acted as a conduit for policy debates, while local rural press served as a platform for community-based prevention efforts.

Key finding

Legislation was the predominant theme in newspaper coverage of drinking and driving, with the most frequent implications being that punishment for DUI was becoming more certain and severe.

Methodology

dataset

Sample size: 300

Provenance

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Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.

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• public messaging

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• Other: info type other