"Through the use of meta-research techniques, this study examines how researchers in 224 studies examined the role of the media (television, radio, newspapers and magazines) in developing countries as agents of behavioral, attitude and knowledge changes of audience members from 1958, which marks the date of publication of Daniel Lerner's important work, The Passing of Traditional Society, to 1986. To make the meta-research more manageable, the focus was on English-language, U.S., Canadian or European based research, since it is the most widely available and comprehensive in volume. Because this study attempted to identify and collect all relevant studies, the meta-research approximates a population of studies, rather than a sample." (Page 129)

"A total of 224 studies were included in the meta-research. To be included, studies had to satisfy three criteria. They had to: (1) deal with the media's role in national development; (2) examine how radio, television, newspapers and/or magazines in developing countries affected audience members' attitudes, behaviors or knowledge; (3) been published between 1958 and 1986 as dissertations, convention papers, scholarly journals and books. Technical papers published by government agencies and/or international organizations, as well as articles published in the popular press, were not included. Another body of literature excluded from this meta-research's analysis was diffusion of innovations (as labeled by the studies themselves) because of the extensive syntheses already conducted by Rogers with Shoemaker (1971) and Rogers (1983). Because this study attempted to identify and collect all relevant studies satisfying the criteria, the meta-research approximates a population of studies. Thus, discussions of differences between the pre- and post-debate periods do not include reports of statistical significance." (Page 130)