Drug Abuse Violations in Communities

Abstract

This study conceptualizes community newspapers as a unique community-level resource that promotes community social control. Specifically, community newspapers were hypothesized to have negative effects on drug abuse violations, both directly and indirectly, as mediated by civic engagement. Results indicate that a macro-level measure of community newspapers had an indirect negative effect on drug abuse violations through its positive effect on civic engagement. Implications are discussed for the role of community newspapers in building a healthy community.