In order to study the influence of need for orientation and media gratifications on media use and media effects in political communication, two previous surveys were studied to compare the causal modeling approach and the contingent conditions approach. In the first study, 339 personal interviews were conducted with registered voters during a congressional campaign, and in the second, supplemented by newspaper and television content analysis, 135 registered voters from three diverse communities were interviewed during the 1976 presidential campaign. Measures of need for orientation about politics, political media gratifications, media use for political information, and frequency of political discussion were compared. Data from the first study indicate that the need for orientation and political gratifications have an effect on discussion of politics mainly through newspaper and television use for political information. Data from the second study indicate a relationship between need for orientation and discussion of politics, regardless of patterns of media use and expected political gratifications. Together, the studies indicate that both need for orientation and individual political gratifications are important in predicting media use for political information. A literature review, graphs, and references are included. (DF)