The donations detailed by the study, known by fund-raisers as "soft money" and by critics as "sewer money," are a critical supplement to direct fund-raising appeals by candidates.

Both political parties have directed appeals particularly to mothers by stressing certain issues like education, gun control and health care.

Hospitals have also directed more in-house appeals to their own staff members, in an attempt to insure that they will be available as donors in times of shortage.

But the Murdoch people are taking the risk that marketers, ever desirous of directing appeals at finer and finer targets, will be confused by a publication that refuses to identify its readers graphically.

Other Arab leaders, notably those of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria, who have backed the American-led military buildup in the Persian Gulf, have also directed last-minute appeals to Iraq.

Advertisers are already using computerized records of individuals' buying patterns to direct appeals to specific households.

In recent years, however, Lifetime has promoted its issue-oriented programming by tying it to direct appeals to viewers to improve their lives.

Decades of collectivist decision-making by party central committees have rapidly given way to direct appeals to the general voter.

Another practitioner is Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, so skillful she can direct appeals at two contrasting constituencies.

While he said it would be logical to expect Presidential candidates to direct appeals at cities, Mr. Lanier expressed some exasperation that this had not occurred even after the rioting in Los Angeles.