Search

This study examines how the news frames that journalists use to present contentious policy debates shape reasoning processes and opinion outcomes. Drawing on the notion that framing is a cognitive process in which the message affects how individuals weigh existing considerations (i.e., political orientations and relevant attitudes/beliefs) to make a judgment, the authors conducted two experiments in which they presented participants with news stories in which policy conflicts were described as either a clash of underlying values and principles (i.e., a value frame) or as a clash of political interests and strategies (i.e., a strategy frame). The results suggest that the framed news stories failed to change issue opinions directly but did alter the importance of the considerations used to make judgments on relevant issues. Specifically, individuals tend to react to strategy frames by discounting partisan affiliation as a primary consideration, turning to other salient alternatives when making judgments. Keywords: framing effects; strategy frames; value frames; issue dualism; stem cell issue; immigration policy; policy reasoning

Studies examining the effects of news cues (i.e., labels used to characterize issue domains and social groups) typically fail to consider the possibility that news stories may contain multiple cues that have interactive effects on audience processing and opinion expression. To test this possibility, the authors conduct a Web survey-embedded experiment that manipulates features of a news report about civil liberties restrictions targeted at Arabs portrayed as either immigrants or citizens and as either extremists or moderates. Hypotheses predict stronger intercorrelations and faster speed of response among a range of social intolerance evaluations when respondents encounter the combination of immigrant and extremist cues. Findings indicate the convergence of immigrant and extremist cues not only yield stronger associations between group evaluations, social intolerance, immigration opposition, and minority disempowerment but also reduce response latencies. The results across these two measures provide support for a theory of associative priming via cue convergence. Keywords: cueing; cue convergence; associative priming; spreading activation; tolerance

This article examines the role of the Internet as a source of political information and a sphere for public expression. Informational media use, whether traditional news sources or online public affairs content, is expected to foster interpersonal political discussion and online civic messaging, contributing to increased civic participation. Using two-wave national panel survey data, three types of synchronous structural equation models are tested: cross sectional (relating individual differences), fixed effects (relating intraindividual change), and auto regressive (relating aggregate change). All models reveal that online media complement traditional media to foster political discussion and civic messaging. These two forms of political expression, in turn, influence civic participation. Other variable orderings are tested to compare the theorized model to alternative causal specifications. Results reveal that the model produces the best fit, empirically and theoretically, with the influence of the Internet, rivaling the mobilizing power of traditional modes of information and expression. Keywords: civic engagement; computer-mediated communication; interpersonal discussion; media effects; political participation; social capital

This two-wave national panel study was designed to test the causal claims of the 'cognitive mediation model.' The data indicate strong support for the following causal relationships predicted by the model: (a) surveillance motivations influence information processing, (b) information processing influences knowledge, and (c) motivations influence knowledge only indirectly through information processing. However, additional analyses demonstrated that these variables are not related in a simple unidirectional causal pattern. Instead, panel analyses found that most of these relationships are mutually causal. Future research should consider the reciprocal nature of relationships between information processing and knowledge, particularly as it relates to the study of the knowledge gap hypothesis. Keywords: uses and gratifications; elaboration; knowledge gap; political knowledge; news media

Many scholars have bemoaned declining levels of social trust and civic engagement in our society. A decline in trust, some have argued, is linked to a decrease in civic engagement and vice versa. This study examines the processes through which this dynamic, termed social capital, is maintained. The authors differentiate three dimensions of social capital: social trust, life satisfaction, and civic engagement. They also examine the influence of demographic, personality strength, political interest, and informational variables (hard news media use) on these dimensions. The authors use data from DDB Needham's 1997 Life Style Study to test their hypothesized model. Results of structural equation modeling revealed that personality strength, an amalgam of self-confidence and opinion leadership, has a relatively strong direct impact on all dimensions of social capital, whereas informational variables have rather weak effects that are limited to civic engagement.

This article builds on multidisciplinary research on framing, motivation, and decision making to examine the relationships among media frames, individual interpretations of issues, and voter decision making. Chosen for an experimental study were two research populations, evangelical Christians and undergraduate students, who were expected to differ in their values and priorities. Subjects were presented simulated newspaper articles about an election contest and asked to make a candidate choice. Within issue environments containing candidate stands on four issues, the media frame of a single issue, health care, was altered: one experimental group in each population received an ethical textual frame and the other a material textual frame. Findings indicate that media frames and issue interpretations, in conjunction, substantially influence the type of decision-making strategy voters employ. Implications for future research on politics and media are discussed.

Public perception of a biased news media, particularly media biased in a liberal direction, has increased over the past 3 presidential elections. To examine what might be influencing this public opinion, the authors look at shifts in public perception of media bias, press coverage of the topic of media bias, and the balance in valence coverage of presidential candidates - all during the 1988, 1992, and 1996 presidential elections. Their results suggest that the rise in public perception that news media are liberally biased is not the result of bias in valence news coverage of the candidates, but, rather, due to increasing news self-coverage that focuses on the general topic of bias in news content. Furthermore, the increased claims of media bias come primarily from conservative elites who have proclaimed a liberal bias that is viewed as including the entire media industry.

This research explores the influence of mass media use and community context on civic engagement. The article presents a multilevel test of print, broadcast, and Internet effects on interpersonal trust and civic participation that acknowledges there are (a) micro-level differences in the motives underlying media use, (b) age-cohort differences in patterns of media use and levels of civic engagement, and (c) macro-level differences in community/communication context. Accordingly, the effects of individual differences in media use and aggregate differences in community context are analyzed within generational subsamples using a pooled data set developed from the 1998 and 1999 DDB Life Style Studies. The data suggest that informational uses of mass media are positively related to the production of social capital, whereas social-recreational uses are negatively related to these civic indicators. Informational uses of mass media were also found to interact with community context to influence civic engagement. Analyses within subsamples find that among the youngest adult Americans, use of the Internet for information exchange more strongly influences trust in people and civic participation than do uses of traditional print and broadcast news media.

The authors posit that 2 distinct perceptual dimensions underlie the third-person effect hypothesis: judgments of susceptibility to communications (a cognitive process) and severity of communications (an affective process). To explore this, 194 adults were asked (a) to estimate their own and others' susceptibility to various types of advertising content and the severity of such advertising's effects on themselves and others, and (b) to express their willingness to censor these classes of commercials. The advertising content fell into 2 broad categories: controversial products (cigarettes, liquor, and beer) and gambling services (casinos and lotteries). Findings indicate that third-person perceptions exist in terms of susceptibility and severity, and that both of these perceptual biases are related to individuals' willingness to censor advertising.

By analyzing data from a national panel survey of adolescents (ages 12-17) and their parents conducted around the 2008 general election, this study explores the varied roles communication plays in socializing youth into democratic citizenship. In particular, we propose and test a communication mediation model of youth socialization, in which interdependent communication processes located in the family, schools, media, and peer networks combine to cultivate communication competence, a set of basic communication skills and motives needed for active and informed participation in public life. Analysis of our panel data indicates that participation in deliberative classroom activities and democratic peer norms contribute to civic activism among youth. These peer and school influences, however, are found to be largely indirect, working through informational use of conventional and online news media, and expression and discussion of political ideas outside of classroom and family boundaries. In particular, our findings highlight strong online pathways to participation, centering on news consumption and political expression via digital media technologies, suggesting the key role of the Internet in this dynamic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines how the news frames that journalists use to present contentious policy debates shape reasoning processes and opinion outcomes. Drawing on the notion that framing is a cognitive process in which the message affects how individuals weigh existing considerations (i.e., political orientations and relevant attitudes/beliefs) to make a judgment, the authors conducted two experiments in which they presented participants with news stories in which policy conflicts were described as either a clash of underlying values and principles (i.e., a value frame) or as a clash of political interests and strategies (i.e., a strategy frame). The results suggest that the framed news stories failed to change issue opinions directly but did alter the importance of the considerations used to make judgments on relevant issues. Specifically, individuals tend to react to strategy frames by discounting partisan affiliation as a primary consideration, turning to other salient alternatives when making judgments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on a study which determines whether individuals estimated others to be both more susceptible to and more severely affected by mass communications than themselves. Methodology of the study; Results and discussion on the study.

Examines the relationships among media frames, individual interpretations of issues, and voter decision making by building on multidisciplinary research on framing, motivation and decision making. Framing and priming; Motivation and the self; Decision making; Implications for understanding the voting process.