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This paper presents a new approach to the study of media and immigration. For the first time, psychological variables investigated in current experimental research, particularly the motivational concept of minimal and maximal goals (Brendl & Higgings, 1996), are operationalized in content analyses and measured in a medial context. Television news from four major German television stations as well as newspaper articles by two prestige papers within a one year period are examined. Content analyses are supposed to replicate prior findings and to build the data basis for cluster analyses used to specify typical formal and plot structures of news reports about immigrants. These reports are shown to a representative sample of German television viewers in order to learn more about recipients' cognitive and affective processing of this information. Consequently, media effects can be measured on a direct behavioral level including attitude formation as well as viewers' habits and behavioral routines. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Linguistic Intergroup Bias (LIB) is defined as the tendency to describe positive ingroup and negative outgroup behaviors in more abstract linguistic categories than negative ingroup and positive outgroup behavior (Fiedler, Bluemke, Friese & Hofmann, 2003). It leads to a more abstract linguistic representation of undesirable aspects compared to desirable ones in describing outgroups and vice versa for the ingroup. The effects are more stable attributions of negative aspects regarding the outgroup thus reinforcing stereotypes. So far, the LIB has mostly been investigated in limited experimental contexts. Although research on mass communication has investigated the media's role in Intergroup conflict for long, there have rarely been attempts to merge these 2 lines of research. Consequently, this paper presents an integrative research agenda for the investigation of Intergroup bias in mass media and postulates 5 hypotheses in conclusion. The research agenda is twofold: (1) It encompasses the analysis of Semantic as well as Pragmatic Intergroup Bias in mass media and (2) Examines the effects this coverage has on the recipients and their judgments. For the first time, Intergroup Bias is studied on different language levels and in different media types and formats. We postulate that it is promising to go beyond semantic categories when analyzing Intergroup conflict in mass media and that it is necessary to take into account visual information as well. A thorough analysis of the methods used as well as preliminary evidence for the hypotheses is presented. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although news programs have been usually considered a typically informational media genre, current research suggests that they are followed not only from a rational point of interest but also from an emotional motivation (Döveling, Hoffmann 2006). Along with this perspective, an experimental study addressed the role of social interaction within news reception. 40 dyads (friends and couples) were presented a TV-news report and then asked to discuss it. Conversations were taped in order to analyze how it is processed communicatively. 40 individuals in the control group singly watched the report without subsequent interaction. In both groups evaluations and opinions were measured. Confirming the above mentioned assumption, dyads discuss news content on an emotional basis and cope with their evaluation interactively. Discussions increase the salience of selected issues and affect their subsequent perception. Communication partners reassure their personal assessments of the news and adjust their positions in the course of conversation. This demonstrates the vital role of social interaction in coping with TV-news. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]