Communication Theory & Methodology 2008 Abstracts
Communication Theory & Methodology Division
The Logic of Argument Quality: Rethinking How Strong and Weak Arguments Are Operationalized • Betsy Anderson, University of St. Thomas and Marco Yzer, University of Minnesota • This article describes how “argument quality,” an important construct in the attitude & persuasion and message processing literature, is currently defined conceptually and operationally. It identifies potential problems with the traditional method for operationalizing the construct, and explicates conditions under which an alternative method for operationally defining argument quality would be useful. The major contribution of this article is to develop and describe an alternative method for operationalizing argument quality in experimental research.
A Selective Exposure Experiment on Social Identity Theory: Effects of News Valence, Character Race, and Recipient Race on Selective News Reading • Osei Appiah and Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, The Ohio State University; Scott Alter, Wood Johnson Medical School • Social Identity Theory suggests a preference for positive information about an ingroup and negative information about an outgroup. Hypotheses derived from this theory were tested by examining impacts of news valence, race of the character portrayed in the news, and recipient race on selective news reading in an experimental design.
Hip-Hop Fandom and Identification: Relations with Expectancies toward Alcohol and Tobacco among Young Adults • Michelle Arganbright, Washington State University • In a secondary analysis of experimental data, a sample of 195 college undergraduates (59 male and 136 female) participated in a cross-sectional survey addressing hip-hop fandom, identification, and expectancies toward alcohol and tobacco. Results were significant for hip-hop fandom, yet stronger for identification. Third-order correlations and regression analysis revealed that identification informed expectancies more strongly than fandom. Results are discussed within the frameworks of social cognitive theory and media uses-and-gratifications.
Psychometric Evaluation of Harter’s SPPA Global Self-Worth and Implications for Use in Mass Communication Research • Michelle Arganbright, Washington State University • Harter’s Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents (SPPA) is used to assess adolescent self-worth and other felt competencies, although not commonly used in the field of mass communication. An examination of the instrument’s content validity, internal reliability, and construct, convergent/divergent, and external validities is provided. It is concluded that the Global Self-Worth subscale, and the SPPA as a whole, is a useful tool for communication researchers who are interested in the socialization effects of popular media upon adolescents.
Take Me to Your Leaders: Exploring a Two-Dimensional Model of Community Pluralism and its Effects on the Availability of Public Records • Cory Armstrong, University of Florida • This study extends research in community pluralism by examining how a broader look at the concept might provide more comprehensive measure. The model was used to examine how community power affects the level of transparency within decision-making.
The Value of the Third-Person Effect: Evaluating the Third-Person Effect in Theory Building • Tae Hyun Baek, University of Georgia • The third-person effect sheds light on understanding the self-other discrepancy in perceived media effects and potential behavioral consequences of the perceptual component. Despite the practical impetus and growing theoretical interest in the third-person effect, very little attention has been given to assess its efficacy and value for a more rigorous theory construction.
Item Difficulty and Political Learning: Inter-item and Inter-individual Differences Model • Youngmin Baek, Magdalena Wojcieszak, University of Pennsylvannia • Although political knowledge is measured by items with varying difficulty levels, communication studies have not scrutinized the interaction effects between item difficulty and media use on political learning. Drawing from American National Election Study 2004, this analysis investigates whether item difficulty moderates the impact that media use and interpersonal communication have on political learning. We find a noticeable interplay between item difficulty and media effects.
Toward a Taxonomy of Frames • Brian Baresch, University of Texas • Communications research has produced many definitions and descriptions of framing, but the subject remains with no standard theoretical treatment either within or across disciplines; researchers have not agreed on even a standard taxonomy of frames. This paper reviews the framing literature with the goal of identifying useful and generalizable frame classifications and models, with suggestions for further research and for application among working journalists.
Interpersonal discussion following citizen engagement about nanotechnology: What, if anything, do they say? • John Besley, Victoria L. Kramer, Qingjiang Yao and Christopher P. Toumey, University of South Carolina • The current study explores interpersonal discussion following participation in a novel form of citizen engagement about nanotechnology. Participants answered closed- and open-ended questions about their discursive behavior in a post-engagement survey. The study seeks to address whether organizers of citizen engagement can expect participants to extend the impacts of engagement beyond direct participants through interpersonal discussion.
Pathways to Alarm or Shortcuts to Apathy? Examining Communication Effects on Concern About Global Warming • Andrew R. Binder, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Research on news portrayals of science and technology often focus on the framing of science issues and on the accuracy of media depictions, especially with regard to scientific uncertainty and consensus. Unfortunately, many of these studies suggest direct effects of media content on the attitudes of individual media users. In this paper, I propose that such effects are unlikely and that public views of issues related to science are significantly shaped by interpersonal discussion.
Speaking Out Among Strangers, Friends, and Kin: Social Setting and the Spiral of Silence • Ken Blake and Robert O. Wyatt, Middle Tennessee State University • Spiral of silence research typically tests willingness to dissent among strangers. In a statewide survey, we experimentally tested spiral effects among friends, family, and strangers. Initially, we found micro-level spiral of silence effects only among friends and family. The effect among strangers appeared only after subjects had been primed by the more congenial climate of opinion among friends or family. We propose further probing how social ties influence micro-level spiral of silence effects.
Chronological Inconsistency: Reexamining the Persuasive Process • D. Jasun Carr, University of Wisconsin Madison • To date, the majority of studies surrounding persuasion presented subjects with simple, consistent cues prior to or during exposure to the argument. Yet while any number of cues are obvious from the outset, there are instances in which information is not revealed until after the primary argument has been introduced. The results of this experiment illustrate the interaction between interest, cue placement and attitudes toward nuclear power as an alternative energy source.
The effects of mass media and interpersonal communication on college women’s desire for fair-skinned appearance. Yuen Ting Chay • Poh Kwan, Wai Yin Chong, Sok Kuan Lee, and Stella Chia, Nanyang Technological University • This study examines the direct and indirect effects of (1) exposure to skin lightening ads and (2) exposure to fair skin ideal in interpersonal communication with peers, on college women’s attitudes towards fair-skinned appearance and their consequent intention to lighten skin. We conducted a survey with a sample of 305 Singaporean college women. We found that college women’s exposure to skin lightening ads was indirectly associated with the college women’s intention to lighten skin.
Inside the Narrative: The Role of Information Placement upon Narrative Persuasion • Michael Dahlstrom, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Studies of narrative persuasion often treat narrative as a homogenous construct while the field of discourse comprehension highlights its heterogeneity. This study brings the two areas of study together to examine the potential effect of information placement within a narrative on persuasive power. Results suggest that assertions placed on the causal chain of a narrative result in both greater recall and perceived truthfulness than assertions placed off the causal chain.
Agenda-Building Theory in Communication Research: Toward Coherence and Parsimony • Bryan Denham, Clemson University • In the years since political scientists Cobb and Elder (1971) advanced agenda building as an alternative structural perspective to the normatively appealing, yet realistically untenable, democracy theory, the agenda-building framework has been applied somewhat sporadically and inconsistently in at least three types of communication studies: (a) Those that analyze reciprocity and interchange among policymakers, mass media and mass publics.
From the Cradle to the Grave: A Lifespan Approach to Media Effects • Jacob Depue, Nathan Gilkerson, T.C. Kelvin Choi, Brittany R.L. Duff and Brian Southwell, University of Minnesota • Variations in brain function, schema development, and knowledge representations throughout Variations in brain function, schema development, and knowledge representations throughout the lifespan may lead to profound differences in media effects. Existing research in tobacco use, violence and aggression, and political advertising are provided as examples revealing initial support for these ideas, while highlighting gaps in the literature.
Distinguishing Dimensions of Political Discussion Using Demographic, Media Use, Political and Personality Variables • William Eveland, Alyssa Morey, Myiah Hively, The Ohio State University • Our understanding of what contributes to various dimensions of political discussion is lacking. This representative survey examines similarities and differences in prediction of overall political discussion, safe discussion, dangerous discussion, and diverse discussion. Findings indicate substantial differences in prediction patterns, with the most pronounced difference between safe and dangerous discussion – despite a positive correlation between these two variables.
Expanding and validating applications of the Willingness to Self-Censor scale: Self censorship and media advisers’ comfort level with controversial topic • Vincent Filak, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Scott Reinardy and Adam Maksl, Ball State University • Research on the Willingness to Self-Censor (WTSC) scale (Hayes, Glynn & Shanahan, 2005 a, b; Hayes, Uldall & Glynn, 2007) has posited that the desire to withhold one’s opinion in the face of an unfriendly audience is an intrinsic, as opposed to situational, trait.
Media Influence on Suicidal Ideation: A Theory Testing Approach. KW Fu • The University of Hong Kong • Based on the conceptual framework of the social cognitive theory, this paper proposes a novel way of operationalization of the psychological mechanism of media influence on suicidal ideation and then tests the theoretical model by the application of structural equation modeling. A two-wave panel study with a randomized sample in Hong Kong, China indicated that the proposed operationalization closely fit to the data collected and empirically supported the model. A reciprocal effect was also confirmed.
“Spiral of Cynicism”“ or “Virtuous Circle”: Political Alienation and Television News Use • Laurel Gleason, The Ohio State University • Inconsistent conceptualizations of political alienation in media studies complicate efforts to synthesize prior research. This essay establishes the utility of deconstructing the dependent variable. Analyzing NES data, I find no relationship between television news use and regime based trust or external efficacy, but a positive relationship to campaign interest and internal efficacy, and a negative relationship to incumbent based trust. Accordingly, I encourage researchers to avoid broad conclusions regarding the implications of media for democracy.
The Framing Debate: Idealistic Framing versus Pragmatic Framing and the Relationship to Information Processing • Melissa Gotlieb, Ashley Anderson, Porismita Borah, Itay Gabay, Nam-Jin Lee and Douglas McLeod, University of Wisconsin-Madison • We introduce a hybrid approach to framing effects examining factually equivalent frames and the role of resonant facts on information seeking. An experiment manipulating health care policy options in terms of benefits versus risks finds that framing effects occur with the presentation of equivalent frames but when resonant facts are added, reflection and involvement become more important for predicting information seeking. We place these findings in the context of the idealistic and pragmatist framing debate.
Who Gets the Media Attention?: Media Polling and Primary Election Coverage • Sungtae Ha, Kyung Hee University • This study scrutinized how poll reporting affects the subsequent news coverage of political campaigns in the same news media. For this purpose, a content analysis of USA Today’s coverage of the 2008 primary elections for presidential nomination. A close relationship between the changes in the amount of news coverage of candidates and their standings in polls was found. This finding implies that the scientific news information may cause a winner-centered narrative of reporting.
In Search of the Opinion Climate: A New (and Novel) Test of Spiral of Silence Theory • Andrew Hayes, Ohio State University; Jorg Matthes, U of Zurich; Myiah Hively and William Eveland ,The Ohio State University • We tested a heretofore never-investigated proposition from spiral of silence theory that fear of social isolation (FSI) prompts people to seek out information about the climate of opinion. Taking an individual difference perspective, in study 1 we develop a short and easy-to-administer measure of a person’s FSI that is less likely to produce the interpretational problems that plague research using other measures.
Contextual Antecedents and Political Consequences of Adolescent Political Discussion, Discussion Elaboration, and Network Diversity • Myiah Hively and William Eveland, The Ohio State University • Understanding how adolescents come to be informed participants in democracy is a key concern in political socialization. However, our understanding of this process is hampered by limited research on the antecedents of a sufficiently wide array of communication behaviors and cognitions, in addition to a limited repertoire of knowledge outcomes in adolescent research.
The Study of Electoral Ambivalence as Mediator of the Relationship between Talk Radio Exposure and Electoral Decision Making • Jay Hmielowski, Ohio State University • Research has looked at dispositional characteristics and exposure to cross-cutting information as sources of political ambivalence. In addition, research shows that high ambivalence affects citizens’ political decision-making processes. This study expands extant political communication research by focusing on varied types of political talk radio exposure as possible generators of ambivalence and the role of ambivalence as mediator of the relationship between talk radio and electoral decision-making.
Voices of Convergence or Conflict? A Path Analysis Investigation of Selective Exposure to Political Websites • Thomas Johnson, Weiwu Zhang and Shannon Bichard, Texas Tech University • This research employed a path analysis model to explore the degree to which reliance on offline and online media use, offline and online discussion of political issues, as well as political attitudes and demographic factors predict whether an individual will engage in selective exposure to political websites.
A Planned Risk Information Seeking Model • LeeAnn Kahlor, University of Texas at Austin • Recent attention paid by researchers to health-related information seeking has focused primarily on information seeking within specific health contexts. This study attempts to shift some of that focus to the more individual-level variables that may impact health information seeking across contexts. The researcher posits a planned risk information seeking model that takes into consideration multiple health and environmental risk-related research streams. The resulting model accounted for 59% of the variance in information seeking intent.
Virtual Doppelganger: Effects of a Virtual Reality Simulator on Perceptions of Schizophrenia • Sriram Kalyanaraman, University of North Carolina, David Penn, UNC-Chapel Hill, James D. Ivory, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and Abigail Judge, UNC-Chapel Hill • The much-touted promise of virtual reality is increasingly gaining popularity in user-centered information research. One domain which has attracted considerable attention is that of stigma research, with scholars suggesting that virtual environments could serve as effective proxies in battling implicit stereotypes and prejudices. However, existing research has rarely examined the effects of a virtual simulation of a mental illness in rigorous experimental scenarios.
Explicating and measuring social relationships in social capital research: A working paper • Mami Kikuchi and Cynthia-Lou Coleman, Portland State University • Focus of this working paper is a discussion of the explication of the construct Social Capital and the measures communication scholars employ in operationalizing social relationships as part of social capital. We found that, while some scholars use similar measures of social capital, the conceptualizations vary, and that operationalizations are not uniformly used. Moreover the linkage between the concepts and the measures is not always clear.
Identifying the Key Targets for CSR Marketing: Associating the Consumer Characteristics with Purchase Intentions of CSR-Marketed Products • Hyo Kim and Esther Thorson, University of Missouri at Columbia • Despite the increasing importance of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) practices as an effective corporate marketing tool, there has been limited understanding about the target consumer groups susceptible to CSR marketing. The current study investigates the consumer characteristics which would be associated with consumers’ attitudes toward and purchase intentions of CSR-marketed products. The national sample (n=2,712) from DDB Life Style Study (2005) was analyzed.
The view at the border: News framing of the definition, causes, and solutions to the illegal immigration problem • Sei-Hill Kim, John Carvalho, Andrew Davis and Amanda Mullins, Auburn University • Analyzing newspaper articles and television news transcripts (N = 484), this study explores how American news media have framed the issue of illegal immigration. More specifically, we analyze the way the media present the questions of why illegal immigration is a problem, what the causes are, and how to fix the problem.
Distrust in the Local News Media and Civic Participation: Moderating Roles of Race and Connection to Community-based Communication Resources • Yong-Chan Kim, University of Iowa; Kyun Soo Kim, University of Alabama • Background: Previous scholarly discussions about growing distrust in the local news media have offered contrasting stories. Based on a communication infrastructure theory (CIT) perspective, the current study is an attempt to reconcile them by testing two moderating factors: race and individuals’ connection to community-based communication resources (measured by ICSN or integrated connection to community storytelling network).
Political Advertising and Agenda Setting: An Experimental Exploration of the Need for Orientation and Obtrusiveness • Yonghwan Kim, The University of Texas at Austin • This paper aims to examine the effects of political advertising on issue salience; the role of need for orientation in agenda-setting process; and the relationship between the individual levels of obtrusiveness of the issue and its salience. The results support the central proposition of the agenda-setting theory, which is that the political ads’ issue salience was transferred to the participants’ issue salience.
When the Movie Ends the Thinking Begins: Examining Entertainment Elaboration and the Mediating Role of Film Engagement • Heather LaMarre and Kristen Landreville, The Ohio State University • This study focuses on how individuals elaborate about socio-political issues in entertainment media. Data from an experiment (N = 302) were used to assess the direct and indirect effects of major motion picture films on elaboration about political issues raised within a fictional movie. Using structural equation modeling, the model revealed that viewing a fictional movie about electronic voting fraud led to increased elaboration about electronic voting in national elections.
Age and public opinion: Testing generational and life cycle effects on agenda setting • Jae Kook Lee, Renita Coleman and Maxwell McCombs, University of Texas at Austin • This study tests effects of age on the agenda-setting process both by cross-sectional and by longitudinal analysis. Using ANES survey data from 1960 to 2004, this study found that neither generational nor life-cycle effects significantly influenced agenda setting. Results indicate that the public agenda is fairly stable across generations and age cohorts despite increasing signs of media diversification and audience specialization. Implications of the findings are discussed.
Exploring effects of knowledge and interest on agenda setting • Jae Kook Lee, University of Texas • This study tests two competing hypotheses explaining the role played by political knowledge on media effects, using a conceptualization of political knowledge as a measure of news reception. With a content analysis and 2004 ANES survey data, this study found that knowledge was a positive and better predictor of the magnitude of the agenda-setting effect at an individual level than classic media use items. Further, knowledge was found to mediate effects of interest on agenda setting.
Too Much of a Good Thing? Heterogeneous Networks, Discussion Disagreement, and Political Participation • Nam-Jin Lee, Douglas McLeod and Dhavan Shah, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This study examines the possibility that the effect of a heterogeneous network on political participation is contingent upon the extent to which people actually experience contentious discussion airing disagreement in such networks. On the basis of the 1992 Cross-national Election Studies survey, this study found that a heterogeneous network was mobilizing for people who actually experienced higher levels of disagreement via political discussion, but demobilizing for those who did not.
Intersecting Frames in Health News: The Role of Emotions in Responsibility Attribution • Lesa Hatley Major, Indiana University • This study extends Iyengar’s (1991) and Kahneman and Tversky’s (1984) work to examine how the use of episodic and thematic and gain and loss framing in health news stories affects emotional response and how emotional reactions might assist us in understand the link between these frames an attribution of responsibility. Using an experimental design, this study manipulates the context of newspaper stories about the top two health concerns in the United States – cancer and obesity.
How stable are Framing Effects? A Two-Wave Experiment on Competing News Frames, Judgment Formation, and Judgment Stability • Jorg Matthes, University of Zurich • Previous research has only yielded little insights about the longevity of framing effects. In a 2×2 experiment, subjects are exposed to a news frame and their judgment formation is manipulated. After a distraction task, they read an opposing news frame. It is shown that memory-based judgments can be easily changed after the exposure to a competing frame; on-line judgments, however, remain stable. Thus, judgment formation is the crucial factor behind stable framing effects.
Resonance or Dampening? Relevance, Elaboration and Cognitive Interference • Dan McDonald, Jingbo Meng, Melanie Sarge and Caryn Ragin, Ohio State University • Most models of communication assume that relevant aspects of content lead to greater attention and increase an individual’s motivation for involvement, and that increasing the relevance of a given message tends to increase the depth of processing, and therefore should increase memory of the content. However, the literature suggests that the relationship is not that simple.
The Politics of Emotion: Voter emotions, news media use and participation • Kang Namkoong, Timothy Fung and Dietram Scheufele, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This study examines the mediating role of emotions on the relationship between news media use and political campaign participation. Numerous studies have investigated the effect of news media use on political participatory behavior. Research in this area, however, focused mostly on cognitive variables as influences on people’s behavior, rather than an interplay of emotions and cognitions. This study hypothesizes that emotional reactions to candidates can mediate the effect of news media attention on political campaign participation.
The Influence of Liking for Anti-Smoking PSAs on Smoking-Related Behavioral Intentions • Xiaoli Nan, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Xiaoquan Zhao, George Mason University • In this research, we examine the relative influence of liking for anti-smoking PSAs and argument strength on smoking-related behavioral intentions. We analyzed data from Legacy Media Tracking Survey and found that the relative impact of PSA liking and argument strength varied as a function of smoking status (never smokers, former smokers, current smokers) and age group (youths aged 12-17, young adults aged 18-24). For younger never smokers, only PSA liking predicted intentions not to smoke.
Influence of Incident Affect and Message Framing on Persuasion: The Case of Promoting Sun Protection Behaviors • Xiaoli Nan, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This research examines the interplay of incidental affect (positive vs. negative) and message framing (loss vs. gain) on individuals’ beliefs and behavioral intentions related to sun protection behaviors. Results of a laboratory experiment revealed that for happy participants a loss-framed sun protection message, compared to a gain-framed message, led to greater perceived susceptibility to health risks resulting from sun exposure. For sad participants, message framing had no differential impact on perceived susceptibility.
The Credible Brand Model: The Effects of Ideological Congruency and Consumer-Based Brand Equity on News Credibility • Tayo Oyedeji, University of Georgia • This study proposes and tests the Credible Brand Model (CBM), which explicates the effects of consumer-based brand equity and ideological congruency on audiences’ perceptions of the credibility of news media outlets and the believability of their messages. The data from a survey probing respondents’ perceptions of two media outlets, CNN and Fox News Channel, was analyzed with SEM. The data showed strong support for the CBM (NFI=0.93, CFI=0.96, and RMSEA=0.06).
Influences of Rationality and Discounting Cues on Relative Sleeper Effect: The Case of Health-related Persuasive Messages • Chia-hsin, Chinese Culture University, Taiwan • The present study investigated the effects of individual rational processing tendency and a commercial persuasive message’s discounting cue on participants’ attitude toward juice consumption over time. A 2 (attitude changes between 4 weeks) × 2 (high/low rationality) × 2 (persuasive messages with/without discounting cues) mixed factorial design was employed to examine relative sleeper effects. Results revealed the interaction effect of high-rationality and discounting cue on attitude change over time. Applications on health promotions are suggested.
Adolescents’ Exposure to Sexually Explicit Internet Material and Sexual Satisfaction: A Longitudinal Study • Jochen Peter and Patti Valkenburg, University of Amsterdam • This study investigated the causal relationship between adolescents’ use of sexually explicit internet material (SEIM) and their sexual satisfaction. Drawing on a three-wave panel survey among 1,052 adolescents aged 13-20, structural equation modeling revealed that exposure to SEIM reduced adolescents’ sexual satisfaction. This effect of SEIM was stronger for adolescents who had limited sexual experience. Similarly, SEIM reduced sexual satisfaction among adolescents who did not talk with their friends about SEIM. No gender differences emerged.
Correlations Among Variables in Message and Messenger Credibility Scales • Chris Roberts, University of South Carolina • While credibility is a complicated construct involving interrelationships among messenger, message, communication channels, and recipients, the most widely used credibility indexes seek to measure only one of those attributes at a time. This study used two widely used credibility scales to simultaneously measure message and messenger credibility.
Exploring media-induced information seeking: When does a news story cross from too little to too much? • Mike Schmierbach, Penn State University; Michael Boyle, West Chester University • This paper further develops the Media-Induced Information seeking Model, which proposes that individuals will seek additional news on a topic as a response to a collection of sometimes offsetting influences, including uncertainty-related anxiety, perceived utility of media content, and beliefs about the importance of the topic. Analyses of experimental data show that overly long stories make individuals disinterested in a topic while headline-only “teasers” fail to provide adequate competence to process future content.
Frames as Cues versus Frames as Facts: Effects on Economic Attitudes • Rosanne Scholl, Keith Zukas, and Dhavan Shah, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Researchers who shift frames through subtle cue changes often sacrifice external validity, whereas those who adopt a more ecologically valid position, shifting facts along with frames sacrifice experimental control. This 2×2 experimental study contrasted these approaches and demonstrated that the ecologically valid conception of framing produces stronger effects than the internally consistent approach. Treatments were professionally produced news videos featuring a veteran broadcaster. Frames of gain and loss affected sociotropic, but not pocketbook, economic evaluations.
How you feel makes you what you are: Partisan reactions to political incivility online • Kjerstin Thorson, Timothy Fung, and Emily Vraga, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This study brings together two debates: fears about an increasingly polarized electorate and the effects of uncivil political discourse, especially in the blogosphere. We explore the effects of an uncivil, attacking message on group identification and polarization. We find that uncivil messages provoke negative emotional responses among partisans, which can mediate changes in partisan identification, but this process depends on whether the respondents identified with the attacking or the attacked group.
Political Involvement and Type of Issue Moderate Priming Effects: Evidence from the 2006 Canadian Election • Sebastian Valenzuela, University of Texas at Austin • News coverage of political campaigns can have a decisive impact on the electorate, as the literature on framing, agenda setting and priming effects demonstrates. Which portions of the electorate are more susceptible to media influence, however, remains an open question. This study examines if voters’ involvement with politics and issue type moderate priming —the ability of mass media to change the importance citizens’ attach to an issue when evaluating political figures and parties.
I Think, I Talk, Therefore I Learn: Extending the Cognitive Mediation Model to Online Communication • Ming Wang, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This paper tests a cognitive communication mediation model in online news processing. The model posits that the effect of hard news use motivation on political knowledge is largely mediated through attention to online news, elaboration of online news, and subsequently online political discussion. Structural equation modeling supports this model.
Dynamics of individual television viewing behavior: Models, empirical evidence and a research program • Anke Wonneberger, Klaus Schoenbach, and Lex van Meurs, University of Amsterdam • Television viewing is a dynamic interplay of a multitude of activities that can vary tremendously from the moment the TV is turned on until it is turned of again. Previous models of individual viewing behavior as well as empirical studies have focused on isolated aspects of viewing only, such as the frequency and duration of viewing and patterns of program choice.
Neighborhood Disadvantage, News Media Use, and Public Affairs Knowledge • Masahiro Yamamoto, Washington State University • Focusing on public affairs knowledge, this study examines the effects of neighborhood disadvantage on political isolation. Data from a national survey indicate that neighborhood disadvantage is negatively associated with public affairs knowledge. Data also reveal that the knowledge gaps associated with neighborhood disadvantage become narrower among those who watch television news more frequently than those who watch television news less frequently.
Building up a Cognitive-Sociological Model of Stereotypical Frames and Their Effects • Aimei Yang, Oklahoma University • Framing analysis reveals that socially disadvantaged groups are frequently subjected to negative media framing. Findings from media effect studies suggest that stereotypical frames can activate the audiences’ negative cognitive and affective responses. However, little effort to date has been made to bridge findings from the two approaches and explain the mechanism through which these activated responses further influence people’s social lives and prevent people from changing their stereotypical attitudes.
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