Politics & Entertainment

Question 1

Law & Order: Study

Answer 1

Watching different versions of Law & Order lead people to have different political opinions. People with “system going well” extracts are more likely to trust the police, while people with “system going bad” extracts do not trust the police. People who watched nature shows were neutral.

Question 2

Law & Order: Agenda Setting

Answer 2

It’s not just news which causes agenda setting. People who watch crime dramas were more likely to identify crime as the most important issue.

Question 3

Baum Reading: Independent & Dependent

Answer 3

1. Independent variable: media consumption habits, soft news and political interests & knowledge.
2. Dependent variable: People’s attentiveness to foreign policy.
3. Measure: statistically analyzed national poll data to identify I.V. and D.V.

Question 4

Type of Study Conducted

Answer 4

Survey

Question 5

General Findings

Answer 5

1. When issues crossover via piggybacking to soft news media, a far broader audience will encounter it.
2. Soft programs employ cheap framing to appeal to entertainment seeking audience.
3. Knowledge increase mainly for inattentive public.

Question 6

Theory

Answer 6

Soft news media reduces the cognitive costs of learning in three ways:

1. Piggybacking–attaching political information to low cognitive cost entertainment.
2. Incidental by-product of learning: When political news is repackaged as entertainment, people learn more as a result.
3. Cheap Framing: Framing of media with sensational and dramatic human interest stories.

Question 7

Critiques of Baum Article

Answer 7

1. Prior says Baum measured attentiveness and not knowledge

2. Prior says soft news rarely increases knowledge.