Powerpoint V: Social influence in Politics Flashcards
What are two sources of influence that political media research focuses on?
- News (TV broadcasts, political forums)
- Political Advertising
What are 3 models for media effects?
- Direct Effects Model
- Limited Effects Model
- Powerful Effects Underlying Limiting Conditions Perspective
What perspective does the direct effects model take?
Hypodermic Perspective
–> perspective that the media has a pervasive, direct, and powerful influence
What is the main suggestion of the direct effects model?
Early on, anecdotal evidence suggested that powerful media exerted very direct and powerful effects on citizens’ political attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours
What perspective does the limited effects model take?
the perspective that the media does not change people’s attitudes
What is the main suggestion of the limited effects model?
Research survey data suggested that the media has little impact but instead simply reinforces existing values and attitudes
The idea that political attitudes become polarized, but dont really change
What is the main idea of the powerful effects under limiting conditions perspective?
The idea that the media can have a powerful effect (change opinions) but only under certain conditions and often indirectly
What are the 4 news effects?
- Agenda Setting
- Issue Priming of Presidential Evaluations
- Issue Framing
- Persuasion
Agenda Setting Effect
The empirical finding that extensive news coverage of an issue enhances the extent to which that issue is seen as an important national issue
Does news coverage change people’s attitude about a political issue?
No, but it changes the extent to which they see the issue as important
Describe participants, task, and conditions of the Iyengar & Kinder (1987) Agenda Setting experiments
- Recruited everyday citizens or university students to attend a multi-session lab study
- Participants watched edited 30-minute news broadcasts each day over the course of a week
- Participants were randomly assigned to watch news broadcasts that were edited either: (a) to not include a story on the target issue or (b) to always include a story on the target issue
- Participants rated the national importance of different issues at the start of the study and at the end of the study
Results of the Iyengar & Kinder (1987) Agenda Setting experiments
- Analyses suggested that greater news exposure to the target issue increased importance ratings by an average of 8.4
Why is inflation the only issue that did not significantly increase in importance after greater news exposure to the issue?
Ceiling effect - no room to boost it up. Inflation was a big enough issue at the time.
According to the Iyengar & Kinder (1987) Agenda Setting experiments, when participants were given open-ended questions asking them to this the most important national problems, what did they do?
Average percentage listing the target problem as an important national issue was 57.0%, which is 19.7% more than the people in the no exposure condition.
Do Iyengar & Kinder’s findings about agenda setting effects hold true for single session exposure to multiple stories?
yes
Do Iyengar & Kinder’s findings about agenda setting effects hold true after one week?
Yes
Do Iyengar & Kinder’s findings about agenda setting effects hold true in naturalistic contexts?
Yes
Who is most susceptible to agenda setting effects?
- People with low education (especially if they identify with a political party)
- People with low interest and involvement in politicsc
2 potential explanations for agenda setting
- Issues Accessibility
- Relevance
How does issues accessibility explain for agenda setting?
The ease of retrieval determines importance
–> if you have to work hard to remember something, you may think it might not be that important
presumes people non-thoughtful
How does relevance explain for agenda setting?
accessibility alone is not sufficient to create agenda setting
People must evaluate if issue is relevant as a problem: using emotions and perceptions of importance to others
Miller (2007) Experiment (to explain for agenda setting effects) - stories on crime
- Series of experiments in which participants received (a) no news stories on crime, (b) a news story on rising crime, or (c) a news story on falling crime
Participants listed most important problems facing the country
Participants rated emotions felt while reading stories & perception of issue importance to other (politicians & reporters)
Finding:
- Exposure to either story produced increased listing of crime
- Rising crime story produced bigger increases than falling crime story
Do Miller’s (2007) results from his agenda setting experiments fit with the accessibility?
Exposure producing increased listing fits with the accessibility explanation
Rising crime story producing bigger increases than falling crime story fits with the relevance explanation but NOT the accessibility explanation
What is a second reason for the rising crime story producing bigger increases than falling crime story in Miller’s (2007) experiment?
Rising crime story mediated by negative emotions and (more weakly) by perceptions of importance to politicians –> RELEVANCE