Shifting Foundations of Political Evaluations

Question 1

Iyengar (1984)

Answer 1

• Extending the agenda-setting effects of media, they ask:
  
  • Would changing the salience of issues remix ingredients of the assessment of presidential performance?
• Borrowing: Priming

Question 2

Long-term Memory: The Associative Network

Answer 2

• Node=concepts
• Path=relationship
• (semantic association of structural congruity)
• Predictions: If any of the nodes are activated, energy is activated which makes it easier to reach more closley-related concepts first.

Question 3

A Few Predictions

Answer 3

• When forming a preference or making a decision, we are more likely to
  
  • Utilize the most recently activated idea
  • Reach for the most familiar idea (repeatedly activated or frequently utilized)
  • Weigh the readily accessible option more heavily.
• Sources of activation
  
  • Self (low threshold of activation, temporary, or chronicle)
• External stimulus (prime)

Question 4

Rallying Phenomenon

Answer 4

• John Mueller: In general, a rally point must be associated with an event that is (1) international and (2) involves the US and particularly the president directly and it must be (3) specific, dramatic, and sharply focused.
• Conventional explanation of ‘rally-around the flag’ patriotism as the basis for internal cohesion.
• Media-centered explanation
  
  • Elite consensus and media indexing
  • “Us” vs. “them” demarcation

Question 5

Summary

Answer 5

• Rally: surge in support fo the “Commander in Chief”
• Homogenized pattern across the sociodemographic and ideological divides
• The “halo-effects” Generalized positivity towards “us”
• Coercive forces
  
  • Reduced tolernace for internal friction or ciritcal discourse concering the point of the rally
  • Danger in the tyranny of the majority
• Psychological mechanism
  
  • Most salient issues being the most heaviliy weighted ingredients in political evaluations.

Question 6

The model

Answer 6

• Salience of issue in media (+)–> easier accessibility of issue in public’s mind (+) –> greater reliance on this issue
• The media priming effect is a consequence of the agenda setting effect.

Question 7

Which standard was relied on more heavily in evaluating the President

Answer 7

How Bush handled foreign policy weighed more heavily than how he handled the economy.

Question 8

Summary

Answer 8

• Rise and fall in public opinion
  
  • Rally: a type of public opinion phenomenon
  • Fall of a presidential approval another possibility
• Media “priming”
  
  • Initial idea: an attitudinal consequence of agenda-setting, shifting criteria or ingredients.
  • Miller & Krosnick: Temporary, moderated by mixed messages, strengthening
• More broadly, strenghtening an assocation between a belief and an attitude
• Applications: social intervention and marketing