Quiz 1

Media effects •Hypodermic needle/Magic bullet

•Limited effect theory/Columbia school

•Cultivation theory and representations of different social groups and stereotypes

•Agenda Setting

•Framing

•Priming

•Partisan Selective Exposure

•Avoidance of news

Agenda setting Agenda-setting ◦ Media“tell us WHAT to think about” McCombs & Shaw(1972) ◦ How the media shape public opinion concerning the relative importance of

issues ◦ Indicators of media emphasis

◦ Attention (frequency and length of stories) ◦ Placement (top story, “above the fold”) ◦ Content cues (headlines, photos, tone) ◦ Number of sources / Number of outlets

Example: Arm Conflicts

How do mass media choose foreign policy stories?

•US activities in a foreign country and events that affect Americans directly

•Violence and change of regimes

•Disasters

•Brutality

•Familiarity, timeliness and novelty

Example: Clinton’s email controversy

Agenda setting : state of theresearch •Topics important for audiences are the ones that mass media focus on

•BUT

•Individual predispositions influence how we react to agendasetting

•Agenda setting more important for NEWissues

•Everyone attaches a relative importance to each issue

Framing theory •Expands on agenda setting theory, focus on issues (Goffman, 1974)

•Media tell us HOW to think about issues

•Frames - broad organizing principles ◦ Idea used to structure a news story ◦ Journalistic decision ◦ Influence by availability of sources and what newsworthiness

Examples ◦ Friend/Foe ◦ Episodic/Thematic ◦ Strategic/Policy

Friend vs Foe •Using different frames in foreign policy coverage depending on whether the countriesinvolved in a conflict are allies (or the US itself) or enemies

•Examples: • Coverage of URSS involvement in conflicts during the cold war • Very positive coverage of war in Afghanistan and Iraq (at least initially) • Coverage of President Trump’s administration bombing in Syria

•Why: coverage is heavily influenced by US sources, who are pro-government

•BUT • “Indexing” happens: if a lot of sources close to the government become critical of the war, media

become more critical as well

Episodic vs. Thematic Iyengar, 1991 ◦ Media tend to present social problems in episodic terms (individual, short-

term) instead of thematic terms (collective,long-term) ◦ This patterns encourages audiences to attribute responsibility for solvingthe

problem to the individual instead of the collective

Strategy vs. Policy News coverage tends to focus on the game of politics, and the competition between players, instead of the features of policy ◦ Particularly true during elections

Leads to audience cynicism and may contribute to the erosion of efficacy

Priming theory • Connected to agenda setting: over time agenda

setting creates stories/themes in mass media and makes possible the PRIMING EFFECT (Iyengar, Peters, and Kinder, 1982)

• PRIMING EFFECT: Audiences make decisions with information that they have readily available (thanks to agenda setting)

• Some information is more salient/accessible than other in people’s minds and they are more likely to think about

Differentiating Agenda setting/Framing /Priming example

• Example: Covid 19 crisis and response of the Trump administration

• Agenda setting: Mass media put the covid-19 and the administration response at the top Of the agenda (the media focus on this topic and therefore we focus on it too, this theory has No emphasis on the TYPE of media coverage- framing- or the importance of SALIENCY and ACCESSIBILITY of the topic-priming)

• Framing: Different types of media coverage focus on different aspects of the crisis. For example CNN might focus on the health crisis and FOX News on the effects on economy

• Priming effect: the covid 19 crisis is very salient in people’s minds, it’s the first thing they think about. For example, when they evaluate President Trump’s job, they think about the crisis

Partisan selective exposure •Cognitive balance/Cognitive dissonance theory: people avoid messages that counteract their beliefs

•Partisan/Ideological selective exposure: people self-select content that aligns with their political beliefs

•Do social media reduce or exacerbate the problem? • Exposure to different views is limited • It depends on the size and diversity of your social networks • Even if you are exposed to different views, the effects are still unclear

•Fact polarization problem?

Partisan selective exposure and Fact polarization 2016 data (Quartz and Yougov data)

•71% believe that unemployment has gone down since president Obama took office, but only 25% of Republican voters agree.

•Only 20% of Democrats believe the tax burden on the middle class has increased, but 72% of Republicans think it has.

•Less than half of Democrats think the annual deficit and total national debt have increased under Obama, but 85% of Republicans think both have.

•Of Democrats, 75% say yes while 56% of Republicans say no.

•80% Republicans think crime has gone up nationally, whereas 66% Democrats agree with this statement.

•Roughly 65%of Republicans think Obama has reduced deportations of undocumented immigrants, but only 45% of Democrats agree.

Partisan selective exposure and covid 19 crisis

• Polarization between republicans and democrats on the current health crisis: • Pew Center data June 25: https://www.people-press.org/2020/06/25/republicans-

democrats-move-even-further-apart-in-coronavirus-concerns/ • Majority of Republicans now say ‘the worst is behind us’ in coronavirus outbreak,

majority of Democrats say the opposite • Republicans’ concerns over health impacts from COVID-19 decline; little change among

Democrats • Republicans far more comfortable than Democrats going to salons, restaurants, indoor

events, parties • Partisanship biggest factor in comfort with activities during coronavirus • BUT: there is bipartisan support for measures that help the economy, workers and small

businesses

• What do you think it’s driving these divisions? Can media explain some of the differences?

Avoidance of news theory Prior’s argument in ”Post-Broadcast Democracy” ◦ More media choice= increase in news avoidance ◦ Inequality in news consumption increases

◦ People interested in news are more likely to follow the news ◦ People who don’t like the news, they justavoid it

◦ Can avoidance of news mitigate selective exposure? ◦ Arceneaux and Johnson’s argument: entertainment choices reduces exposure to partisan

news

Circle back: Given what you know now, How powerful do you think

media effects are?