Effects of News Frames on Perceived Risk, Emotions, and Learning

Abstract

The media play a key role in forming opinions by influencing people´s understanding and perception of a topic. People gather information about topics of interest from the internet and print media, which employ various news frames to attract attention. One example of a common news frame is the human-interest frame, which emotionalizes and dramatizes information and often accentuates individual affectedness. Our study investigated effects of human-interest frames compared to a neutral-text condition with respect to perceived risk, emotions, and knowledge acquisition, and tested whether these effects can be "generalized" to common variants of the human-interest frame. Ninety-one participants read either one variant of the human-interest frame or a neutrally formulated version of a newspaper article describing the effects of invasive species in general and the Asian ladybug (an invasive species) in particular. The framing was achieved by varying the opening and concluding paragraphs (about invasive species), as well as the headline. The core text (about the Asian ladybug) was the same across all conditions. All outcome variables on framing effects referred to this common core text. We found that all versions of the human-interest frame increased perceived risk and the strength of negative emotions compared to the neutral text. Furthermore, participants in the human-interest frame condition displayed better (quantitative) learning outcomes but also biased knowledge, highlighting a potential dilemma: Human-interest frames may increase learning, but they also lead to a rather unbalanced view of the given topic on a “deeper level”.

Research on the social perception of invasive species: a systematic literature review

“…Mackenzie et al 2010), or species that were introduced as plaque control but became invasive (e.g. Otieno et al 2013).…”

The association between quality measures of medical university press releases and their corresponding news stories—Important information missing

“…Framing and its consequent omissions of certain measures can mislead an audience. Even though the information presented in the PR is in a literal sense not false, omissions and framing may cause an audience to interpret the message differently[30,31]. Incomplete reporting and misinformation can contribute to distrust in the media and in science[32,33].…”

Destination risk news framing effects – the power of audiences

“…Driedger, 2007;Jönsson 2011;Marks, Kalaitzandonakes, Wilkins, & Zakharova, 2007;Woods, 2007). In turn, these messages can determine how media users remember, evaluate and act upon issues covered including communication texts concerning risk (Boholm, 2009;Danis & Stohl, 2008;Durfee, 2006;Otieno, Spada, & Renkl, 2013;Schuck & de Vreese, 2006;Woods, 2011). The media effects approach to framing focuses on understanding the ways in which different features of a message concerning some issue influence media users.…”