Experimental Demonstrations of the “Not-So-Minimal” Consequences of Television News Programs

Abstract

Two experiments sustain Lippmann's suspicion, advanced a half century ago, that media provide compelling descriptions of a public world that people cannot directly experience. More precisely, the experiments show that television news programs profoundly affect which problems viewers take to be important. The experiments also demonstrate that those problems promimently positioned in the evening news are accorded greater weight in viewers' evaluations of presidential performance. We note the political implications of these results, suggest their psychological foundations, and argue for a revival of experimentation in the study of political communication.

Partisan Bias in Economic News: Evidence on the Agenda-Setting Behavior of U.S. Newspapers

“…We implemented a number of checks for all the economic variables considered and we noticed no change in our conclusion regarding inflation, budget deficit and trade deficit: there is no noticeable statistically significant bias in the covering 18 If one did use the coefficients in this way, the picture would be mixed. The estimated difference in slopes is negative and significantly different from zero in the case of unemployment, inflation and trade deficit, suggesting a pro-Democratic bias.…”

El consumo de medios informativos y las actitudes hacia los inmigrantes

“…A lower degree of media consumption, taking into account their lower degree of relations with immigrants, may result in their being more easily manipulated with regards to the information presented in the media (Álvarez-Gál-vez, 2010). Therefore, it may be the case that individuals who are most susceptible to media infl uence are those having a lower level of interest and knowledge of the areas in question (Iyengar, Peters and Kinder, 1982). In fact, as will be shown below, the reluctant individuals also tended to be the most credulous in regards to the media reporting on immigration issues.…”

“…Un menor consumo de medios que, teniendo en cuenta su menor grado de relación con inmigrantes, podía hacerles más manipulables frente a las informaciones presentadas en los medios (Álvarez-Gálvez, 2010). Asimismo, hay que considerar que las personas más susceptibles de ser infl uidas por los medios de comunicación son aquellas que muestran un menor grado de interés y conocimiento por las cuestiones tratadas (Iyengar, Peters y Kinder, 1982). En efecto, como se verá a continuación, los reacios también resultaron ser los más crédulos frente a las informaciones mediáticas en relación a temas de inmigración.…”

The dawn of a new golden age for media relations?

“…Moreover, media legitimacy and the evaluating audience have traditionally played a leading role in public relations in general and media relations in particular (Bansal & Clelland, 2004;Fredriksson, Pallas, & Wehmeier, 2013;Pollock & Rindova, 2003;Yoon, 2005). According to Habermas (1989Habermas ( [1962), for a long time, public spheres were governed by mass media through processes of gatekeeping (White, 1950), media agenda setting (McCombs & Shaw, 1972), framing (Entman, 1993), priming (Iyengar, Peters, & Kinder, 1982), and agenda building (Rogers & Dearing, 1988), as well as agenda cutting (Wober & Gunter, 1988; see also Wober, 2001) or agenda melding (Ragas & Roberts, 2009). Public relations practice was dominated and often even equated with media relationsbuilding relationships with journalists as well as editors and offering content that suits their needs and that might result in media coverage (Supa, 2014).…”