Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-v2bm5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-13T07:58:37.886Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 1982

Shanto Iyengar ,
Mark D. Peters  and
Donald R. Kinder
Shanto Iyengar
Affiliation:
Yale University
Mark D. Peters
Affiliation:
Yale University
Donald R. Kinder
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 76 , Issue 4 , December 1982 , pp. 848 - 858
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Becker, L. B., McCombs, M. C., and McCleod, J. 1975. The development of politicar cognitions. In Political communication: issues and strategies for research, ed. Chaffee, S. H., Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar
Cohen, B. 1963. The press and foreign policy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Collins, A. M., and Loftus, E. F. 1975. A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing. Psychological Review 82:407–28.10.1037/0033-295X.82.6.407CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Converse, P. E. 1970. Attitudes and non-attitudes: continuation of a dialogue. In The quantitative analysis of social problems, ed. Tufte, E. R., Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Cook, T. D., and Campbell, D. T. 1978. Quasi-experimentation. Chicago: Rand-McNally.Google Scholar
Downs, A. 1972. Up and down with ecology—the “issue attention cycle.” Public Interest 28: 38–50.Google Scholar
Epstein, E. J. 1973. News from nowhere. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Erbring, L., Goldenberg, E. N., and Miller, A. H. 1980. Front-page news and real-world cues: a new look at agenda setting by the media. American Journal of Political Science 24:16–49.10.2307/2110923CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiske, S. T., Kenny, D. A., and Taylor, S. E. 1982. Structural models for the mediation of salience effects on attribution. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 18:105–27.10.1016/0022-1031(82)90046-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Funkhouser, G. R. 1973. The issues of the sixties: an exploratory study of the dynamics of public opinion. Public Opinion Quarterly 37:62–75.10.1086/268060CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Higgins, E. T., and King, G. 1981. Category accessibility and information-processing: consequences of individual and contextual variability. In Personality, cognition, and social interaction, ed. Cantor, N. and Kihlstrom, J.. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hirsch, P. M. 1975. Occupational, organizational and institutional models in mass media research. In Strategies for communication research, ed. Hirsch, P. et al., Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar
Hovland, C. I. 1959. Reconciling conflicting results derived from experimental and survey studies of attitude change. American Psychologist 14:8–17.10.1037/h0042210CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hovland, C. I., Lumsdaine, A., and Sheffield, F. 1949. Experiments on mass communication. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Iyengar, S., Kinder, D. R., and Peters, M. D. 1982. The evening news and presidential evaluations. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Katz, E., and Feldman, J. 1962. The debates in the light of research: a survey of surveys. In The great debates, ed. Krauss, S., Bloomongton: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Kessler, R. 1978. The use of change scores as criteria in longitudinal research. Quality and Quantity 11: 43–66.Google Scholar
Kinder, D. R., Abelson, R. P., and Peters, M. D. 1981. Appraising presidential candidates: personality and affect in the 1980 campaign. Paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York City, 09.Google Scholar
Lazarsfeld, P., Berelson, B., and Gaudet, H. 1944. The people's choice. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Lippmann, W. 1922. Public opinion. New York: Harcourt, Brace.Google Scholar
MacKuen, M. J., and Coombs, S. L. 1981. More than news: media power in public affairs. Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar
McCombs, M. C., and Shaw, D. 1972. The agenda setting function of the mass media. Public Opinion Quarterly 36:176–:87.10.1086/267990CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nisbett, R. E., and Ross, L. 1980. Human inference: strategies and short-comings of social judgment. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Orne, M. T. 1962. On the social psychology of the psychology experiment. American Psychologist 17: 776–:83.10.1037/h0043424CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patterson, T. E., and McClure, R. D. 1976. The unseeing eye: the myth of television power in national elections. New York: G. P. Putnam.Google Scholar
Petty, R. E., Ostrom, T. M., and Brock, T. C. 1981. Cognitive responses in persuasion. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Robinson, M. J. 1976. Public affairs television and the growth of political malaise. American Political Science Review 70:409–32.10.2307/1959647CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sears, D. O., and Chaffee, S. H. 1979. Uses and effects of the 1976 debates: an overview of empirical studies. In The great debates, 1976: Ford vs. Carter. ed. Krauss, S., Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, S. E., and Fiske, S. T. 1978. Salience, attention and attribution: top of the head phenomena. In Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol. 11. ed. Berkowitz, L., New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.