Hostname: page-component-5f56664f6-6wzj7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-07T17:14:41.239Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Television News and Citizens' Explanations of National Affairs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Shanto Iyengar
Shanto Iyengar*
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Stony Brook
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Causal beliefs are important ingredients of public opinion. Citizens are able to identify the causes of complex national issues and do so spontaneously. Evidence is presented that individuals' explanations of political issues are significantly influenced by the manner in which television news presentations “frame” these issues. These results are politically consequential, for individuals' explanations of national issues independently affect their assessments of presidential performance.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 81 , Issue 3 , September 1987 , pp. 815 - 831
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1987

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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bower, Robert. 1985. The Changing Television Audience in America. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Feagin, Joseph. 1975. Subordinating the Poor: Welfare and American Beliefs. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Feldman, Stanley. 1982. Economic Self Interest and Political Behavior. American Journal of Political Science 26:446–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, Stanley. 1983. Economic Individualism and American Public Opinion. American Politics Quarterly 11:3–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferejohn, John. 1987. Information and the Democratic Process, in Information and Democratic Politics, eds. Ferejohn, John and Kuklinski, James. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Fiske, Susan, and Taylor, Shelley. 1984. Social Cognition. Reading: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Report, Gallup. 1985. Monthly Opinion Report No. 234.Google Scholar
Goodban, Nancy. 1981. Attributions about Poverty. Ph.D. diss., Harvard University.Google Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto, and Kinder, Donald. 1987. News That Matters: Television and American Opinion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel. 1984. Choices, Values, and Frames. American Psychologist 39:341–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel, Slovic, Paul, and Tversky, Amos. 1982. Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. London: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel, and Tversky, Amos. 1982. The Psychology of Preferences. Scientific American 246:136–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelley, Harold. 1973. The Processes of Causal Attribution. American Psychologist 28:107–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinder, Donald, and Sears, David. 1985. Public Opinion and Political Behavior. In Handbook of Social Psychology, vol. 2, eds. Lindzey, Gardner and Aronson, Elliot. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Kluegel, James, and Smith, Eliot. 1986. Beliefs about Inequality. New York: Aldine.Google Scholar
Langer, Ellen. 1975. The Illusion of Control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32:311–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langer, Ellen, and Rodin, Judith. 1976. The Effects of Choice and Enhanced Personal Responsibility for the Aged: A Field Experiment in an Institutional Setting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34:191–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lerner, Melvin. 1980. The Belief in a Just World. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, Irving, and Schneider, William. 1985. Hard Times: The Public on Poverty. Public Opinion 9:2–7.Google Scholar
Nisbett, Richard, and Ross, Lee. 1980. Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Peffley, Mark, and Williams, John. 1985. Attributing Presidential Responsibility for National Economic Problems. American Politics Quarterly 13:393–425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, Lee. 1977. The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings, in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 10, ed. Berkowitz, Leonard. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Schneider, David, Hastorf, Albert, and Ellsworth, Phoebe. 1979. Person Perception. Reading: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph. 1950. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York: Harper and Brothers.Google Scholar
Thaler, Richard. 1980. Toward a Positive Theory of Consumer Choice. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 1:39–60.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. [1863] 1954. Democracy in America, Vol. 1. Reprint. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Walster, Elaine. 1966. Assignment of Responsibility for an Accident. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 3:73–79.Google Scholar
Weiner, Bernard. 1985. “Spontaneous” Causal Search. Psychological Bulletin 97:74–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wortman, Camille. 1976. Causal Attributions and Personal Control, in New Directions in Attribution Research, vol. 1, eds. Harvey, John, Ickes, William, and Kidd, Robert. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.