cmn 141 exam #3

Agenda-setting

- an issue covered in the news becomes more salient/accessible it is the media coverage that has the effect

findings

Bartlet, the fictional president portrayed on West wing ‐‐was perceived more positively by viewers than either George W. Bush or Bill Clinton. Perceptions of the importance of being engaging to presidential success increased after watching West Wing viewers retained more positive images of Bush and Clinton after the viewing Viewing The West Wing primes more positive images of the U.S. presidency that subsequently influence individual‐level perceptions of those individuals most directly associated with this office.

Front pages of news agencies in 2020

Breitbart and Mother Jones

diffrent types of framing

1. conflict framing 2. human interest framing 3. responsibility framing 4. economics consequence framing.

And?

Does disrupting selective exposure to partisan information among Twitter users minimize polarization? §Republicans who followed a liberal Twitter bot became substantially more conservative. §Democrats exhibited slight increases in liberal attitudes after following a conservative Twitter bot, although these effects are not statistically significant.

Sociopolitical implications of new media

Some context -the introduction of whatever new medium into a society (starting with books!) leads observers to be either v optimistic OR v catastrophic about its impact-the same was with the internet

◦ So, if individuals see positive images of the president and the presidency,

They will have more positive mental images about presidents ◦ Which will influence their attitudes toward the sitting and immediately preceding presidents

What are potential interventions?

Two categories of interventions: (i) those aimed at empowering individuals to evaluate (mis)information and (fake) news sources they encounter, (ii) structural changes aimed at preventing exposure of individuals to fake news in the first instance.

What was the method?Experiment 2: Partisanship

a) does the creation of belief echoes depend on the partisan slant of the misinformation (b) does exposure to misinformation create belief echoes even when corrected immediately?

Finding: hypothesis 3

News exposure to mass shootings made people think about their death, which in turn influenced gun policy attitudes (MEDIATION - gun thoughts = mediator)Partisanship moderated the indirect effect: after news exposure to mass shootings, Republicans decreased their support for gun control and increased support for open carry through death‐related thoughts, but Democrats did not shift (MODERATION - Partisanship = moderator)

How would belief echoes emerge?

deliberative processes: 2. deliberative belief echoes ‐conscious reasoning in which learning about a false claim leads someone to reason that other negative information about a candidate or policy is true, thereby affecting their attitudes. • E.g., you recall the correction, but reason that the existence of the misinformation makes it more likely that other negative information is true (you hear that Bernie was accused of fraud; you think the accusation emerged because he is untrustworthy or corrupt. These secondary inferences linger and have effects).

Conflict frame:

emphasizes conflict between individuals, groups, or institutions

Results 1

order to ensure that attitudinal effects are due to belief echoes rather than belief persistence, the correction must revert people back to their initial belief (represented in the experiment by the group who never saw the misinformation). Did it? If exposure to corrected misinformation created belief echoes, those who saw corrected misinformation should evaluate the candidate less positively than the control group, despite the correction's effectiveness.

Theoretical premises of (framing and agenda setiing)

"Agenda setting looks on story selection as a determinant of public perceptions of issue importance and, indirectly through priming, evaluations of political leaders. Framing focuses not on which topics or issues are selected for coverage by the news media, but instead on the particular ways those issues are presented" (Price & Tewksbury, 1997, p. 184)

How much of an echo chamber are social media?

"We estimated ideological preferences of 3.8 million Twitter users and, using a data set of nearly 150 million tweets concerning 12 political and nonpolitical issues. [...] Overall, we conclude that previous work may have overestimated the degree of ideological segregation in social-media usage" Barbera, Jost, Nagler,, Tucker,, & Bonneau, 2015 "We find that users share news in similar ways regardless of outlet or perceived ideology of outlet, and that as a user shares more news content, they tend to quickly include outlets with opposing viewpoints. [...] Specifically, users in our sample who sent multiple tweets tended to increase the ideological diversity in news they shared within two or three tweets" Morgan, Shafiq, & Lampe, 2013

◦ Boomerang effect

- messages that inadvertently make people think about their own mortality, can backfire

Framing

- the description of an issue matters it is the interpretation / words that generate the effect

News agencies try to create a narrative

-different news agencies create different narratives -Some align with what actually happened -Others are wildly inconsistent

Once upon the time....

. . . everyone was exposed to the same media content, and people had a common core of issues to talk about. But then, the evil of cable and satellite TV and, even worse, the internet came, and people lost their common core.

Outcomes of Framing

1. Activation of relevant cognitions 2. Attitudinal effects◦ Changes in how you feel about a topic 3. Affective and behavioral outcomes ◦ Changes in your emotions or behaviors surrounding a topic

Study 3The Jang (2018) paper

1. Researchers measured gun attitudes, partisanship, demographics 2. Participants read about a shooting or about animals (Control group) 3. They completed the word‐fragment completion task (SK__L) 4. Their attitudes toward gun control and open carry were measured

What did they predict? Bail et al. (2017)

1. The first hypothesis is that disrupting selective exposure to partisan information will decrease political polarization 2. The second hypothesis is that exposure to those with opposing political views may create backfire effects that exacerbate political polarization - People who are exposed to messages that conflict with their own attitudes are prone to counterargue them using motivated reasoning, which accentuates perceived differences between groups and increases their commitment to preexisting beliefs 3. The third hypothesis is that backfire effects will be more likely to occur among conservatives than liberals.

Method for Valkenburg et al. (1999)

187 undergraduate participants were randomly assigned to different versions of the stories, all containing the same core of information but varying in their opening and closing paragraphs in accordance with the frame employed. ◦ 2 different news stories ◦ Crime in the Netherlands (closer to home) ◦ Introduction of the Euro (further from home)◦ 4 different frames conditions + 1 control condition ◦ Conflict ◦ Human interest ◦ Responsibility ◦ Economic consequences ◦ Control - only the core section of the articles Immediately after reading the story, the students were asked to write down all the thoughts and feelings that they had while reading the story.

Method for Holbert et al. (2003) study

195 participants ◦ Pretest/posttest design ◦ Completed measures in the morning, and then watched an episode of the West Wing in the evening ◦ Afterwards, they completed the measures again

first televised debate,

1960, JFK vs. Nixon

How many watched the Presidential debates in 2020?

63 million watched

In the political context...

A lot of optimism about the use of Internet: campaigns, social protests, greater access "The Internet will give new voice to people who've felt voiceless" (Gillmor, 2004)" "If there are no gates, there can be no gatekeepers" (Williams & Delli Carpini, 2000)

The West Wing

A much more positive portrayal of the presidency◦ Did not focus on real‐world issues, but rather, the character of the president - The West Wing offers viewers a sustained depiction of the internal workings of the White House. Although a fictional account, this show provides something to the American public that it cannot get from any other source, a vision of what it is like to be president on a daily basis.

Terror Management Theory (TMT)The Jang (2018) paper

All humans suffer from thinking about our inevitable death◦ We cope in two ways: ◦ By believing that our view of the world is correct ◦ By believing that we are a valuable member of a cultural group

So paradox:

Americans are NOT living in echo chambers or filter bubbles But they are increasingly polarized Although many people, scholars, practitioners (INCLUDING FACEBOOK) think that exposing people to different/dissimilar views can minimize polarization and bring people closer, is that true? ...can exposure to diversity and difference to blame for polarization?

What augments the spread of misinformation?

Automated bots Between 9 and 15% of active Twitter accounts are bots Facebook estimated that as many as 60million bots are on its platform Bots were responsible for a substantial portion of political content posted during 2016 campaign

polarization?

Division into two opposite positions

What was the method?Experiment 1: Do Belief Echoes Exist?

Does exposure to corrected misinformation shape attitudes in the context of a delayed buteffective correction (about a candidate accepting campaign donations from a convicted felon.) 122 participants ‐randomly assigned to read 2 articles: 1. Uncorrected misinformation (misinformation in first article, no correction in second article) 2. Corrected misinformation (misinformation in first article, correction in second article) 3. Control condition (no misinformation in first article, no correction in second article). After reading 1. evaluating the candidates discussed in the article (e.g., traits, suitability for office).2 . Rating as true/false various information from the article - Why?

Holbert et al. (2003) study

How can media messages and images influence our thoughts about the president and the presidency? -What theory applies here? "problems prominently positioned in television [news] broadcasts loom large in evaluations of presidential performance" (Iyengar, Peters, & Kinder, 1982, p. 855)

Valkenburg et al. (1999)

How do different types of frames influence individuals' recall of news stories? What frames do they analyze? What are the issue that they analyze?

Results 2

If exposure to the corrected misinformation created belief echoes, people in the "corrected misinformation" condition should evaluate the candidate more negatively than the control. • participants who received corrected misinformation - lower evaluations despite being certain that the misinformation was false. • In each group ‐lower evaluations of the candidate when he was of the opposing party.

Thorson (2016) - analyzes how to deal with misinformation

In a perfect marketplace of ideas, false claims are discredited and exit.' Reality? Can the "marketplace" fail even if misinformation is corrected? How? 1. "belief persistence" ‐some people may not believe the correction, instead maintaining their belief in the false Information (e.g., is Obama a Muslim ?). -Resistance to corrections driven largely by motivated reasoning. Partisans ‐unwilling to accept new information that runs counter to their views, including corrective interventions 2. "belief echoes" ‐misinformed beliefs continue even after exposure to corrected misinformation that was effective. -Journalists' and fact‐checkers' attempts to design effective corrections are based on the assumption that when corrections work, the misinformation will cease to affect attitudes

What was Hypothesis 3 anyway?

MS will mediate the effects of exposure to mass shooting stories such that (a) news exposure to mass shootings will remind individuals of their death‐related thoughts, which will in turn (b) reinforce their predisposed attitudes toward gun policies.."

What are the causes of affective polarization?

Partisan media Online environment

affective polarization?

Partisans increasingly view members of their own party positively and members of the opposite party negatively

When people are confronted with their own morality:

Polarization occurs, Boomerang effect ◦ Because it makes people think of dying, they instinctively cope by validating the idea that what they believe in is correct - even if that is the thing that makes them think about dying! E.g., anti‐smoking PSAs

Measures

Rated presidents on various character traits ◦ Trustworthy◦ Determined◦ Consistent◦ Understands ordinary people◦ Open◦ Honest◦ Warm◦ Decent◦ Responsible◦ Fair◦ Similar to ordinary people◦ Keeps promises◦ Compassionate◦ Likeable◦ Fights for ordinary people◦ Hardworking◦ Integrity◦ Strong◦ Loving ◦ Reasonable◦ Sense of humor◦ AND ALSO HOW IMPORTANT VARIOUS TRAITS ARE TO BEING A SUCCESSFUL PRESIDENT

filter bubble?

a state of intellectual isolation that can result from personalized searches when a website algorithm selectively guesses what information a user would like to see based on information about the user, such as location, past click-behavior and search history.

Method

Sample: Republicans and Democrats who visit Twitter at least three times each week 1. Two 10-min surveys (pre- treatment N = 1,652, and post-treatment). ◦ Measure the key outcome variable: change in political ideology via a 10-item attitude measure on a range of statements about policy issues 2. Respondents report their Twitter ID - used to check online behavior (e.g., partisan background of the accounts they follow on Twitter) 3. One week later - random assignment to a treatment condition ($11 to follow a Twitter bot that would retweet 24 messages/day/1 mo) ◦ A liberal Twitter bot and a conservative Twitter bot created -- retweeted tweets from elected officials, opinion leaders, media organizations, and nonprofit groups (up to $18) to complete weekly ◦ Weekly surveys about the content of the tweets 4. 64.9% of Democrats and 57.2% of Republicans accepted invitation; 62% able to answer all questions about the content of messages retweeted each week

Polarization

Scholars agree to disagree on the extent to which political polarization is occurring. •General agreement that American party elites are ideologically distinct and more internally homogeneous •Disagreement as to whether the mass electorate is more extreme / ideologically distinct •"But regardless of how divided Americans may be on the issues, a new type of division has emerged in the mass public in recent years: ordinary Americans increasingly dislike and distrust those from the other party" (Iyengaret al., 2018, p. 1). •AFFECTIVE POLARIZATION

Framing

The process by which the words used or the construction of a message affects the interpretation of the receiver ◦ Activates certain considerations in the individual

Misinformation What is it? How is it defined?

We define "fake news" to be fabricated information that mimics news media content in form but not in organizational process or intent. Fake‐news outlets, in turn, lack the news media's editorial norms and processes for ensuring the accuracy and credibility of information. Fake news overlaps with other information disorders, such as misinformation (false or misleading information) and disinformation (false information that is purposely spread to deceive people) (Lazer et al., 2018)

Bail et al. (2017)

Will exposing people to dissimilar political views minimize polarization? " Here, we report the results of a large field experiment designed to examine whether disrupting selective exposure to partisan information among Twitter users shapes their political attitudes. Our research is governed by three preregistered hypotheses."

What are the implications of these findings?

act‐checking organizations increase the reach of corrected misinformation. Fact‐checking integrated into mainstream journalism.Are they spreading corrections and/or misinformation?Will the correction eliminate the misinformation's effects?Is the effective correction of misinformation an end goal?

How would belief echoes emerge?

automatic 1. Automatic / byproduct of online processing ‐initial misinformation has a stronger affective charge (and a larger effect) on a person's general evaluation than does its correction. • What does amnesia has to do with it? do you remember from the reading? • Misinformation may generate a strong and automatic affective response WHEREAS correction may not generate a response of an equal and opposite magnitude

Human interest frame:

brings an individual's story or an emotional angle to the presentative of an event, issue, or problem

Differential susceptibility variables

influence which media we chose, and hopefully you see that consumption of content from different news agencies can have different influences on our perceptions of who won the debate

Selective exposure

is the phenomenon whereby people choose to focus on information in their environment that is congruent with and confirms their current attitudes in order to avoid or reduce cognitive dissonance

◦ Polarization occurs -

liberals become "more" liberal; conservatives become "more" conservative

◦ Relationship between degree of attention to an issue and salience among the public

political issues become high priority political issues for the public only if they first become high priority news for the media

Economic consequences:

presents an event, problem, or issue in terms of the economic consequences it will have on an individual, group, institution, country

Responsibility frame:

presents an issue or problem in such a way as to attribute responsibility for causing or solving a problem to the government or individual in the group

echo chamber?

refers to situations in which beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a closed system and insulated from rebuttal.

Is misinformation prevalent?

the average American encountered between one and three stories from known publishers of fake news during the month before the 2016 election false information on Twitter is typically retweeted by many more people, and far more rapidly, than true information, especially when the topic is politics Facebook has estimated that manipulations by malicious actors accounted for less than one‐tenth of 1% of civic content shared on the platform

Cohen, 1963

the media "may not be successful ... in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful ... in telling people what to think about"

McCombs & Shaw, 1972

the media are agents that define political reality in the process of making problems salient as political issues"

Priming

the media can make certain thoughts more accessible/salient/on top of our heads, thereby influencing our judgments of politicians

why does it matter?

§increased choice -increased selectivity §interest-based - preference for entertainment versus news §decreased audience for news (2/3 of households in 1935, 1/5 in 2005) §35% choose news when having other fun options §partisan -preference for pro-attitudinal versus neutral or oppositional content §1/3rd of partisans use only like-minded sources (Stroud) §when possible, people tend to select like-minded content (Knobloch-Westerwick) §greater exposure to like-minded sites w/out avoiding dissimilar ones §echo chambers & filter bubbles

"Belief echoes"--> what happens to related attitudes after a correction effectively corrects misbeliefs?

• Psychology ‐the effects of false information can linger. i.e., people who make inferences based on a piece of evidence retain at least some of those inferences even when the evidence is shown to be false • Example ‐even if an L.A. Times reader who learns about the "wildly inflated" cost of Obama's trip to India is convinced that the trip's costs were exaggerated, her attitude toward Obama will be lowered.

Dvir-Gvirsman, Tsfati, & Menchen-Trevino, 2014

•20% - no political exposure •half - non-partisan and diverse partisan websites •third - one-sided ideological content and non-partisan content •3% - exposed to one-sided partisan media

Optimists - "mobilization theorists" - new media can:

•lead to new forms of civic engagement and to direct democracy, •reach young, isolated, and minority citizens; •reduce communication or transaction costs; •provide direct links to policymakers; •reduce barriers to political participation by leveling financial hurdles; •expand opportunities for deliberation and debate

Study 1The Jang (2018) paper Does exposure to coverage of mass shootings act as a mortality prime?

◦ 201 participants from various political parties ◦ Either viewed news stories about mass shootings or animals ◦ Measure of death‐related thoughts: COFF_ _, DE _ _, SK _ LLDeath‐related thoughts: ◦ Mass shooting condition: 2.09 ◦ Control: 1.52 Thus, coverage of mass shootings primes individuals to think about death hypothesis Yes, confirmed - "News exposure to mass shooting stories will lead to a higher level of death thought accessibility"

Study 2 Does priming one's mortality strengthen one's pre‐existing attitude about gun control (polarization)?The Jang (2018) paper

◦ 303 adult participants from various political parties ◦ Measures of attitudes toward gun control and open carry ◦ Both before and after exposure to a mortality prime ◦ Mortality prime ‐two open‐ended questions, which served to prime thoughts of death: ◦ "Please briefly describe the emotions that the thought of your own death arouses in you" ◦ "What do you think happens to you as you physically die and once you are physically dead?" hypothesis Yes, confirmed - "Heightened MS will lead to extreme levels of partisan gun policy attitudes. Thus, after being reminded of death, both Republicans and Democrats will reinforce their gun policy attitudes (gun control and open carry), and the polarized effects will emerge. On the other hand, we do not anticipate any reinforcing effect among Independents."

News coverage that primes thoughts about morality (and let's be honest, what besides stories of kittens doesn't?) appears to make viewers more polarized in their beliefs

◦ And in that way, doesn't work to change beliefs ◦ People ALREADY supportive of gun control support it more ◦ People ALREADY against gun control are against it more ◦ People in the middle remain in the middle ◦ Practical implications for shifting peoples attitudes - don't make them think of their own death!

◦ The case of gun control ◦ There have been a number of mass shootings in the US over the past decade◦ All of which receive media coverage ◦ And are used by politicians to try to shape attitudes toward gun control policy ◦ But does this actually work?

◦ Interestingly, as reports have gone up, support for gun control has gone down

news media, through agenda setting, can influence:

◦ The salience or importance individuals place on different issues Through framing, news media can influence: ◦ Cognitions◦ Attitudes◦ Affect◦ Behavior

Sociopolitical implications of new media

◦Selective exposure◦Polarization ◦Fake news