Page 113 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

102 D. ROSKOS-EWOLDSEN, B. ROSKOS-EWOLDSEN, F. DILLMAN CARPENTIER

the media primes rape myths, such as women enjoy being raped, which
can influence later perceptions of the plaintiff and defendant in a rape trial
(Intons-Peterson, B. Roskos-Ewoldsen, Thomas, Shirley, & Blut, 1989;
Malamuth & Check, 1985; Wyer et al., 1985).
In the health domain, several studies have shown that commercials can
prime stereotypes. For example, Pechmann and Ratneshwar (1994)
exposed adolescents to either antismoking advertisements that focused on
how unattractive smoking was (e.g., smelly), cigarette advertisements, or
control advertisements, all embedded within an age-appropriate maga-
zine. After looking through the magazine, the adolescents read about a
teenager who either smoked or did not smoke. Exposure to the antismok-
ing advertisements resulted in more negative judgments of the teenager
who smoked, compared with exposure to the other advertisements. Fur-
thermore, the prime influenced judgments of the smoking teenager that
were consistent with the participants’ stereotypes of smokers (e.g., lacking
common sense and being immature) (see also Pechmann & Knight, 2000).
As in the other domains, research in the stereotype domain indicates
that the media can prime stereotypes, and these primed stereotypes do
influence how people are later perceived. The research on media priming
of stereotypes increases our confidence in the generality of the media as a
prime because this research provides validation that the media can act as
a prime in a unique research domain and that a variety of media (e.g.,
advertisements, rock music videos, newsletters) can act as primes. Unfor-
tunately, no research in this area has focused on behavioral manifestations
of the media’s priming of stereotypes, though the research by Pechmann
(2001) suggests that these primed stereotypes do influence adolescents’
intentions to smoke. Regrettably, as with the research on media violence
and priming and political priming, there has been no research within
this domain on the nature of media primes. Do more-intense or extreme
portrayals of stereotypes result in stronger priming effects? Does the
effect of the media prime of a stereotype fade with time? Currently, we
cannot answer these questions because no research has addressed these
issues.

Conclusions

The research on media priming currently is disjointed. Clearly, the me-
dia act as a prime: a number of studies have demonstrated, and a meta-
analysis has confirmed, that the media influences later judgments and
behavior. In particular, the research on media priming demonstrates that
the media can prime aggressive thoughts and feelings (Anderson, 1997;
Anderson, Anderson, & Deuser, 1996; Bushman & Geen, 1990), aggressive
behaviors (Bushman, 1995; Josephson, 1987), the information and criteria