Page 126 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

5. MEDIA PRIMING 115

that we construct play an integral role in how we understand the media.
Understanding interpersonal discourse, the media, or the world in gen-
eral requires constructing a mental model to represent the event. To the
extent that a person can construct such a model, the person is said to
understand the event (Halford, 1993; Wyer & Radvansky, 1999). Further-
more, mental models aid in understanding information across scenes of
the program and even across episodes of a series (Zwaan & Radvanski,
1998). Likewise, the mental model that one constructs of a show will drive
the type of inferences that will be drawn about the show (Graesser et al.,
1994).
Finally, the mental models approach provides a framework for under-
standing the effects of media on our perceptions and behavior. For exam-
ple, Seigrin and Nabi (in press) recently found that people who watch
more romantic TV programming have more idealistic expectations about
marriage. We argue that viewing this genre of TV results in the creation
of mental models that reflected the idealistic images of marriage reflect in
the media. In other words, we argue that their expectations concerning
marriage are a result of their mental models of marriage, which are influ-
enced, at least in part, by the genre of TV that they watch. Wyer and Rad-
vansky (1999) provided another example when they argued that the
influence of the media on perceptions of a “mean world” (see Gerbner et
al., 1977) may result from the use of mental models that are constructed
from watching violent media to understand the social world. Given the
amount of violence on TV, it is likely that heavy viewers of TV would
construct abstract mental models to aid in comprehending these pro-
grams. However, the abstractness of the mental model could also
increase the likelihood that it would be used to understand situations
beyond the media. Thus, mental models can be used to explain media
effects such as cultivation and the influence of the media on perceptions
of reality.
In conclusion, we believe that the mental models approach has great
potential for aiding our understanding of the media. A mental models
approach can explain both short-term media priming (e.g., the priming of
aggression-related thoughts) and long-term media priming (e.g., priming
of the criteria used to judge the president across several weeks). In addi-
tion, a mental models approach offers the advantage of also being able to
explain other media-related phenomenon, such as cultivation effects. Fur-
thermore, although the mental models approach can explain media
effects, it also explains how we understand and interpret the media. Con-
sequently, we think that the mental models approach will provide a fruit-
ful avenue both for explaining how the media influence us and for aiding
our understanding of how people understand the media.