Page 20 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

1. NEWS INFLUENCE ON OUR PICTURES OF THE WORLD 9

Conceptually, an individual’s need for orientation is defined in terms
of two lower-order concepts, relevance and uncertainty, whose roles occur
sequentially. Relevance is the initial defining condition. Most of us feel no
discomfort or need for orientation to any number of situations, especially
in the realm of public affairs, because we do not see those issues as per-
sonally relevant. In the 2000 presidential election, most citizens showed
little interest in the issue of U.S. and Russian relations, for example. Peo-
ple were much more concerned with Social Security and continuing the
growth of the American economy. In situations where the relevance of the
issue to the individual is low, the need for orientation is low.
Among individuals who perceive a topic to be highly relevant, their
level of uncertainty also must be considered. If a person already has all
the information he or she needs about an issue, uncertainty is low. Under
conditions of high relevance and low uncertainty, the need for orientation
is moderate. When relevance and uncertainty are high, however, need for
orientation is high. This is often the situation during primary elections,
when many unfamiliar candidates clutter the political landscape. As one
might guess, the greater a person’s need for orientation, the more likely he
or she will attend to the mass media agenda. During an election, voters
frequently learn about the candidates and their issue positions from the
news media and political advertisements.
Need for orientation provides an explanation for the near-perfect
match—a correlation of .97—between the media agenda and the public
agenda in the original Chapel Hill study. Although need for orientation
was not initially provided as an explanation for that early study, it seems
clear in retrospect that the original Chapel Hill findings regarding unde-
cided voters was evidence of agenda-setting effects based exclusively on
people with a high need for orientation. There is additional evidence from
the next presidential election in the finding that the importance voters
attached to knowing the presidential candidates’ issue positions in-
creased as need for orientation increased (Weaver & McCombs, 1978). The
consistently higher levels of interest in Jimmy Carter’s issue positions, as
he was the unknown challenger in that election, compared to the issue
positions of incumbent Gerald Ford further validates the need for orienta-
tion concept.
On occasion, personal experience with an issue, rather than satisfying a
need for orientation, triggers an increased need for more information and
the validation that comes from the mass media (Noelle-Neumann, 1985).
Sensitized to an issue, these individuals may become particularly adept at
studying the media agenda. Need for orientation—the cognitive version
of the principle that “nature abhors a vacuum”—clarifies the circum-
stances under which people are more likely to acquire the agenda of the
mass media.