Page 244 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

9. POLITICAL COMMUNICATION EFFECTS 233

interest, this highly individualized account may be illusory. Citizens may
have difficulty recognizing their own self-interest, and their perception of
it may not be entirely selfish in that such judgments include concern for
the welfare of others (Popkin, 1991). Further, although strength of the evi-
dence is disputed (Kramer, 1983), voting decisions seem to be made less
on the basis of perceived “pocketbook” self-interest than on “sociotropic”
estimates of how well the country is doing economically (Fiorina, 1981;
Kinder & Kiewiet, 1983). People clearly distinguish between their own
economic situation and that of the nation. At levels between the nation
and the individual lie a host of other entities and groups potentially con-
sequential to individual voting and participation.
The implications of sociotropic conceptions for media effects are quite
clear. Given that systemic perceptions are based largely on media inputs,
the news media have responsibilities for presenting an accurate and com-
prehensive picture of governmental operations. Many have expressed
doubt as to how well the press plays this role. Although the public is
exposed to the moves of the president and prominent members of Con-
gress, little emphasis is placed on how government actually works in
terms of processes, compromises, and so on (Popkin, 1991). Sociotropic
values such as worldviews (judgments of how the world works), materi-
alism versus postmaterialism, and normative roles of media are all related
to newspaper public affairs reading, entertainment television viewing,
and likelihood of engaging in discussions of public issues (McLeod,
Sotirovic, & Holbert, 1998).

Causal Attribution. Jones and Nisbett (1972) suggested that actors
attribute causality or responsibility for their own behavior to situational
factors, whereas observers attribute the actor’s behavior to stable disposi-
tions of the actor. Applied to political judgments, this can be seen in the
tendency to ascribe weaknesses of public officials to their personal faults
and in blaming the poor and the homeless for their condition. Iyengar
(1989) showed that failure to link social problems with societal responsi-
bility extends to poverty, racism, and crime. Media coverage may accen-
tuate the attribution of personal causation. Television often portrays poli-
tics as conflict between individuals rather than as struggles between
institutions and principles (Rubin, 1976; Weaver, 1972). A study of news-
papers in congressional campaigns found that they generally focused on
personal weaknesses of incumbents, not on the system (Miller, Golden-
berg, & Erbring, 1979).
Iyengar (1991) provided important experimental evidence that televi-
sion influences attribution of responsibility for both the creation of prob-
lems (causal) and their resolution (treatment). Adapting the psycholo-
gism conception of framing from Kahneman and Tversky (1984), Iyengar