Page 252 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

9. POLITICAL COMMUNICATION EFFECTS 241

media effects. Readers with the strongest motivation to gain information
failed to shift their salience ratings of issues in accordance with the
agenda of the newspaper they read (McLeod et al., 1974).

Reception Activity Orientations

Effects are also conditioned by orientations during exposure to news.
These can be measured physiologically below the level of the person’s
awareness (Reeves, Thorson, & Schleuder, 1986) or by using self-report
measures that suffer the weaknesses of other self-report measures but do
reveal substantial variance between persons.

Attention. Attention is the conscious focusing of increased mental
effort. As applied to news, it can be measured from closed-ended ques-
tions regarding various types of news content and separately or combined
across media. Attention is particularly important for television, where
exposure takes place under very different levels of attention. In contrast,
the reading of a newspaper or Internet information site demand more
attention. Learning from news is enhanced at higher levels of attention
(Chaffee & Choe, 1980; Chaffee & Schleuder, 1986). Exposure to debates
may convey only minimal knowledge, but it does stimulate campaign
interest and discussion in formulating voting decisions (McLeod et al.,
1979). Exposure and attention may have more than additive effects. Expo-
sure to hard news interacted with attention to increase both knowledge
about the economy and community participation (McLeod & McDonald,
1985).

Information-Processing Strategies. Audience activity includes
strategies people employ to cope with the “flood of information” that
threatens to overwhelm them (Graber, 1988). Surveys using a set of self-
report items found three dimensions of audience news information-
processing strategies (Kosicki & McLeod, 1990; Kosicki, McLeod, &
Amor, 1987): selective scanning, skimming, and turning out items; active
processing, going beyond or “reading through” a story to reinterpret it
according to the person’s needs; and reflective integration, replaying the
story in the person’s mind and using it as a topic of discussion. The
extent of political learning, political interest, and participation were
restricted by selective scanning and enhanced by reflective integration.
Active processing had little effect on learning but did stimulate interest
and participation. All three processing strategies were related to differ-
ent conceptual frames that people use to interpret and understand pub-
lic issues (McLeod et al., 1987).