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2. EXEMPLIFICATION THEORY OF MEDIA INFLUENCE 37

FIG. 2.3. Perception of the relative frequency of victim fatality in carjackings as a
function of exemplar usage in news reports. Under “extreme” misrepresentation, rare
fatal victimizations were vividly detailed. Toward “minimal” misrepresentation, the
victimizations involved successively less bodily injury but were more frequent, even
typical. Despite abstract information to the contrary, fatality estimates increased with
the severity of exemplified injury. This differentiation was observed shortly after
exposure to the report. It was markedly stronger, however, 1 week after exposure. The
divergence of the gradients indicates an absolute sleeper effect on issue perception as
the result of gross misexemplification. From Exemplification in communication (p. 92),
by D. Zillmann and H.-B. Brosius, 2000, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Copyright 2000 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Adapted with permission.

exemplars. It further suggests that the indicated overestimation of risk
grows with the distress-evoking capacity of exemplars.
Taken together, the reported evidence concerning the effects of emo-
tion-evoking exemplars on the perception of issues, especially the evi-
dence concerning substantially delayed effects of this kind, lends consid-
erable support to all facets of Prediction 3 and its underlying components,
that is, Assumption 2 and the representativeness and availability heuris-
tics. It appears that, exactly as predicted, emotional experience fostered
superior conditions for information coding and that, as a result, superior
retention and ready accessibility mediated the reported effects, the
delayed ones in particular.