Page 87 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

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Perkins, 1996; Zillmann, Perkins, & Sundar, 1992), the degree of exagger-
ation of the exemplars (Gibson & Zillmann, 1994), and the emotionality
of the exemplars (Aust & Zillmann, 1996). Other research has produced
similar findings, with Iyengar (1990) reporting effects of the presence
(vs. absence) of exemplars and Brosius and Bathelt (1994) finding an
effect of number of exemplars on issue perceptions. Most of this research
has conceptualized the results in terms of accessibility and the use of
heuristics: The more vivid or frequent examples are easier to remember
than less vivid or infrequent examples, and thus tend to be used to con-
struct judgments.
Findings reported by Lichtenstein, Slovic, Fischhoff, Layman, and
Combs (1978) have also been conceptualized in terms of accessibility and
the application of the availability heuristic. They observed that roughly
80% of study participants estimated that death due to an accident is more
likely to occur than death due to a stroke, even though strokes cause
about 85% more deaths than accidents. Lichtenstein et al. suggest that
examples of accidental deaths are easier to recall than examples of death
by stroke, and at least partially because the former tend to be reported
more than the latter in the media.

Effects of Television Viewing on Social Perceptions. Another media
effects domain in which accessibility has been used as an explanatory
variable is in the relationship between television viewing and perceptions
of social reality. This domain differs from news reports in that it considers
all types of television viewing (e.g., fictional portrayals such as soap
operas, action/adventure, dramas, situation comedies) rather than just
news programs.
The results of a number of studies can be conceptualized in terms of the
enhanced accessibility afforded by heavy television viewing and the sub-
sequent application of judgmental heuristics, particularly when the
dependent variables involve estimates of frequency of a class or likeli-
hood of occurrence. For example, Bryant, Carveth, and Brown (1981)
exposed participants, over a 6-week period, to either heavy or light view-
ing of films depicting crime, and those in the heavy exposure condition
saw crime portrayals that featured either just or unjust resolutions. They
found that those in the heavy exposure condition indicated a greater like-
lihood of being a victim of violence and more fear of victimization than
those in the light exposure condition, regardless of whether the resolu-
tions were just or unjust. As with the other studies just discussed, these
results are consistent with predictions made by the availability heuristic:
The heavy viewing conditions made examples of crime more accessible
than the light viewing conditions, and this accessibility, or ease of recall,
influenced judgments of prevalence and likelihood of occurrence. Other