Page 80 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

Persuasion in the Political Context 73

contained in that node is recalled. Thus, the strength of association be-
tween the activated node and all linked nodes determines the extent of
spreading activation and the particular information that can be retrieved
from memory. Consequently, priming induced by a given stimulus (e.g.,
information about an economic crisis) would occur mostly for attitudes
that are directly relevant to that stimulus (e.g., the need for budget cuts).
However, according to the spreading activation principle, linked consid-
erations (e.g., health care system reform) may also be activated in this way.
Thus, as Miller and Krosnick (1996, p. 82) suggest, “There might be a
gradient of priming effects, decreasing in strength as attitudes become
more and more remote from those being directly activated by a story.” It
may happen because priming is likely to be “hydraulic” in nature: an in-
crease in the impact of some issues should be accompanied by a decrease
in the impact of other, unrelated issues.
The basic assumption of priming effects in politics is that the attention
capacities of both the general public and politicians (candidates or govern-
ment) are constrained, often quite severely. The public holds many gener-
alized positions on issues, but only a few of those issues are relevant at any
particular time. That is, people will attend to only a limited number of is-
sues (Jones & Baumgartner, 2004; Zaller, 1992).

Media and Candidate Priming
As defined in the political communication literature, priming refers to
“changes in the standards that people use to make political evaluations”
(Iyengar & Kinder, 1987, p. 63). Priming is analyzed mainly as a media
effect. Gamson, Croteau, Hoynes, and Sasson (1992) stated that a wide
variety of media messages act as teachers of values, ideologies, and beliefs,
providing images for interpreting the world whether or not the designers
are conscious of this intent. Then media presentation of political issues, by
selecting and emphasizing certain values while excluding others (media
agenda building), is likely to influence which cognitions are activated as
voters evaluate a political environment (Domke, Shah, & Wackman,
1998). Media priming occurs when news content, crime dramas (Holbrook
& Hill, 2005), or late-night comedy shows (Young, 2012) suggest to news
audiences that they ought to use specific issues as benchmarks for evaluat-
ing the performance of leaders and governments. For example, messages
communicated through and by the media during an election significantly
influence which attitudes and information are likely to be retrieved or ac-
cessed from memory and incorporated into voters’ judgments and ulti-
mate choices of candidates.