Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This study examines reactions to ethical and strategic framing in the news coverage of the embryonic stem cell research controversy, depending on the level of issue involvement. In order to test hypotheses regarding the effects of... more
This study examines reactions to ethical and strategic framing in the news coverage of the embryonic stem cell research controversy, depending on the level of issue involvement. In order to test hypotheses regarding the effects of strategic vs. ethical frames and the moderating role played by issue involvement, an online experiment was conducted. Results indicated that these two frames interacted
Research Interests:
... Jennifer L. Lambe (PhD, 2000, University of Minnesota) is an assistant professor at the University of Delaware. Douglas McLeod (PhD, 1989, University of Minnesota) is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. An ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This review introduces a conceptual framework with three elements to highlight the richness of the framing effects literature, while providing structure to address its fragmented nature. Our first element identifies and discusses the... more
This review introduces a conceptual framework with three elements to highlight the richness of the framing effects literature, while providing structure to address its fragmented nature. Our first element identifies and discusses the Enduring Issues that confront framing effects researchers. Second, we introduce the Semantic Architecture Model (SAM), which builds on the premise that meaning can be framed at different textual units within a text, which can form the basis of frame manipulations in framing effects experiments. Third, we provide an Inventory of Framing Effects Research Components used in framing effects research illustrated with salient examples from the framing effects literature. By offering this conceptual framework, we make the case for revitalizing framing effects research.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Psychology and Politics
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Sociology, Computer Science, Law, Economics, Political Economy, and 15 moreNew Media, Conflict, Political Science, Politics, Critical Discourse Analysis, Media, Democracy, News, Mass media, Mass Communications, Social Science Research Network, News Media, Alternative Dispute Resolution: Mediation and Arbitration, Conflict Theories, and Constructive
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This research focuses on the role of editors as community news gatekeepers. It surveys more than 150 editors from Minnesota, Iowa, North and South Dakota, and Wisconsin, comparing findings for two time periods, 1965 and 1985. The 1985... more
This research focuses on the role of editors as community news gatekeepers. It surveys more than 150 editors from Minnesota, Iowa, North and South Dakota, and Wisconsin, comparing findings for two time periods, 1965 and 1985. The 1985 period was characterized by increased planning, especially in large, complex communities. This study finds that nearly all surveyed editors, as community elites, favored community planning, but by 1985 saw this planning as an aspect of community growth more than an instrument of community control. Yet editors from complex, pluralistic communities did tend to see planning as part of maintaining community social order and control more than did editors from smaller communities.
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT Guided by the influence of presumed influence model, this study focuses on the direct and mediating roles of adolescent perceived media influence on peers—i.e., perceptions about how much peers are influenced by antismoking... more
ABSTRACT Guided by the influence of presumed influence model, this study focuses on the direct and mediating roles of adolescent perceived media influence on peers—i.e., perceptions about how much peers are influenced by antismoking messages—in predicting adolescent smoking attitudes and behavior. Analysis of two-wave panel data indicates that adolescents' perceived media influence on peers at Time 2 directly influenced their smoking attitudes and behavior at Time 2 and appeared to serve as a causal bridge for the variable at Time 1. The exposure to antismoking campaigns seems to achieve the desired outcome indirectly through perceived media influence on peers.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This study examines how the news frames that journalists use to present contentious policy debates shape reasoning processes and opinion outcomes. Drawing on the notion that framing is a cognitive process in which the message affects how... more
This study examines how the news frames that journalists use to present contentious policy debates shape reasoning processes and opinion outcomes. Drawing on the notion that framing is a cognitive process in which the message affects how individuals weigh existing considerations (i.e., political orientations and relevant attitudes/beliefs) to make a judgment, the authors conducted two experiments in which they presented participants with news stories in which policy conflicts were described as either a clash of underlying values and principles (i.e., a value frame) or as a clash of political interests and strategies (i.e., a strategy frame). The results suggest that the framed news stories failed to change issue opinions directly but did alter the importance of the considerations used to make judgments on relevant issues. Specifically, individuals tend to react to strategy frames by discounting partisan affiliation as a primary consideration, turning to other salient alternatives when making judgments.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Psychology and Cognition
We examine how individuals’ interactions with the shifting contemporary communication ecology—either by seeking information selectively from partisan sources or immersing themselves in a broad range of partisan communications — relate to... more
We examine how individuals’ interactions with the shifting contemporary communication ecology—either by seeking information selectively from partisan sources or immersing themselves in a broad range of partisan communications — relate to shifting levels of social trust and online engagement. Using national panel surveys of young adults (i.e., millennials age 18–34) collected over the 2016 U.S. presidential election, we find that individuals’ partisan communication flows—calculated by algorithmically combining patterns of news consumption, social media use, and political talk—explain: (a) polarized shifts in levels of trust towards people of other nationalities, religions, races, and ethnicities and (b) increases in levels of online political engagement. By elaborating the relationship between citizens’ communication patterns and their levels of trust and participation, this research forces a reconsideration of theoretical traditions in the field of communication, especially those linking mass and interpersonal processes in the study of social capital.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Studies examining the effects of news cues (i.e., labels used to characterize issue domains and social groups) typically fail to consider the possibility that news stories may contain multiple cues that have interactive effects on... more
Studies examining the effects of news cues (i.e., labels used to characterize issue domains and social groups) typically fail to consider the possibility that news stories may contain multiple cues that have interactive effects on audience processing and opinion expression. To test this possibility, the authors conduct a Web survey–embedded experiment that manipulates features of a news report about civil liberties restrictions targeted at Arabs portrayed as either immigrants or citizens and as either extremists or moderates. Hypotheses predict stronger intercorrelations and faster speed of response among a range of social intolerance evaluations when respondents encounter the combination of immigrant and extremist cues. Findings indicate the convergence of immigrant and extremist cues not only yield stronger associations between group evaluations, social intolerance, immigration opposition, and minority disempowerment but also reduce response latencies. The results across these two...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer on 25 May 2020, sparked widespread protests led by the Black Lives Matter movement throughout the summer of 2020. Subsequent news coverage of these protests prominently featured... more
The murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer on 25 May 2020, sparked widespread protests led by the Black Lives Matter movement throughout the summer of 2020. Subsequent news coverage of these protests prominently featured acts of civil disobedience even though almost all protests were peaceful. In turn, protest “violence” was picked up by conservative political elites as evidence to promote legislation to control protests and keep communities safe. Since summer 2020, eight states have passed such legislation with additional bills pending in 21 states, raising concerns that the legislation suppresses political expression. This paper brings together literature on free expression, the protest paradigm, and news framing to provide the basis for a quantitative and qualitative analysis of 379 news stories and editorials covering Florida’s HB1 protest legislation. Results reveal that the most frequent news frame was fighting crime, with relatively less attention to free expr...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This review explicates the past, present and future of theory and research concerning audience perceptions of the media as well as the effects that perceptions of media have on audiences. Before the sections that examine media perceptions... more
This review explicates the past, present and future of theory and research concerning audience perceptions of the media as well as the effects that perceptions of media have on audiences. Before the sections that examine media perceptions and media effects perceptions, we first identify various psychological concepts and processes involved in generating media-related perceptions. In the first section, we analyze two types of media perceptions: media trust/credibility perceptions and bias perceptions, focusing on research on the Hostile Media Perception. In both cases, we address the potential consequences of these perceptions. In the second section, we assess theory and research on perceptions of media effects (often referred to as Presumed Influence) and their consequences (referred to as the Influence of Presumed Influence). As examples of Presumed Influence, we evaluate the literature on the Persuasive Press Inference and the Third-Person Perception. The bodies of research on media perceptions and media effects perceptions have been featured prominently in the top journals of the field of mass communication over the past 20 years. Here we bring them together in one synthetic theoretical review.