Accessibility-Applicability Model DAVID TEWKSBURY University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA Psychological models designed to explain the influence of media exposure abound. Most are focused on specific phenomena, intended to explain how a particular class of messages might exert certain effects in audiences. The accessibility-applicability model (AAM; Price & Tewksbury, 1997) is designed to be relatively broad, explaining how mediated messages interact with their receivers’ existing knowledge, attitudes, feelings, goals, and values to produce meaningful outcomes. The model is based on research in psychology and political communication and has been used to explain the processes of framing, agenda-setting, and issue priming. It can describe a range of message effect processes, though, and has seen some application outside of political communication effects. Subsequent to its original publication, researchers who have applied the model have suggested revisions, improving its utility for explaining more specific phenomena and in certain conditions. The AAM was presented in “News Values and Public Opinion: A Theoretical Account of Media Priming and Framing,” a chapter in the 13th volume in the Progress in Communication Sciences series from Ablex (Price & Tewksbury, 1997). The volume was focused on persuasion research, and the chapter was produced as a way to link commonly studied political communication effects with mainstream persuasion research. The focus of the chapter is an exploration of the ways that journalists who create news stories applying common themes and structures (i.e., news values) of storytelling can develop news flows that produce predictable, systematic effects on public opinion. Drawing a conceptual link from common news production patterns to public opinion outcomes requires the explication of the psychological processes that govern how audiences receive, interpret, store, and use what they find in the news. Political communication researchers have identified a substantial number of ways that exposure to news messages can affect how people understand events, people, issues, and policies in the public domain. Three of the most commonly studied phenomena are framing, agenda-setting, and issue priming. Framing (see also framing) refers to the images and words journalists use to describe public problems and policies. Their descriptions of public phenomena help define the causes, consequences, and remedies of problems and the contours for policies and other actions. A frame is a succinct characterization of a problem or policy. It distills the phenomenon to its basic form and suggests, through intrapersonal and cultural resonances, who and what is responsible for a problem or solution. A frame can be shorthand for a set of claims and evidence about the causes and consequences of a problem but, by itself, it does not present arguments. The International Encyclopedia of Media Psychology. Jan Van den Bulck (Editor-in-Chief), David Ewoldsen, Marie-Louise Mares, and Erica Scharrer (Associate Editors). © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2020 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/9781119011071.iemp0231 2 A CCE S S I B I L I T Y - A P P L I CA B I L I T Y M O D E L In a seminal study of the framing of affirmative action policies, Gamson and Modigliani (1987) suggest that news reports often present a package of information about prominent issues and policies. These packages contain information and images, including encapsulating frames. For example, to describe affirmative action policies in the 1970s, special interests, government officials, and other issue actors developed a range of packages, some supportive of affirmative action and others opposed. These included reverse discrimination (suggesting opposition to affirmative action) and remedial action (suggesting support for it). Gamson and Modigliani (1987) identify the frame in each case as the statement that summarizes the respective characterization of the policy. It stands in for the full description so that advocates and journalists can reference it efficiently. On an individual level, a frame helps audience members comprehend the cause of a problem or event and typically implies who is responsible for addressing it. Similarly, a frame for a policy helps audience members understand the purpose of the policy and make guesses about its potential efficacy. In summary, a frame is a set of images or words that distills something to its basic elements so that audiences can understand it. The frame serves the actor who advocates for it by encouraging members of the public to understand phenomena in a way that is sympathetic to the interests of the advocate. The frame also helps the journalist tell stories easily and efficiently. Agenda-setting and issue priming (see also agenda-setting and priming) are related to one another and are often considered as causally linked. Agenda-setting refers to the process through which the news stream, within one outlet or across a number of platforms, communicates to audiences the relative importance of social and political problems. The study of agenda-setting focuses on problems facing a group (e.g., a nation or state). Through their attention to events, organizations, people, and policies, the news media identify social and political problems that should be addressed by political leaders and organizations. The problems that garner the most attention in the news presumably are among the most urgent problems. People exposed to the news stream develop beliefs about the existence and relative urgency of different problems. Their adoption of the media agenda of problems is called agenda-setting. For many theorists (e.g., Iyengar & Kinder, 1987), the significance of agenda-setting lies in what audiences do with their news-influenced perceptions of issue importance. On the assumption that dire problems deserve policy attention, citizens should expect their government leaders to develop and pursue policies focused on the problems. When people evaluate leaders on the basis of their effectiveness at addressing prominent problems, they are applying what they have learned through agenda-setting to the domain of evaluation. This application is called issue priming (Iyengar & Kinder, 1987). In effect, news-prompted perceptions of problem importance prime audiences to evaluate leaders’ overall performance in terms of performance in solving the most pressing problems. As Roskos-Ewoldsen, Roskos-Ewoldsen, and Dillman Carpentier (2009) note, what political communication researchers call issue priming (or just “priming”) is a variant of a general process of media priming (or, just “priming”). Indeed, it is unfortunate that researchers who empirically identified the issue priming effect gave it that label. It is aptly descriptive, but it unnecessarily conflates the two phenomena. Roskos-Ewoldsen A CCE S S I B I L I T Y - A P P L I CA B I L I T Y M O D E L 3 et al. (2009) provide a helpful way to differentiate them. For the purposes of the AAM model, it is best to think of issue priming as a subset of general priming processes. In the psychology literature, priming (e.g., Higgins, Rholes, & Jones, 1977) is the process in which a construct that a person has received in one situation is applied to perceiving a subsequent situation. In general, media priming occurs when people are prompted by news messages to interpret subsequent news or other messages in the context of the original message (e.g., applying an ethnicity or racial identity primed in a news story to a subsequent social or political situation). At this general level, agenda-setting is a kind of media priming effect (Price & Tewksbury, 1997); exposure to high-profile problems in the news primes audiences to think of leaders’ performance in terms of those problems. For the rest of the present entry, agenda-setting and issue priming will be subsumed under the general heading of priming. The AAM was developed to explain the psychological processes behind framing and priming effects. At the time of its publication, little of the published work in this area of political communication described underlying mental processes, so the AAM was designed to flesh out an underdeveloped area of theory. It was specifically designed to highlight difference, point to ways that different sorts of message features might influence audience members, and identify how the passage of time plays a role in the relationship between what audiences know, feel, and value and how they receive and perceive mediated messages. Model detail The AAM, displayed in Figure 1, features three primary domains: long-term memory (i.e., the knowledge store), short-term/working memory (i.e., active thought), and current stimuli in the environment. The goal of the model is to describe how salient features of stimuli interact with what people have in their long-term memory to activate concepts that can be used in perceiving and reacting to social environments. It also provides a way of conceptualizing how mediated messages enter memory and are recalled and used at a later time. Because it was developed in the context of political communication research, the model emphasizes how people form attitudes and opinions in political and policy-oriented contexts such as in political discussion and participation, but it can apply to other mediated contexts. The AAM relies on the literature in psychology that conceives of memory as an associative network (see also associative network model). When one concept enters working memory, its use can lead to the activation of concepts with which it has become associated. The activation of associated concepts is not automatic, of course, but activation of one remembered concept increases the likelihood that related concepts will be recalled. Spreading activation among concepts defines the attributes that people believe apply to the original concept. For example, when one thinks of the concept of poverty, its meaning lies in the memory-based concepts that are linked with it. From poverty one might have direct associations with hunger, education, crime, and sadness. This constellation of concepts, and the concepts with which they are associated, determines how one feels about poverty and acts with respect to it. For the purposes of the AAM, 4 A CCE S S I B I L I T Y - A P P L I CA B I L I T Y M O D E L Knowledge store (LTM) Active thought (STM/WM) Chronic (baseline) accessibility Activation Evaluation of construct relevance Temporary accessibility Applicability Use in evaluation Salient attributes Current stimuli Figure 1 Processes of construct activation and use. Source: Price and Tewksbury (1997). Reproduced with permission of Taylor & Francis. the associations between concepts (sometimes called nodes) in a network of linkages (what are often called schemas; e.g., Fiske & Taylor, 1991) are central to understanding how elements of media messages exert an influence on audience members across time and contexts. The nodes of one’s associative network can be comprised of beliefs, images, memory of events, feelings, values, and motivations. That is, memory contains more than facts. It can contain links between a concept and specific images, first-person memories, and emotions. In the AAM, these associations can influence how people think about a social actor or political construct, influencing how they form attitudes and opinions regarding related phenomena. In addition, a concept activated to working memory can prompt the activation of specific goals and motivations, leading to the application of those constructs to subsequent social interaction and other behavior. For the purposes of the present entry, the broad range of memory node types are discussed under the general label of “constructs.” An assumption common in media psychology is the idea that few people exert much effort during and after message consumption. Often discussed in terms of the general concept of a “cognitive miser” (Fiske & Taylor, 1991), people are characterized as driven by a chronic desire to avoid devoting cognitive effort to understanding and interacting in social situations. A more nuanced view is embodied in the concept of the “motivated tactician” (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). In this view, people adapt their thinking to their environment’s demands and to their own motivations, exerting more or less effort as seems appropriate. In the context of the AAM, the immediate social environment and A CCE S S I B I L I T Y - A P P L I CA B I L I T Y M O D E L 5 a message’s salient characteristics might prompt varying levels of attention and mental effort. A motivated audience member might exert substantial effort in consuming one message and very little in consuming the next. The result might be very different kinds of reactions to similar messages. The knowledge store The activation of constructs in the knowledge store, the first primary element of the AAM, occurs through the processes of accessibility and applicability (Higgins, 1996). At a basic level, constructs that are activated for use in interpreting and reacting to mediated stimuli are those that are most accessible and applicable to the message and task at hand. Accessibility refers to the activation potential of a construct (Higgins, 1996). Constructs with a higher activation potential have retained what Higgins refers to as a residual energy derived from prior activation. Essentially, thinking about a construct means that it has been activated and has received some level of energy from the activation. The residual energy from having been used in working memory dissipates over time. Long-term memory contains many constructs that are available for use, but not all are used in everyday life. When someone sifts through her or his memory for ways to interpret a message, some constructs have a higher activation potential due to their recent or frequent use. Accessibility can be temporary or chronic. The high activation potential that a construct retains immediately after use means that there is a strong potential that it will be used to interpret a new stimulus. Thus, it has high temporary accessibility. Depending on the level of activation in its initial use, a construct can be accessible for minutes, hours, or longer. Eventually, though, the reduction of activation potential renders the construct unlikely to be used in future contexts. Constructs that are used frequently leave behind an energy trace with each use that can add to the construct’s existing residual energy. With substantial accumulation, they can become chronically accessible. Such constructs come relatively easily to mind not because they were used recently but because they have been used so often that they have become habitual. Chronic accessibility can also result from the centrality of a construct to self-identity or because of links to strong emotions. Chronically accessible constructs can be considered baseline constructs, likely to be used across multiple contexts and stimuli, reaching a relatively steady likelihood of activation. They may not be used in every situation, but they are used relatively often. A construct’s accessibility is not the only path through which it is activated into conscious thought (i.e., working memory). Constructs also have the property of applicability to other things such that highly applicable constructs are likely to be activated when a person considers some person, event, or policy. As Higgins (1996) observes, applicability involves the strength of associations between constructs in memory: “The greater is the overlap between the features of some stored knowledge and the attended features of a stimulus, the greater is the applicability of the knowledge to the stimulus and the greater is the likelihood that the knowledge will be activated in the presence of the stimulus” (p. 135). An example might be useful here. Imagine that the stimulus environment a person (Bob) faces features another person asking him about his perception 6 A CCE S S I B I L I T Y - A P P L I CA B I L I T Y M O D E L of a proposed government policy. A highly salient element of the environment is the policy in question. Bob considers the question and focuses on recalling memories of the policy and the problem it was designed to address. Constructs that Bob associates with the problem and policy come easily to mind. The ease with which associated constructs are activated by exposure to the proposed policy is an applicability effect. Constructs that are linked with a certain node are particularly likely to be activated. The key linkage in this example likely resulted from the features being made applicable to the policy through exposure to messages that feature the connection. In the context of news framing research, Slothuus (2008) has pointed out that exposure to media messages can create framing effects (e.g., linking certain considerations to some public issue) through two paths. In the first, the message suggests that certain constructs already linked with an issue are particularly relevant or important. In that case, the salient features of a stimulus activate stored constructs that are accessible and applicable and increase their level of applicability to the issue. That is a simple applicability effect. If, on the other hand, the stimulus creates a novel link between a policy and some constructs, we can consider that an advanced applicability effect. In both cases, the message has increased the applicability of certain constructs, but the effects vary in the extent to which a person has acquired new linkages. This is a distinction that can matter when one considers moderators of message effects (see the section Refinements to the Model, below). It is worth pausing to consider how applicability connections develop in memory. An important part of the story lies with the nature of current stimuli. When people encounter some salient concept in a stimulus, they are likely to attend to its characteristics and to related elements of the stimulus. Higgins (1996) observes that a salient object is one which stands out in the stimulus environment and is easily perceived among background objects. Similarly, an object may have salient features that stand out from one another. For example, in the case of a Web-based news site, a story that appears at the top of a page might be salient by virtue of its location on the page. A photograph or other image might be a salient feature of the story. The connections that people form between a focal concept and other constructs are stored in memory as residual links. When thus stored, the related constructs can be considered applicable to the larger concept. That is, memories that link a construct to a focal concept create the associations that become the central force within applicability effects. By suggesting connections between a concept and other constructs, media messages create relatively automatic associations that facilitate applicability. Ultimately, strong, practiced connections between a concept and its attributes can become a kind of automated applicability effect. For example, research that observes an effect of repeated exposure to news stories that link African Americans with crime documents a kind of applicability effect (e.g., Dixon & Azocar, 2007). If, over time, the link from a focal issue to a construct becomes highly accessible, new messages stressing that link will, for all practical purposes, have no effect on recipients. When considering the role of current stimuli in message processing, it can be useful to keep in mind the distinction between accessibility and salience. In media research, one will occasionally see salience used to refer to the prominence of some concept in a person’s short- or long-term memory. Thus, in some descriptions of message A CCE S S I B I L I T Y - A P P L I CA B I L I T Y M O D E L 7 processing, it can function much like accessibility. In the AAM, accessibility is an attribute of constructs in long-term memory. Salience is an attribute of a message or features of a message. Highly salient messages or message elements are those most likely to be noticed by media audiences. If communication researchers refer to the salience of messages, they can use other ways to describe the ease with which concepts come to one’s mind. Thus, rather than being salient, a concept or social object that is easily recalled from memory because it has been activated recently or frequently can be considered particularly accessible. If an object comes to mind because it has become associated with another object in active consideration, it can be considered particularly applicable to the situation. Thus, salience can have a specific meaning that helps researchers focus on the elements that give messages power in the communication environment. Active thought Another primary element of the AAM is active thought (or short-term/working memory). In active thought, concepts perceived in a stimulus and constructs activated from long-term memory are considered and applied in a goal-determined process. Active thought is largely the conscious processing of stimuli and activated constructs in the context of operational long- and short-term goals. Motivations and goals relevant to mediated communication can be related to selecting and consuming media (e.g., see also uses and gratifications), they can be suggested by a current stimulus (e.g., a question posed by another person), and they can be prompted by the constructs activated from memory. The process is depicted in the AAM as consisting of three elements: activation, evaluation, and application. The model seems to suggest that activation can come as a result of temporary or chronic accessibility or of applicability. In practice, though, few constructs can be activated and used through one process alone. Highly applicable constructs are unlikely to be recalled from memory if their activation potential (accessibility) is very low. Although one might have once thought that two things were related, one can eventually forget the connection such that exposure to a stimulus suggesting one thing does not activate the second. Thus, to be activated, applicable constructs must have some nonzero level of accessibility, at least in as much as the applicability effect relies on the memory for connections (as opposed to the formation of them). Baden and Lecheler (2012) refer to this as the complementary nature of activation paths. Similarly, the AAM suggests that accessibility is unlikely to be a sole cause of priming effects. One does not use a construct to assess a situation or person merely because it comes to mind easily. Rather, people use the constructs that are appropriate to the context (as suggested by the stimulus environment) and are easiest to recall. Thus, we can say that mere accessibility is not sufficient to prompt the activation of some constructs when interpreting a stimulus. By way of example, seminal research on priming and accessibility by Higgins et al. (1977) demonstrated a role for applicability. Their study participants were exposed to words that can be used to label other people (e.g., adventurous, reckless, neat, sly) and 8 A CCE S S I B I L I T Y - A P P L I CA B I L I T Y M O D E L were later asked to characterize a person ambiguously described to them. People who had been primed with labels that were applicable to the description used the primed constructs in their characterizations. People who had been primed with inapplicable constructs did not use them. Thus, the accessibility of the primed constructs combined with their applicability to influence their use in the task. These results raise questions about the distinction between accessibility and applicability effects of media messages. There are three primary ways to make distinctions between them. The first is the context of the information environment. Highly complex environments and highly ambiguous messages are likely to increase the relative influence of accessibility. That is, without a clear perception of the most relevant or important elements of the stimulus, an audience member may have more freedom to rely on constructs that come easily to mind through accessibility. The second element is time. At the point of initial exposure to a message, the AAM illustrates that the initial match between the attended (salient) features of a message is interpreted in light of constructs that one has stored in memory. When the constructs and others linked to them are used to interpret the stimulus, an applicability effect has occurred. The relative accessibility of the constructs takes a back seat to their match with the features of the stimulus. Thus, applicability effects are particularly likely at the point of exposure to highly salient, unambiguous features of a message. With the passage of time, the accessibility of the applicable constructs becomes more relevant. The third element employs the concept of the motivated tactician (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Someone motivated to think relatively carefully about a stimulus message is likely to search her or his memory more deliberately, likely increasing the perceived importance of matching (applicable) constructs in memory. This effect is due to the relatively higher reliance people place on accessible constructs in situations of low effort. In the language of dual-processing models such as the heuristic-systematic model (see also heuristic-systematic model), heuristic processing is characterized by relatively swift, shallow processing of new information. The social perceiver is likely to rely on heuristics or perceptual tools that aid processing, perhaps increasing the likelihood that the perceiver will rely on the accessibility of a construct when recalling items from memory. Once activated, constructs might be used in active thought, but it is not automatic. Higgins (1996) states that the activation of a construct temporarily raises it to the level of active thought but it must be used in order to remain in working memory. Currently active goals, motivations, and feelings can influence whether an activated construct is used, as can features of the stimulus environment. A word of caution is in order. An active evaluation of a construct’s relevance may sound similar but is different than the applicability process that leads to activation. Scholl, Pingree, Gotlieb, Veensstra, and Shah (2016) observed, Applicability is a very rough and simplistic matching process between the stimulus and the constructs in memory, whereas relevance judgment is more careful and conscious. For example, consider the question, “What do cows drink?” Applicability is what makes most people want to answer “milk” because of the associative connections in memory between milk and two different words in the stimulus. However, most people manage to inhibit the response milk because of relevance judgment. (p. 75) A CCE S S I B I L I T Y - A P P L I CA B I L I T Y M O D E L 9 The level of consciousness applied to an evaluation of a construct’s relevance is open to debate, no doubt, but the evidence suggests that it is a less automatic process than is an applicability effect. The final feature of active thought is the application of activated and relevant constructs to active goals and stimuli. The AAM was designed in the context of political communication research, so its emphasis is on the use of constructs in the evaluation of political people, events, and policies. On a broader level, the model suggests that the stimulus environment suggests messages, tasks, and other concepts that require attention. As people follow hints from the environment or their own motivations, they adopt processing objectives. Active constructs are used as appropriate for those objectives. They can be used by a person to interact with other people, to form opinions and judgments about social stimuli, and to determine behavior. The time dimension The AAM has an important temporal dimension that is illustrated in Figure 2. Any one exposure to a mediated message and a subsequent interpretation and evaluation of social stimuli is influenced by previous exposure and evaluation and, itself, influences subsequent interactions. Of particular note, the activation of a construct, either from memory or through message exposure, increases its accessibility in subsequent exposure situations. Message exposures are cumulative in important ways, but Figure 2 is likely simplistic in this regard. Many things can influence accessibility. The depth of thought given to a construct can affect its accessibility, as can other constructs to which it is attached. Emotion provides a useful example. Particularly strong emotions or other feelings can affect a construct’s accessibility and application. An important element of Figure 2 is the link between the use of constructs and subsequent stimulus environments. When people form perceptions and render evaluations of their environments, they may act on the environment, changing its qualities. Also, the use of constructs in considering a stimulus may affect subsequent interactions. One important effect can be changes in the way audience members perceive stimuli. The extent to which one message exposure affects the perception of message attributes can be an important factor in the effects of cumulative exposure to a message. For example, Dixon and Azocar (2007) find that long-term exposure to news containing racial stereotypes interacts with the presentation of new racialized crime stories to influence social judgments. Refinements to the model Subsequent to the original publication of the AAM (Price & Tewksbury, 1997), scholars have suggested refinements. Researchers studying framing effects have suggested that exposure to news frames affects not only the accessibility and applicability of constructs but the very presence of constructs in the knowledge store. Slothuus (2008) observes that frames can introduce new information to considerations about a problem or policy. Baden and Lecheler (2012) specifically argue that the inclusion in the model of Active thought (STM/WM) Knowledge store (LTM) (Over time) Chronic accessibility Active thought (STM/WM) Knowledge store (LTM) Chronic accessibility Activation Evaluation of construct relevance Temporary accessibility Use in evaluation Applicability Salient attributes Current stimuli Activation Evaluation of construct relevance Temporary accessibility Applicability Use in evaluation Salient attributes Current stimuli Time Figure 2 Processes of construct activation and use over time. Source: Price and Tewksbury (1997). Reproduced with permission of Taylor & Francis. A CCE S S I B I L I T Y - A P P L I CA B I L I T Y M O D E L 11 the acquisition of new knowledge helps explain how framing effects persist across time. They suggest that concepts made accessible without also being rendered applicable to a focal issue are unlikely to remain relevant for the issue’s consideration. The same goes for new information. When novel information is acquired, it develops stronger traces in memory, making it more likely to be used in considering a focal issue in the future. Koch and Peter (2017) use the AAM to predict how audiences will develop perceptions of media and the messages they produce. Applying the concept of spreading activation, they suggest that repeated exposure to negatively valenced news messages results in the chronic accessibility of negativity with respect to the news. Negativity also becomes associated with truth, largely through both constructs’ connection to the news media. In essence, long-term exposure builds an applicability effect: Credibility becomes an applicable characteristic of negative messages. Some studies have explored consequential factors that mediate and moderate elements of the AAM. Hwang, Gotlieb, Nah, and McLeod (2007) suggest two moderators of the priming process. They argue that when people reflect on their memories of media exposure, they are likely to do it in a biased fashion. If so, media messages that can prime certain areas of reflection have the power to direct the constructs that people recall as applicable to a context. This sort of moderation highlights a limitation to the AAM. It is not well designed to model how the activation of a construct in one context can affect the likelihood of activation through both accessibility and applicability processes. The flaw lies in the model’s implicit depiction of accessibility and applicability as separate processes. To be sure, they differ from one another, but activation of constructs occurs in parallel or even through an interaction of the two. The extent to which such an interaction is the norm is a question that must be addressed empirically. Chong & Druckman (2007) suggest that assessments of the applicability of constructs to a focal issue can depend on the nature of the communication environment. Some media messages are produced and received in an environment in which there are many competing frames. This is often the result of advocacy groups on different sides of an issue promoting their frames to journalists. In such environments, citizens might be particularly likely to consciously and carefully assess the applicability of constructs to evaluating an issue. In the process, the influence of the accessibility of constructs decreases. Shulman and Sweitzer (2018) reference Chong and Druckman’s 2007 model, drawing useful connections from the AAM to phenomenological concepts. In the AAM, constructs that are activated from long-term memory are assessed for their potential utility in completing some task (e.g., social or political judgment). Shulman and Sweitzer (2018) suggest that the experience of easy recall of a construct can increase the likelihood that it will be perceived as relevant to the task. As Higgins (1996) argues, this sort of availability effect can be distinct from accessibility and applicability effects. Shulman and Sweitzer (2018) argue that it can moderate those processes, such that a concept that is easily or swiftly activated because of its accessibility and/or applicability will be judged as useful to the task because of its easy activation. Similarly, Kühne and Schemer (2015) show that emotions elicited by a news story can influence the kinds of constructs people use to respond to an event. In the terms of the AAM, the emotion 12 A CCE S S I B I L I T Y - A P P L I CA B I L I T Y M O D E L moderates applicability effects, essentially increasing the activation potential of constructs related to the emotion which are used to interpret the problem and formulate a response. Chernov’s (2018) discussion of the operation of priming in media effects directly addresses the misperception that the model implies that all media priming effects (including both agenda-setting and issue priming effects) are based solely on accessibility. Chernov (2018) provides a helpful reminder that substantial mental processing can mediate between the activation of highly accessible constructs and their use in various situations. Similarly, Chernov (2018) observes that the context in which people consume messages and produce perceptions and judgments can influence the extent to which mere accessibility accounts for construct use. Integrating a range of phenomena that fall under the umbrella of media priming, Roskos-Ewoldsen et al. (2009) point to a potential limitation of a central premise of the AAM, the assumption that memory is stored in an associative network. The assumption is integral to the idea that activation of one concept leads to the activation of constructs that have been used with the focal concept in the past. Roskos-Ewoldsen et al. (2009) suggest that some memory for social and political phenomena is encoded and stored as mental models, relatively dynamic representations of phenomena. They represent more than fragmented impressions. They contain a range of constructs that people assemble into mental structures that contain thoughts, feelings, spatial and temporal elements, and more. People who encode and store such models are likely to experience accessibility and applicability processes in a way that differs from the relatively cognitively framed descriptions embodied in the AAM. The full implications of a mental models approach to memory have not been developed for the AAM. Ultimately, though, such an integration into the framework might affect how the AAM depicts the operation and interaction of accessibility and applicability processes. Conclusion The AAM (Price & Tewksbury, 1997) is a relatively simple explanation of how complex mental processes play out for audiences in response to exposure to mediated messages. Developed to explain agenda-setting, priming, and framing, the model depicts in broad strokes some of the most basic elements of how people interpret social stimuli, encode constructs in memory, and recall and use stored constructs in subsequent situations. Highlighting the distinction between construct accessibility and applicability has proven to be a useful heuristic for theory development and testing, but it can overshadow the interdependence of the two processes. Moving from the AAM to more sophisticated modeling of memory-based media effects requires more detailed specification of moderating and mediating factors, and it requires fully identifying and testing the assumptions upon which the model is built. SEE ALSO: Accessibility; Agenda-Setting; Associative Network Model; Framing; Heuristic-Systematic Model; Priming; Uses and Gratifications A CCE S S I B I L I T Y - A P P L I CA B I L I T Y M O D E L 13 References Baden, C., & Lecheler, S. (2012). Fleeting, fading, or far-reaching? A knowledge-based model of the persistence of framing effects. Communication Theory, 22, 359–382. doi:10.1111/j. 1468-2885.2012.01413.x Chernov, G. (2018). Priming as a process and as a function in agenda setting. Studies in Media and Communication, 6, 32–40. Chong, D., & Druckman, J. N. (2007). Framing theory. Annual Review of Political Science, 10, 103–126. doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.072805.103054 Dixon, T., & Azocar, C. L. (2007). 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Media priming: An updated synthesis. In J. Bryant & M. B. Oliver (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (3rd ed., pp. 74–93). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Scholl, R. M., Pingree, R., Gotlieb, M. R., Veensstra, A. S., & Shah, D. V. (2016). Here’s what you’ll learn from this news story: Prior framing and learning reasons from news. Electronic News, 10, 71–86. Shulman, H. C., & Sweitzer, M. D. (2018). Advancing framing theory: Designing an equivalency frame to improve political information processing. Human Communication Research, 44, 155–175. Slothuus, R. (2008). More than weighting cognitive importance: A dual-process model of issue framing effects. Political Psychology, 29, 1–28. Further reading Ewoldsen, D. R., & Rhodes, N. (2019). Media priming and accessibility. In M. B. Oliver, R. A. Raney, & J. Bryant (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (4th ed., pp. 83–99). New York, NY: Routledge. 14 A CCE S S I B I L I T Y - A P P L I CA B I L I T Y M O D E L Tewksbury, D., & Scheufele, D. (2019). News framing theory and research. In M. B. Oliver, R. A. Raney, & J. Bryant (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (4th ed., pp. 51–68). New York, NY: Routledge. David Tewksbury is a Professor in the Department of Communication and Executive Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include the political effects of new communication technologies, the cognitive processing of media messages, and audience news consumption behaviors. With Jason Rittenberg, he wrote News on the Internet: Information and Citizenship in the 21st Century. He is a former president of the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research and former chair of the International Communication Association’s Mass Communication Division.