What is agenda setting?
Media do not tell us what to think, but rather what to think about
What is framing?
Media provide a focus and environment for reporting a story, influencing how audiences will understand or evaluate it
What are cognitive effects of agenda setting?
- Media concentration on a few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than others
- Occurs through a cognitive process as accessibility
- Accessibility implies that more frequently and prominently the news media cover an issue, the more instances that issue becomes accessible in the audience’s memories.
What is equivalence framing?
According to Scheufele & Iyengar:
Framing effects refer to behavior or attitudinal outcomes that are not due to differences in what is being communicated, but rather to variations in how a given piece of information is being presented (or framed) in a public discourse
(e.g. Federer, won, lost, won, lost)
What are psychological origins of framing according to Kahneman & Tversky?
Different presentation of essentially identical decision-making scenarios influence people’s choices and their evaluation of the various options presented to them
What are cognitive effects of framing?
- Occurs through a cognitive process known as applicability
- Applicability implies that the effects of particular frames are strengthened or weakened, depending on how applicable they are to a particular cognitive schema.
- The mode presentation of given piece of information (i.e., the frame) makes it less or more likely for that information to be processed using a particular schema (Link it to already existing known information, a particular cognitive schema gets activated)
What is emphasis framing?
Emphasis framing is not framing.
What is argued with emphasis framing?
with emphasis framing they compare two different painters, which doesn’t make sense to Scheufele & Iyengar.
You should not compare one painter to the other but compare the same painting from the same painter but presented differently or with another frame around it
What are the effects of framing on media users according to Murdoch?
- Foxnews doesn’t have the power to change the audiences opinion.
- That framing doesn’t make much of a difference
- The influence as a news channel is limited
What are the effects of (emphasis) framing according to Bolsen et al.?
Frames in news provide an interpretive storyline in motion, communicating why an issue might be a problem, who or what might be responsible for it, and what should be done about it
What are two possible frames in the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak?
- Zoonotic frame
2. Conspiracy frame
What is the Zoonotic frame?
The virus was transmitted naturally from bats to humans, possible at a food market in Wuhan
What is the conspiracy frame?
The virus is human-engineered, and was leaked from a research laboratory in Wuhan, accidentally or perhaps even deliberately.
How can we neutralize effects of frames?
- One-sided frames
2. Competitive frames
What are one-sided frames and what does it do?
it can neutralize effects of frames
“individuals give greater weight to the frame that is made salient by the communicator when forming their opinion”
What are competitive frames and what does it do?
It neutralize effects of frames
“When individuals are presented with competitive frame of equal strengt, the effects of the frames will cancel out” (you see both interpretations and will think about both sides)
What were the dependent variables of the survey experiment with the frames?
- Effects on beliefs
2. Effects on prosocial behavior (willingness to wear a mask, wash hands regularly, participate in social distancing)
What were the findings of the zoonotic frame with effect on beliefs: origin of the virus?
Origin of the virus. Exposure to framed messages regarding the origin to COVID-19 have a powerful effect on people’s beliefs about the cause of the pandemic.
So in the zoonotic frame, people believed origin of the virus was natural from bats to humans.
What were the findings the conspiracy frame and the effects on beliefs: willingness to penalize China?
Indirect effect of framing: participants want to blame (and even sue) China in case they believed the virus may have been created by the Chinese government
What were the findings of the zoonotic frame and the effects on beliefs: support for funding?
Indirect effect of framing: participants were more supportive of additional funding for biomedical research in case they believed the virus had a natural origin
What were the findings of the conspiracy effects on prosocial behavior?
There was a clear “conspiracy effects”: exposure to the conspiracy frame, in isolation or in competition, made participants less likely to feel the need for prosocial actions to prevent the virus from spreading.
Which frame is more dominant?
If you give participants both frames (zoonotic and conspiracy) (competitive frame) the conspiracy frame is still dominant because the participants are less likely to participate in prosocial actions.
