21st Century Media Effects: Choice, Predispositions, and their Impact on Agenda Setting and Priming A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Justin Whitely Holmes IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Professor John L. Sullivan, Adviser December 2009 i © Justin Whitely Holmes, 12/09 ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank a number of people who made this project possible. First, my committee, Professors Sullivan, Miller, Federico, and Rahn, whose feedback and guidance greatly helped to shape the final product (any remaining errors and omissions remain my sole responsibility). In particular, I would like to thank John Sullivan for his continued support and reading of innumerable not very good drafts. The Political Psychology Dissertation Group at the University of Minnesota also provided valuable feedback throughout the project. Angie Bos, Bas Van Dorn, Monica Schneider, Alina Oxendine, Kjersten Nelson, Melinda Jackson, and Henriet Hendriks all provided useful feedback, motivation, and most of all, treats. This project is based on a degree of computer programming which I am not personally capable of. Joe Goggins and his team are to be commended for writing the web tracking software from the ground up, and troubleshooting it at the last minute when glitches arose. Tom Lindsay and his team assembled the web survey, and helped integrate it with the web surfing exercise. John Easton and Pernu Menheer offered huge help with setting up the actual experiments in the Social & Behavioral Science Laboratory, and didn’t complain after hearing me read the instructions to my participants at least 40 times. i I would also like to thank the 400 or so anonymous participants in this project. Without their participation, there would be no data, and I appreciate their sacrifice of lunch breaks, study time, etc. to help me out. Last, but not least, I would like to thank my family for their support through this process. My parents, Roger Holmes and Donna Bornhoff were there when I needed them, and had the sense not to ask how the dissertation was going too often. My Father in Law Art Bilyeu reminded me that, no matter how bad data analysis gets, at least I didn’t have to drive (uphill both ways) to Madison with a box of punch cards to crunch my numbers. My mother in law, Jean Bilyeu, offered not only support, but to serve as a guinea pig in the pilot testing of the survey. Lastly, my long suffering wife Jacque put up with numerous delays and a move to Iowa, and I am tremendously grateful that she continues to stand by me. ii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of Lois Whitely and The Mau Mau cat, neither of whom were able to see it through to completion. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements i Dedication iii Table of Contents iv List of Tables v Chapter 1: Literature Review and Hypotheses 1 Chapter 2: Methodology 38 Chapter 3: Content Selection- Personalities and Context 55 Chapter 4: Agenda Setting 64 Chapter 5: Priming 102 Chapter 6: Conclusion, Limits, and Implications 127 Bibliography 138 Appendix 1: Pre Test Survey 149 Appendix 2: Post Test Survey 162 Appendix 3: Web Pages for Surfing Expieriment 171 iv List of Tables Table 1: Sample Description 46 Table 2: Correlation Matrix for Key Independent Variables 53 Table 3- Content Condition and Story Choice: Global Warming 56 Table 4- Content Condition and Story Choice: The Economy 56 Table 5 News Consumption and Individual Differences: Global 58 Warming Table 6 News Consumption and Individual Differences: The 59 Economy Table 7: The Basic AS Effect- Condition and National Issue 67 Concern Table 8: The Basic Effect- Condition and Open Ended 68 Economic Concern Table 9: Basic Agenda Setting Model, Global Warming 72 Table 10 Basic Agenda Setting Model, Economy 74 Table 11 Agenda Setting: Global Warming and Interest in 77 Politics Table 12 Agenda Setting: The Economy and Interest in Politics 78 Table 13 Agenda Setting: Global Warming and NE 80 Table 14 Agenda Setting: Economy and NE 81 Table 15 Agenda Setting: NC and Global Warming 83 Table 16 Agenda Setting: NC and the Economy 84 Table 17 Agenda Setting: NO and Global Warming 85 v Table 18 Agenda Setting: NO and the Economy 87 Table 19 Agenda Setting: Political Knowledge and Global 88 Warming Table 20 Agenda Setting: Political Knowledge and the 89 Economy Table 21 Agenda Setting: Ideology and Global Warming 90 Table 22 Agenda Setting: Ideology and the Economy 92 Table 23 Agenda Setting: Media Use and Global Warming 94 Table 24 Agenda Setting: Media Use and the Economy 95 Table 25: Agenda Setting News Media Use and Global 96 Warming Table 26 Agenda Setting: News Media Use and the Economy 98 Table 27 Priming Global Warming: The Effect of Condition 105 Table 28 Priming the Economy: The Effect of Condition 106 Table 29 Priming Global Warming: Political Interest 109 Table 30 Priming the Economy: Political Interest 110 Table 31 Priming Global Warming: NE 111 Table 32 Priming the Economy: NE 112 Table 33 Priming Global Warming: NC 113 Table 34 Priming the Economy: NC 114 Table 35 Priming Global Warming: NO 115 Table 36 Priming the Economy: NO 116 Table 37 Priming Global Warming: Political Knowledge 117 vi Table 38: Priming the Economy: Political Knowledge 118 Table 39 Priming Global Warming: Ideology 119 Table 40 Priming the Economy: Ideology 120 Table 41 Priming Global Warming: Media Use 121 Table 42 Priming the Economy: Media Use 122 Table 43 Priming Global Warming: News Media Use 123 Table 44 Priming the Economy: News Media Use 125 Table 45- A Summary of Findings 129 vii Chapter 1: Literature Review and Hypotheses The mass media serve as the primary source of political information for nearly all citizens. Very few have direct access to the workings of government or people and conditions outside of their immediate experiences, but anyone with access to a newspaper, radio, television, or internet connection is capable of being filled in about politics and a wide variety of other “newsworthy” stories. We are currently experiencing a tremendous transformation of the types of media available to the average citizen. The rise of technologies such as cable and satellite television, DVR, and the internet have attributes that alter the media experience, allowing the user a greater variety of choices and control over what content they view, read, and listen to. Whereas in the past, media technologies provided users with limited control over the media experience, and therefore led to a widely shared media experience, the current trend is towards individualized media experience based on niche programming and active selection of content. There has been a massive increase in the amount of choice people have over what information they consume. This new level of choice of information is potentially important to our understanding of media effects, such as agenda setting and priming. In the past, we have been able to assume that relatively large numbers of people might be exposed to information about politics because it was a part of the broadcast landscape. Today however, citizens have much more control. The purpose of this dissertation project is to examine the role that increased choice over information has on the exposure to hard news stories rather than other topics that lack political relevance, the role that individual 1