Applying a Cognitive-Processing Model to Presidential Debate Effects: Postdebate News Analysis and Primed Reflection

Abstract

This article integrates priming and framing into a cognitive-processing model that illustrates how the effects of watching a presidential debate might be influenced by a priming message as it interacts with an individual's schema. We examine how the frame of postdebate news analysis primes audience reflection on a previously viewed segment from the 2004 presidential debates (a process we identify as ''primed reflection''). Results show that the influence of postdebate news analysis is a function of the interaction between the news-analysis frame (policy vs. performance) and the individual-level factors, namely, political knowledge and propensity to reflect on media content.

Fleeting, Fading, or Far-Reaching? A Knowledge-Based Model of the Persistence of Framing Effects

“…Also, when previously disconnected beliefs become applicable to one another, participating beliefs may be revised and changed in consequence (Anderson & McCulloch, ; Baden, ; Lecheler, de Vreese, & Slothuus, ). Newly acquired beliefs are integrated into knowledge by defining novel applicability relations (Hwang, Gotlieb, Nah, & McLeod, ). The mediating processes involved in frame processing operate complementarily, each contributing to the total framing effect.…”

“…A belief that is stored but never used will not acquire sufficient accessibility to be activated in subsequent processing. Likewise, a belief that is not integrated into an applicability structure that defines what it is relevant for will not be found applicable in subsequent reasoning (Goodmon & Anderson, ; Hwang et al, ; Price & Tewksbury, ). Only if novel beliefs are rendered applicable to other knowledge and rehearsed subsequently, are they likely to play a role in future judgment (Laming, ; Watt et al, ).…”

Effects of Postdebate Coverage on Spontaneous Policy Reasoning

“…Despite an early demonstration that postdebate coverage is crucial to understanding overall effects of televised debates (Lang & Lang, 1978), relatively few studies have examined postdebate coverage. As in debate effects research, variables relevant to strategic implications of the debate such as vote choice and candidate preference are the dominant dependent variables in these studies (Elliott & Sothirajah, 1993; Hwang, Gotlieb, Nah, & McLeod, 2007; Lemert, Elliot, Nestvold, & Rarick, 1991; Norton & Goethals, 2004; Tsfati, 2003).…”

“…1 1 1 Study 1 is the same dataset used in Scheufele, Kim, and Brossard (2007) and Hwang et al (2007); Study 2 is the same dataset used in Pingree, Hill, and McLeod (2011). …”

The Psychology of News Influence and the Development of Media Framing Analysis

“…However, recently a key figure in CDA, Teun van Dijk (2006, p. 360) has advocated the importance of ‘the cognitive dimension’ in studying the processes of manipulation, an unusual step in a field largely dedicated to avoiding ‘cognitivism’ at all costs. Meanwhile, some communication scholars have begun to explore media framing effects in the laboratory with carefully manipulated yet authentic materials (Hwang, Gotlieb, Nah, & McLeod, 2007).…”