Effects of Victim Exemplification in Television News on Viewer Perception of Social Issues

Abstract

Two broadcast news stories were manipulated to show victimization (food poisoning, handgun violence) in one of three versions: without victim exemplification, with exemplification by unemotional victims, and with exemplification by highly emotional victims. Male and female respondents, whose empathic sensitivity had been predetermined, recorded their own perceptions of each issue addressed: its severity as a national problem, the likelihood of it becoming a local problem, and the likelihood that they themselves might be placed at risk. They also indicated their reaction to each news story. Emotional victim exemplification fostered perceptions of greater problem severity than unemotional and no victim exemplification. Additionally, emotional victim exemplification, compared with no exemplification, fostered perceptions of increased victimization risk to self, whereas unemotional victim exemplification failed to do so. Empathic sensitivity did not interact with exemplar emotionality, but produced a main effect. Highly empathic persons perceived the severity of danger and risk to themselves as greater than did less empathic persons. Respondent gender similarly produced a main effect without interacting with exemplar emotionality. Female respondents assessed all dangers and risks as higher than did their male counterparts. Finally, exposure to emotional exemplification, but not unemotional exemplification, fostered reports of greater distress reactions than did exposure to the news stories without exemplification. Women reported greater distress than did men, and highly empathic persons reported greater distress than did less empathic persons.The social order is disrupted by acts of individuals and acts of nature in the form of crimes against persons and property, abuse of political and economic power, disasters caused by nature with or without the aid of human agents, and the ravages of war, to name a few. Television newscasts, among other news media, consistently monitor the environment for such disruptions in the social order. As a result, television newscasts contain predominantly bad news at both the national' and local levels?Unpleasant as it might seem to some viewers, legitimate reasons exist for this consistent inclusion of negative news on television.

News in an Age of Competition: The Case of Sensationalism in Dutch Television News, 1995–2001

“…Besides, the theoretical notions concerning vividness imply that vivid aspects of the news differentially draw attention to only parts of the informational content, which could lead to distorted comprehension and judgments (Aust & Zillmann, 1996;Gan et al, 1996;Perry & Gonzenbach, 1997;Zillmann & Brosius, 2000).…”

“…Notably, it has been argued that exemplary case histories in a news story (e.g., "the guy next door" complaining about cuts in his unemployment benefit) are more concrete than the general information (e.g., about cuts in unemployment benefits) that precedes the exemplars (Zillmann & Brosius, 2000). Studies on exemplification in television news (Aust & Zillmann, 1996;Gan, Hill, Pschernig, & Zillmann, 1996;Perry & Gonzenbach, 1997) and other news media (e.g., Brosius & Bathelt, 1994) support the idea that exemplars draw the attention towards them. As a result, exemplars may be considered as sensational elements of news stories.…”

“…In the theoretical section of this article, it was argued that exemplary information in a news story is more concrete than the general information in the story (cf. Aust & Zillmann, 1996;Brosius & Bathelt, 1994;Gan et al, 1996;Perry & Gonzenbach, 1997;Zillmann & Brosius, 2000). In this study, two types of exemplary information were distinguished: personalization and laypersons speaking.…”

Making Sense of Entertainment

“…This concern is also echoed in research on infotainment, politainment, and tabloidization of the news (Blumler & Gurevitch, 1995;Sparks & Tulloch, 2000). Other lines of research have dealt with less than rational learning and persuasion effects from emotionally engaging media content as well, including, for instance, research on exemplification (Aust & Zillmann, 1996;Zillmann & Brosius, 2000), cultivation (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, & Signorielli, 2002), and narrative persuasion (Appel & Richter, 2007;Bilandzic & Busselle, 2008;Wheeler, Green, & Brock, 1999).…”

Soft News With Hard Consequences? Introducing a Nuanced Measure of Soft Versus Hard News Exposure and Its Relationship With Political Cynicism

“…Often, such issues are covered by focusing on one or a few individuals, who personally experience the news topic and thereby exemplify the broader issue (Bird, 1998;Machin & Papatheoderou, 2002;Patterson, 2000;Rucinski, 1992). News stories with such exemplars can strongly affect recipients' perceptions of those topics (Zillmann & Brosius, 2000): Compared to baseline statistics or interviews with politicians, portraying normal citizens as examples of broader societal problems makes people believe these issues to be more severe (Aust & Zillmann, 1996;Zillmann, Gibson, Sundar, & Perkins, 1996).…”