Exposure, Attention, or “Use” of News? Assessing Aspects of the Reliability and Validity of a Central Concept in Political Communication Research

Eveland, William P.; Hutchens, Myiah J.; Shen, Fei

doi:10.1080/19312450903378925

Cited by 69 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Although the early literature debated the existence of issue publics, there is now some clear evidence in support of the notion that citizens selectively attend to issues (Althaus, Cizmar, & Gimple, 2009;Bennett & Iyengar, 2008;Chaffee & Schleuder, 1986;Eveland, 2001;Eveland, Hutchens, & Shen, 2009;Kim, 2007Kim, , 2009Stroud, 2008Stroud, , 2010. Recent studies have examined the psychological processes underlying selective exposure to particular issues.…”

Section: The Study Of Interests and Information: Are Citizens Generalmentioning

confidence: 94%

Self-Interest and Attention to News Among Issue Publics

Bolsen¹,

Leeper²

2013

Political Communication

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Section: The Study Of Interests and Information: Are Citizens Generalmentioning

confidence: 94%

Self-Interest and Attention to News Among Issue Publics

Bolsen¹,

Leeper²

2013

Political Communication

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“…There are meaningful questions to be raised about the validity of survey self-reports of the cognitive processing of communication (78). Even the measurement of simple communication exposure using typical survey methods has been (fairly) critiqued on grounds of reliability and validity (79,80). These measurement issues and others need to be addressed for us to have good faith in the results of any test of the IMCIB.…”

Section: Imcib In Context: Global Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

An integrated model of communication influence on beliefs

Eveland

Cooper

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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How do people develop and maintain their beliefs about science? Decades of social science research exist to help us answer this question. The Integrated Model of Communication Influence on Beliefs presented here combines multiple theories that have considered aspects of this process into a comprehensive model to explain how individuals arrive at their scientific beliefs. In this article, we (i) summarize what is known about how science is presented in various news and entertainment media forms; (ii) describe how individuals differ in their choices to be exposed to various forms and sources of communication; (iii) discuss the implications of how individuals mentally process information on the effects of communication; (iv) consider how communication effects can be altered depending on background characteristics and motivations of individuals; and (v) emphasize that the process of belief formation is not unidirectional but rather, feeds back on itself over time. We conclude by applying the Integrated Model of Communication Influence on Beliefs to the complex issue of beliefs about climate change.knowledge | learning D ecades of scholarship in communication and related fields have examined the role of mass and interpersonal communication as means by which members of the public acquire information or beliefs about a variety of important topics (1, 2). However, there are several properties of this literature that make it less than ideal for succinctly answering the larger question of how scientific beliefs are formed. First, there is a tendency to focus research on a particular form of communication in isolation from others (e.g., news rather than entertainment or media rather than interpersonal discussion), with an emphasis on media effects. Second, most empirical models offer snapshots of associations among variables (3, 4) rather than consideration of how feedback processes connect communication and beliefs in both causal directions. Third, the models tested often seem to have been developed on the basis of the data available in a particular study rather than on a broader consideration of the theoretical processes involved. In those cases in which the models do seem more comprehensive, they usually eschew formal prediction in favor of offering more abstract frameworks and encouraging data exploration (5). Overall, although there is a wealth of insight and evidence relating communication and beliefs, it tends to be scattered because of emphasis on particular subprocesses rather than emphasis on the whole.Sociologist Robert Merton [ref. 6, pp. 52-53 (emphasis in original)] argued that "theories of the middle range hold the largest promise, provided that the search for them is coupled with a pervasive concern with consolidating special theories into more general sets of concepts and mutually consistent propositions" (6). The current body of research on media selection and impact on beliefs, which has, to date, been relatively circumscribed by focusing attention on subprocesses, would seem to be ripe for a comprehens...

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“…Their responses were recorded on an 8-point scale ranging from 0 ("never") to 7 ("every day") (M = 3.03, SD = 2.09, for post-debate measure; M = 3.27, SD = 2.10, for pre-debate measure). Although media use is better tapped by a combination of exposure and attention (see Eveland, Hutchens, & Shen, 2009, for a comprehensive review of this issue), we considered only exposure because of low reliability estimates between the exposure and attention measures (alphas being .44 and .42 for post-debate and pre-debate measures, respectively). We decided to use only the exposure items on the following two grounds: (a) the exposure measures were more parallel to how the other criterion variables were measured (i.e., engagement in political conversation in the past week) than the attention measures and (b) a large number of the data were missing in the attention measures.…”

Section: Measurementmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Communicative Underpinnings of Campaign Effects: Presidential Debates, Citizen Communication, and Polarization in Evaluations of Candidates

Cho

2012

Political Communication

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Exposure, Attention, or “Use” of News? Assessing Aspects of the Reliability and Validity of a Central Concept in Political Communication Research

Cited by 69 publications

References 29 publications

Self-Interest and Attention to News Among Issue Publics

Self-Interest and Attention to News Among Issue Publics

An integrated model of communication influence on beliefs

On the Communicative Underpinnings of Campaign Effects: Presidential Debates, Citizen Communication, and Polarization in Evaluations of Candidates

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