News Frames, Political Cynicism, and Media Cynicism

Abstract

Public confidence in Congress, the government, and social institutions has reached new lows. Healthy skepticism may have given way to corrosive cynicism. Some media watchers and critics blame the media for their preoccupation with the game and strategy of politics rather than social problems and their solution. Others deny that changes in news have affected the quality of democracy or the depth of political alienation. Studies that we have conducted over the past four years show that subtle changes in the way news stories are framed can affect consumers' responses, activating their cynicism when strategic or conflict-oriented frames are used. The studies directly implicate media framing of political news in activating, if not creating, cynicism about campaigns, policy, and governance and imply that cynicism about the news media may be an indirect consequence.

The Education Effect: Higher Educational Qualifications are Robustly Associated with Beneficial Personal and Socio-political Outcomes

“…For example, research in the US and UK has found it to be strongly influenced by political media campaigns (e.g. Cappella & Jamieson, 1996;Vreese & Elenbaas, 2008), and it appears to have a complex relationship with voting behavior, interacting with variables such as the social status of one's group and the perception of opportunity for political change (Southwell & Pirch, 2003). Interest in politics and political cynicism are, therefore, distinct constructs that have different consequences for political involvement (Bynner & Ashford, 1994;Henn, Weinstein, & Wring, 2002).…”

The impact of communications about swine flu (influenza A H1N1v) on public responses to the outbreak: results from 36 national telephone surveys in the UK.

“…Examples of such attributes are a hazard's adverse effects on children, its fatal consequences, and disagreement or uncertainty among scientific experts about the nature of the risk. [32][33][34] Conversely, portrayal of a risk as having been deliberately exaggerated by politicians, scientists or the media may increase scepticism among the public as to the true importance of the issue and result in decreased levels of concern. 35,36 The 2009 outbreak of swine flu was accompanied by extensive reporting by the UK news media.…”

Covering Presidential Election Campaigns: Does Reporter Gender Affect the Work Lives of Correspondents and Their Reportage?

“…Election coverage frames identified by Cappella and Jamieson (1996) were adapted to assess if there is evidence of gender differences in how and Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ, see Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1975), two widely used social psychology measurements of the femininity-masculinity dimension, were employed as tools to conceptualize existing election frames as gendered or gender neutral. It is important to note here that the relative masculinity, femininity, and gender neutrality of candidates are not of interest as much as the reporter's employment of frames that signal gender neutrality or genderedness in reporting.…”