= THE POWER OF THE PRESS: THE EFFECTS OF PRESS FRAMES IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGN NEWS ON MEDIA PERCEPTIONS =

 

AUTHOR : D’Angelo, Paul¹ dangelo@tcnj.edu

 

This paper discusses how the behaviors, roles, and standards of mainstream journalism are framed in political campaign news and empirically examines applicability and accessibility effects of press frames on individuals’ media perceptions, specifically news information quality and negative aspects of content (cf. Kosicki & McLeod, 1990).

 Following previous work, we posited that journalists frame the press in three ways, called conduit, strategy, and accountability.

 

 Participants in a between-subjects experiment were exposed to a political campaign story about an exemplar ‘character issue’ containing these frames.

 Regarding applicability effects, exposure to each press frame differentially prompted individuals to think frame-relevant subtopics were present in the story.

Further, subjects exposed to the strategy press frame interpreted the press as being significantly more negative than individuals exposed to the conduit or accountability frame; subjects exposed to the accountability press frame interpreted the press as having higher news information quality than individuals exposed to the conduit or strategy frame.

Regarding accessibility effects, only the accountability press frame prompted individuals to access prior beliefs about the news media in order to form opinions about negativity and quality.

 Implications for future study of press framing are discussed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript

[ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

 

 

the-power-of-the-press-the-effects-of-press-frames-in-political-campaign-news

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