Cultivation theory (Gerbner & Gross, 1976) suggests that the cumulative effect of heavy exposure to television's underrepresentation and negative portrayal of people 65+ as sexless, insignificant, and comical can cause people to assume such television-like perceptions of the age group in the real world. This study's purpose was to explore not only television's cultivation effect on viewers' perceptions of the number and nature of people 65+, but also the psychological processes that are expected to mediate this effect. As an extension of Shrum, Wyer, and O'Guinn's (1998) study on the role of source discounting in cultivation, this quasi-experiment employed three experimental conditions-no-priming, source-priming, and relation-priming-to manipulate participants' awareness of television as the source of the information they retrieve to make judgments about people 65+. The experimental conditions were expected to moderate the cultivation effect like they did in Shrum, Wyer, and O'Guinn's (1998) study; in the no-priming condition, but not in the source-priming or relation-priming conditions, heavy viewers were to report more television-like perceptions of people 65+ than light viewers. The results of this study revealed six major findings: first, heavy television viewing does not cultivate viewers to underestimate the 65+ population in the U.S.; second, heavy television viewing cultivates viewers to perceive people 65+ as sexless (specifically, "not sexually attractive" and "not sexually passionate") and comical (specifically, "unintentionally funny"); third, priming is not necessary to induce source discounting of television information for judgment-making about the number and nature of the elderly in the real world; fourth, whether people are prompted to recognize television as an information source, they will discount television information when making judgments about the number of people 65+, and they will count television information when making judgments about the nature of people 65+; fifth, high perceived reality of television encourages heavy viewers to perceive people 65+ as "comical"; sixth, high direct experience with people 65+ discourages heavy viewers to perceive people 65+ as "insignificant in society."

The creative possibilities of video games have been energized by the continual advancement of technology in the twenty-first century. Extensive research has been conducted to better understand the effects of video game audio-visual components, gaming platforms, and computer-mediated communication. The research that has investigated the influence of narrative elements has focused primarily on their interaction with aggressive game play and increased aggression. After investigation into the literature pertaining to narrative, human motivation, and arousal, this thesis discusses study results indicating a subtle, yet significant, influence character motivation manipulation has increasing audience arousal, specifically in a narrative involving a near future war plotline. Additionally, the results indicating that the localization of a narrative’s setting does not increased audience arousal any more so than a narrative setting ambiguously defined. These concepts can be useful to advertising strategists interested in developing advergames or product placements within video games, and therefore the implications of this thesis’ results and future research suggestions will be presented. / text

Politicians and media elites have been calling for a return to civility in United States politics, and the vast majority of citizens agree that civility is necessary for a strong democracy. Yet incivility is an ever-present and misunderstood part of politics. In my dissertation, I focus on news, politics, and incivility by asking three questions. First, to what extent does news coverage portray political conflict as uncivil? Second, what political behaviors do citizens perceive as uncivil? Finally, how does news that portrays politics as uncivil affect citizens? I used a mixed method approach to answer these questions. I, first, conducted a content analysis of news surrounding four high-conflict political events to determine whether two conflict frames (interpersonal-level and public-level conflict) emerged. Second, I conducted two experiments and drew from social judgment theory to determine whether citizens perceived multiple types of incivility and whether their partisanship influenced how acceptable they found political behaviors to be. In a final experiment, I tested whether exposure to mediated conflict frames prompted perceptions of incivility from citizens and affected their reactions to politics. This project makes clear that news coverage of conflict emphasizes incivility and negatively affects citizens. Media elites shape political conflict using interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames. Citizens perceive both types of conflict, as well, and tend to think that likeminded partisans are behaving appropriately while counter-attitudinal partisans are behaving badly. Finally, and importantly, the coverage of political conflict affects citizens in troublesome ways. Particularly when both types of conflict frames are present in the news, citizens feel more anxiety and aversion, have decreased levels of favorability toward political institutions, and think of political arguments in partisan ways. Overall, I conclude that incivility is not stable. Instead, incivility is a two-dimensional concept that is shaped by the media, perceived by citizens, and advanced by partisans. By recognizing these dimensions of incivility, researchers may find new and important effects of incivility, and people interested in ridding politics of incivility may be more successful by beginning with the recognition that what is uncivil to one person is not always uncivil to another. / text

In this dissertation was examined the hydraulic pattern of media-priming effects by looking into Granger causality (a statistical test to determine if one time series is useful in forecasting another) between media coverage and the importance of issues people perceive. The hydraulic pattern hypothesis, an argument that increase in the importance of an issue is accompanied by decrease in a similar amount of importance, is embedded in most media-effect theories but has rarely been tested. To test the causality with media coverage, time series of six issues and six candidate variables were created. This research is distinct from previous studies of priming in that it tests aggregate-level influence of media coverage on popular evaluation of political-campaign candidate in a long-term setting. In the findings, media coverage of issues induced changes in the Granger-caused issue-weight of the issue that it covered, confirming the main effects of priming. The hydraulic pattern was also confirmed. Active media coverage of an issue, induced Granger-caused changes in five other issue-weights. It was found that it takes 7–8 days after the media coverage to establish a causal relationship of priming effects. vii In another finding, the result showed that the time-lag of the hydraulic pattern preceded the main priming effects. As regards the debated relationship of priming effects with political knowledge, this research found that high knowledge groups are more susceptible to the main priming effects. However, the impact of political knowledge on the hydraulic pattern was the opposite. This means that less knowledgeable people may be more vulnerable; that is, they are more likely to lose sight of other issues when the media primes a certain issue. In the test of attribute priming, the causality of the hydraulic pattern was also established to a lesser degree. Especially, personality-related candidate attributes like trustworthiness were robust regarding the hydraulic-pattern effects. In all of these analyses, the measurement of optimal time-lag was utilized instead of the durability concept used in previous studies. With this study design and new measurements, this research contributes to the literature by providing new insight into the theoretical conundrums related to priming theory. One of such insight is that the priming effects that matter at the poll, are relatively slow and deliberative processes, and are differentiated from the temperamental daily effects of news. / text

The purpose of this thesis was to determine the tv-show Efterlyst’s (Wanted)effects on viewers when it comes to how crime, criminals and victims are portrayed in the show. In order to achieve the purpose of our the study, both  quantitative and  qualitative approaches were used We compared the image Efterlyst gives of crime, criminals and victims to statistical information from The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention and The Central Bureau of Statistiscs. By using focus-groups we also studied how Efterlyst portrays, in the season of 2009, and how it may have affected its viewers. Our conclusion was that there are important differences between how Efterlyst portrays crime and the image of crime the statistics gives. Our study also supports the idea that viewers can be affected by how Efterlyst reports about crime; they can get disorted understandings about crime and be influenced in such way that they feel unjustified  fear from watching Efterlyst – a substantial reduction in their quality of life

The current study examined electrical brain activation in adolescent participants playing three different video games. Forty-five school aged children (M=14.3 years, SD=1.5) were randomly assigned to play either a violent game, non-violent game, or a non-violent game specifically designed to "train" the brain. Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded during video game play. Results revealed an asymmetric right hemisphere activation in the alpha band for participants in violent game group, while those in the non-violent groups exhibited left hemispheric activation. Greater right activation in emotion literature denotes signs of withdrawal or avoidance from undesired stimulus. Implications of this finding as well as other findings related to electrical brain activation during video game play is discussed further in the manuscript.

This thesis analyzes the contents of the Turkish magazine programs to explore as if the contents feed anti- establishment feelings or reinforce the existing hegemony in the society. The theses also traces the audience attitudes and beliefs towards the magazine programs in Turkey. The results suggested that programs do not represent any threat to the existing hegemony. On the contrary, it is more plausible to suggest that they represent a serious support to the existing order. The audience reactions revealed an oppositional attitude towards such programs in general which shows differences in terms of gender, education, political views, father&#039 / s education level and hours of TV watching.

本文以2008年金融海嘯為分界點，由於在事前並沒有一個投資大師以及機構法人能夠精準的預測金融海嘯發生，海嘯發生之後幾乎使得市場上所有的投資人 都面臨虧損，不但金融權威一夕崩解，一向以報導「大師投資法」的媒體業也必須重新找尋新的出路，透過尋找神奇致富的素人取代失寵的名人與大師，報導其相關投資方法，來吸引一般投資大眾，以刺激其銷量。隨後，報章雜誌也相繼報導許多神奇致富故事，媒體一時之間變成「富翁製造機」，透過電視媒體加以延伸、渲染，閱聽大眾眼之所見、耳之所聞，都是唾手可得的賺錢妙方與密技，時下投資人紛紛起而效尤，期待自己能成為下一個大戶，投資市場上充滿了「樂透式」的投資氛圍。 本研究係作者本人長期的觀察與調查，發現很多名人或是素人，固然也有腳踏 實力，努力鑽研，創造財富的案例，也有不少案例在媒體的報導與引用上，因為採取「隱惡揚善」，甚至誇大賺錢、神奇致富的一面，對於賠錢部分卻是絕口不提，其次，大部分散戶投資人都希望能有捷徑或是透過學習、複製的方式，來進行投資理財，殊不知是用自己一知半解的想法進行投資，期待能於股市中發點小財，而且只看「結果」下的投資決策，會讓投資大眾產生錯覺，很容易失之偏頗。 所以，本研究的進行，期望達到下列目的： 1. 收集與整理相關媒體銷售的資料，了解目前散戶偏好的投資意見為何。 2. 針對受訪談的媒體從業人員所提供之意見進行歸納比較，進而探討名人與素人透過媒體管道所提供給散戶的投資建議，是否為一正確、可信之投資意見。 3. 最後，根據本研究之相關結論，並提出適當意見，做為媒體自律與散戶在投資理財上的建議。 / This study will investigate and analyze the changed role of the media industry as a 'rich making machine' since the financial crisis of 2008. The financial meltdown served as a turning point for the media since there were no investment gurus or corporate bodies that accurately had predicted the development. Virtually all investors in the market faced losses and many investment celebrities lost their credibility. Subsequently newspapers and magazines turned to rich and successful people to replace them and stimulating their sales by reporting miraculous rich stories. They are selling recipes how to make money to a willing audience, members of the investing public eager to become the next investment guru. Stimulated by this, the 'lottery' type of investment is in full swing on the market. Through long‐term observation and investigation we found that, first, many of the business celebrities actually based their success on a solid foundation, strove to study and then created wealth. Many of the media reports, however, tend to overly focus on the virtues and exaggerate the money making 'magic rich' side, while on the other hand neglecting or even covering up failures and bad deeds. Secondly, many investors are looking for a shortcut to create riches and try to copy others supposedly successful investment models without real understanding of market mechanisms and easily become misled by biased media reporting. This study is expected to achieve the following purposes: (1) Collect and collate information related to media sales, retail preferences in order to understand the preferences of all investors. (2) Conduct interviews with media practitioners, collect their opinions, summarize and compare them. Then discuss the advise given by investment celebrities given through the media pipeline and check if this advise is correct or credible. (3) Based on the findings of this study propose a self‐regulating body for the media and give recommendations for potential investors.

Abstract This thesis addresses the issue of the effects of (repeated) exposure to death-related news content systematically and programmatically through a four-phase research project using a Terror Management Theory (TMT) framework. The central research questions that are posed include, ‘What are the effects for individuals of exposure to death in TV news?’; ‘When will individuals personalise death-related TV news as opposed to feel desensitised to it?’; and, ‘How do individuals cope with repeated exposure to death in TV news?’ The first three chapters provide an extensive literature review that integrates current research from the media effects and mass communication literature with that of experimental findings based on TMT. This leads to an overview of the research program. Then, a series of empirical chapters present findings from six experiments, using a mixed methods approach that incorporates both quantitative and qualitative data and analyses. Finally, in Chapter 9 trends within the quantitative and qualitative data across the studies are discussed along with the theoretical and broader implications of the findings. Overall, there are three primary aims of the research. (1.) To examine a) whether death in news media can prime personal mortality salience, thus eliciting death thought accessibility and cultural worldview fluid compensation defensive outcomes as theorised by TMT (increased nationalism, endorsement of affiliation needs and self-esteem bolstering), and b) whether it is only particular portrayals of death in news media that work this way (i.e., whether there are critical factors such as viewer-victim similarity or level of exposure, as identified in the media effects literature) that play a significant moderating role. (2.) To explore whether it is necessary for the outcomes of exposure to death in news media to be defensive or whether there are alternative and more pro-social outcomes related to the extent that the viewer elaborates cognitively on the content or views more rationally (as implicated in Cozzolino, Staples, Meyers, & Sambceti, 2004). This could be as a function of individual differences (e.g., in cognitive thinking style) or as a function of the situational or contextual factors that prompt one to consider death-related news content more personally (emotionally) versus rationally. (3.) To ask about the “repeated” nature of death primes in news media, given that news media is unique in its daily emphasis on death-related content. Towards this aim we seek to answer the following: Does repeated exposure lead to accentuation of the defensive fluid compensation effects or does it lead to diminished effects because of desensitisation and depersonalisation? This third aim is potentially the most complex and is an under-researched area with important real-world implications. Specifically, Study 1 addresses reactions to death in TV news using a written stimulus task for a range of dependent variables– namely, death thought accessibility, cultural worldview endorsement, and cultural worldview defence. Examining the same dependent variables, Studies 2 and 3 explore the effects of actual TV news footage of a bus crash with multiple fatalities and the role of viewer-victim similarity. Study 4 examines what happens when explicit instructions to imagine your own death are given while watching the same TV news footage. Next, Study 5 examines whether more pro-social effects rather than the typical TMT defensive reactions are possible when a method by Cozzolino et al. (2004) that involves deeper death reflection and the role of cognitive elaboration are explored. Finally, Study 6 addresses the question of repeated exposure to death in TV news, with a focus on whether prior death exposure leads to attenuation or heightening of typical TMT defensive outcomes. Together, results from the six studies indicate that exposure to death-related TV news does not lead inevitably to defensive reactions. While there is strong evidence that death in TV news increases death thought accessibility (especially compared to a non-death TV news control), critically, whether personal mortality salience (as evidenced by self and other death thoughts) is resultant is more variable. Qualitative data shows that people have a range of defensive strategies and resources available to them and that we are honed at detecting personal relevance. Rather than viewing desensitisation as a negative by-product of TV news consumption it seems that the self-protective features of desensitisation are note-worthy. Detachment or neutrality seems to help individuals cope with the barrage of death-related images and sound bytes broadcast via TV news. Conversely, a sensitivity to detect personal relevance helps serve an important surveillance function also geared towards self-protection and meaning making. When there is maximal similarity with the victims of TV news stories portraying death, we can expect viewers to perceive high personal relevance, to personalise news content and to process the content more emotionally, as opposed to feeling desensitised. Although the buffering role of high rational thinking was weak overall, contrary to TMT-based predictions higher rational thinkers were found to be more prone to cultural worldview defence in a number of instances. The theoretical implications for TMT, social identity-based theories, Cozzolino et al.s (2004) work, and relevant media effects literature are discussed. The primary implication for TMT is evidence that death-related TV news footage has the capacity to make personal mortality salient and that higher death thought accessibility often can be evoked by death-related TV news. However, when subsequent measurement of cultural worldview defence is undertaken after a three-minute delay, higher death thought accessibility does not necessarily lead to consistent evidence of defensive fluid compensation effects. These two dependent variables have not been measured together in the literature to date, so these findings provide a significant theoretical distinction for TMT. While death in TV news more likely promotes procreation or family-related defensiveness than national bias, a range of factors (such as detecting self-relevance, viewer-victim similarity, and one’s ability to adopt a rational thinking style) moderate effects in various situations. In particular, factors such as contextual news features, rational thinking, shock value or spontaneous realisation of relevance, and reminders of one’s own family or of one’s own or others’ death are important.

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