There has been a proliferation of research into elite communication frames and framing effects among political scientists in recent years. A growing number of scholars have challenged many of the early assumptions regarding single-exposure frames and the broader impact of elite messages encountered in mass media broadcasting on citizen opinion. In addition, many scholars have been investigating the consequences of the "new media system" on the ways partisan information processors are exposed to and acquire political information. Yet, to date, no line of social scientific inquiry has attempted to merge these related directions of research into a cohesive framework that incorporates the information environment into a study of framing and framing effects. In the present study a quasi-experimental research design and a mock political website are utilized to examine the effects of competing elite messages on citizen opinions about domestic nuclear power plant construction when, as is the character of the contemporary media environment, citizens as consumers are able to choose and select the types of sources and messages they encounter. The results presented here suggest that partisanship does affect the types of information consumers view on a political website, especially when they are only able to choose a single article or message. However, when the environment is manipulated to become competitive, with consumers forced to select multiple articles, most consumers prefer to encounter balanced sets of information. These findings reveal that under some circumstances individuals are, in fact, ideologically biased -- especially individuals with crystallized partisan identities -- but that on many occasions people seek to hear both sides of an argument when acquiring new political information.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CHENGCHI/U0003446535 |
| Creators | Hardy, Phillip Ray. |
| Publisher | Arizona State University. |
| Source Sets | National Chengchi University Libraries |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Rights | Copyright © nccu library on behalf of the copyright holders |
Page generated in 0.0026 seconds