1. Priming International Affairs: How the Media Influence Attitudes toward Foreign Countries.
- Author
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Willnat, Lars, Graf, Joseph, and Brewer, Paul R.
- Abstract
This study broadens the scope of priming research by testing whether media coverage of international affairs shapes the criteria which people use to judge foreign countries. In contrast to previous priming experiments that focused on the effects of television news stories, this study experimentally tests the power of print media to produce priming effects. In addition, it tests whether the inclusion of photographs can enhance the impact of newspaper articles on subsequent evaluations of foreign countries. The participants in this study were 199 undergraduate students from a large private university on the East Coast. The findings indicate that reading stories about terrorism that directly linked the issue to Iran primed participants to judge this nation on the basis of anti-terrorist attitudes. Similarly, reading stories that linked the war on drugs to Mexico and Colombia primed participants to evaluate these nations in terms of anti-drug attitudes. In contrast, stories that indirectly primed thoughts about terrorism or drugs had no effect on how participants subsequently judged these nations. The study also found that priming effects did not depend on the presence or absence of photographs. (Contains 40 references and 6 tables of data.) (Author/RS)
- Published
- 2000