Abstract
Abstract. A medical news report was manipulated to project either Alabama or Texas as the target region for the outbreak of a new (fictitious) disease. Residents of Alabama and Texas responded to these reports, making the report of the threat to their respective territories relevant to them, while rendering the report of the threat to other regions of the country comparatively irrelevant. Regionally defined issue salience was found to foster superior acquisition of both quantitative and qualitative information of diagnostic value. Issue salience also led to estimates of greater danger to the public and self. It increased the perceived newsworthiness and usefulness of the reports as well. These findings suggest that issue salience motivates attention to, and the acquisition of, diagnostically relevant information that tends to be poorly processed or ignored under conditions of insufficient relevance.
Zusammenfassung. Um den Effekt von Themensalienz auf die Verarbeitung von Informationen aus Nachrichten zu untersuchen, wurde ein Bericht unter der Rubrik “Gesundheit“ experimentell variiert: Probanden, die entweder in Alabama oder in Texas ansässig waren, lasen, dass entweder in Alabama oder aber in Texas eine neue (fiktive) Krankheit ausgebrochen sei. Entsprechend hatte der Bericht entweder hohe persönliche Relevanz, da über eine Gefahr in ihrer Region berichtet wurde, oder aber vergleichsweise geringe Relevanz, wenn eine andere Region betroffen war. Diese über den Regionalbezug definierte Themensalienz resultierte in besserer Informationsaufnahme sowohl von konkret-beschreibender als auch von abstrakt-quantifizierender Information. Salienz führte auch dazu, dass die Gefahr für die eigene Person und für die Öffentlichkeit höher eingeschätzt wurde. Den Ergebnissen zufolge bewirkt Themensalienz größere Aufmerksamkeit und bessere Aufnahme für bzw. von Informationen, die andernfalls kaum wahrgenommen oder ignoriert werden.
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