Cultivation Effects of a Newspaper on Reality Estimates and Explicit and Implicit Attitudes
Abstract
This paper explores the cultivation effect of a newspaper on its readers’ reality estimates and attitudes. Additionally, the study tries to advance cultivation research by examining implicit attitudes (i.e., automatic affective reactions toward an object). A content analysis of four months of news coverage in one particular newspaper showed that foreigners were overrepresented as offenders and that the newspaper had a negative view of the EU. According to cultivation theory, it is assumed that the more people read a newspaper, the more their reality estimates and attitudes correspond to the most recurrent, stable, and overarching patterns of the newspaper’s content. To test this hypothesis, a total of 453 students participated in a study that used a cross-lagged panel design with two waves and a time-lag of two months. Consistent with the cultivation hypothesis, those who spent more time reading the newspaper were more likely to overestimate the frequency of foreigners as offenders (i.e., first-order cultivation) and had more negative self-reported attitudes toward the EU (i.e., second-order cultivation). Additionally, those who read more of the newspaper showed more negative implicit attitudes toward the EU (i.e., implicit cultivation). The data show evidence of a significant causal influence of newspaper exposure on implicit attitudes, and a marginally significant causal effect on the overestimation of foreigners as offenders and on explicit attitudes toward the EU. The consideration of implicit attitudes as an additional dependent variable could advance cultivation theory and research.
References
2008). Fictional narratives cultivate just-world beliefs. Journal of Communication, 58, 62–83.
(2008). Zur kultivierenden Wirkung der Kronen Zeitung [
(Cultivation effect of Kronen Zeitung ]. Medien Journal, 32(4), 3–21.2009). Explizite und implizite kultivierende Wirkung der Kronen Zeitung. Eine empirische Untersuchung von Kultivierungseffekten auf explizite und implizite politische Einstellungen [
(The newspaper Kronen Zeitung’s long-term cultivation effects on explicit and implicit attitudes ]. Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft, 57, 217–237.2007). Reacting to the radical right. Lessons from Germany and Austria. Party Politics, 13, 331–349.
(1988). Fernsehnutzung und Realitätswahrnehmung: Zur Überprüfung der Kultivierungshypothese [
(Exposure to television and reality estimates: Testing the cultivation hypothesis ]. Rundfunk und Fernsehen, 36, 67–79.2005). Distinguishing red and green biotechnology: Cultivation effects of the elite press. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 17, 64–89.
(2006). Political parallelism in news and commentaries on the Haider-conflict. A comparative analysis of Austrian, British, German, and French quality newspapers. Communications, 31, 85–104.
(2004). Life according to television. Implications of genre-specific cultivation effects: The Gratification/Cultivation model. Communications, 29, 295–326.
(2009). Media effects. Advances in theory and research (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
(2003). An illustration of a longitudinal cross-lagged design for larger structural equation models. Structural Equation Modeling, 10, 465–486.
(2007). Introducing LISREL. London, UK: Sage Publications.
(2007). Inhaltsanalyse. Theorie und Praxis. [
(Content analysis. Theory and practice ] (6th ed.). Konstanz, Germany: UVK Verlagsgesellschaft mbH.2006). Associative and propositional processes in evaluation: An integrative review of implicit and explicit attitude change. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 692–731.
(2004). Der Implizite Assoziationstest als Maß automatisch aktivierter Assoziationen: Reichweite und Grenzen. [
(The Implicit Association Test as a tool to measure automatic associations: Scope and limits ]. Psychologische Rundschau, 55, 118–126.1976). Living with television: The violence profile. Journal of Communication, 26, 173–199.
(2007). Crime cultivation: Comparisons across media genres and channels. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 51, 147–171.
(1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464–1480.
(2001). Mediated reality bites: Comparing direct and indirect experience as sources of perceptions across two communities in China. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 13, 398–418.
(2002). The symbolic racism 2000 scale. Political Psychology, 23, 253–283.
(2007). Open or closed – this is the question: The influence of question format on the cultivation effect. Communication Methods and Measures, 1, 1–12.
(2004, May). Learning to be prejudiced? Media usage and anti-gay attitudes. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, New Orleans, LA.
(2005). Social psychology. Edinburgh Gate, UK: Pearson Education Limited.
(2008). Commentary on the uses and misuses of structural equation modeling in communication research. In , The sage handbook of advanced data analysis methods for communication research (pp. 185–218). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
(2006). Die Feindbilder der Kronen Zeitung [
(The “enemies” of Kronen Zeitung ]. Medienimpulse, 14, 30–32.1975). Cross-lagged panel correlation: A test for spuriousness. Psychological Bulletin, 82, 887–903.
(2008). Assessing implicit cognitions with a paper-format implicit association test. In , The psychology of modern prejudice (pp. 123–146). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers.
(1996). Power analysis and determination of sample size for covariance structure modeling. Psychological Methods, 1, 130–149.
(1996). Fundamentals of human communication: An interpersonal perspective. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
(2009). Growing up with television: Cultivation processes. In , Media effects. Advances in theory and research (pp. 34–49). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
(2001). Does television viewing relate to engagement in protective action against crime? A cultivation analysis from a theory of reasoned action perspective. Communication Research, 28, 802–825.
(2004, May). Polarization versus the mainstream: Differentiating the effects of the news media. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, New Orleans, LA.
(2009). Mass media attitude change. Implications of the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. In , Media effects. Advances in theory and research (pp. 125–164). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
(2010). Politik vor Redaktionsschluss: Kommunikationsorientierungen von Macht- und Medieneliten in Österreich [
(Orientation of media elites in Austria ]. In , Politik in der Medienarena. Praxis politischer Kommunikation in Österreich [Political communication in Austria ] (pp. 53–100). Vienna, Austria: Facultas.2008). Examining the role of trait reactance and sensation seeking on perceived threat, state reactance, and reactance restoration. Human Communication Research, 34, 448–476.
(2000). Assessing cultivation theory and public health model for crime reporting. Newspaper Research Journal, 21, 99–112.
(1990). Cultivated viewers and readers: A life-style perspective. In , Cultivation analysis: New directions in media effects research (pp. 181–206). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
(2005). Strukturgleichungsmodelle in den Sozialwissenschaften [
(Structural equation models in the social sciences ]. München, Germany: Oldenburg.2001). Do talk shows cultivate adolescents’ views of the world? A prolonged-exposure experiment. Journal of Communication, 51, 143–163.
(2008). Fiktion Wirklichkeit. Ein Modell der Informationsverarbeitung im Kultivierungsprozess [
(Fiction reality. An information processing model for the cultivation process ]. Wiesbaden, Germany: VS Verlag.2004). The problem of causality in cultivation research. Communications, 29, 379–397.
(1999). Television and its viewers. Cultivation theory and research. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
(2007). Social cognition and cultivation. In , Communication and social cognition: Theories and methods. (pp. 245–272). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
(2009). Media consumption and perceptions of social reality: Effects and underlying processes. In , Media effects. Advances in theory and research (pp. 50–73). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
(2008). Crossmediale Strategien überregionaler Tageszeitungen. Empirische Studie am Beispiel des Pressemarkts in Österreich [
(Cross-media strategies of newspapers. An empirical investigation in Austria ]. Media Perspektiven, 38, 307–317.2009). Diversity through delay? The Austrian case. International Communication Gazette, 71, 77–87.
(1985). Media use and perceptions of crime. Journalism Quarterly, 62, 340–345.
(2008). Media Analyse 2008 [
. (Media Analysis 2008 ]. Retrieved from www.media-analyse.at2000). Exposure to newspapers and attitudes toward ethnic minorities: A longitudinal analysis. The Howard Journal of Communications, 11, 127–143.
(2000). Communicating unreality: Modern media and the reconstruction of reality. London, UK: Sage.
(2002, January). Austria’s troubling tabloid. Columbia Journalism Review, 40(5), 12. Retrieved from: www.michaelzwise.com/articleDisplay.php?article_id=6
(