MEDIA PRIMING EFFECTS: ACCESSIBILITY, ASSOCIATION, AND ACTIVATION

In studying 'priming effects'—the process by which activated mental constructs can influence how individuals evaluate other concepts and ideas—political communication scholars have focused primarily on the frequency and recency of construct use in the accessibility of specific cognitions; less attention has been given to the spread of activation among related cognitions. Drawing from both of these research interests, we argue that media framing of issues in moral or ethical terms can prime voters to (1) make attributions about candidate integrity, and/or (2) evaluate other political issues in ethical terms. To examine these relationships, this research used the same experimental design with two sub-populations—evangelical Christians and university undergraduate students—expected to differ in the inter-connectedness of core values with political attitudes. A single issue, which varied in the types of values in conflict, was systematically altered across four otherwise constant political environments to examine priming effects. Findings suggest that future research should conceptualize priming more broadly to include considerations of both the accessibility of cognitions in short-term memory and the pathways among information in long-term memory. Two related though differing research streams growing out of cognitive psychology offer insight into 'priming effects,' the process by which activated mental constructs can influence how individuals evaluate other concepts and ideas. Some scholars have studied how cognitions frequently or recently activated in response to a stimulus become more readily accessible—that is, available in short-term memory—for application to other attitude objects (see Iyengar and Kinder 1987, Wyer and Srull 1989). Other scholars have focused on the spread Correspondence should be addressed to David Domke, University of Minnesota, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, m Murphy Hall, 206 Church Street S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. Fax: (612) 626-8251. © World Association for Public Opinion Research igg8 52 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH of activation among cognitions, stressing the manner in which constructs are arranged and linked in long-term memory (see Anderson 1983, Fazio 1986). In examining the means by which activated cognitions influence individuals' processing and evaluation of information, these research perspectives account for similar findings, but also provide unique insights. Drawing from both of these research domains, we argue that media coverage of political issues has the potential to activate particular cognitions, which then may be used in evaluating other elements of the political environment. Specifically, media framing of issue information—by highlighting some dimensions of issues while excluding other aspects—seems likely to foster priming effects. In this article, we posit that framing issues in a manner that focuses on their moral or ethical dimensions can prime voters to (1) make attributions about candidate character, particularly integrity, and/or (2) evaluate other political issues in ethical terms. However, these relationships should be mediated by the specific features of any issue, the particular values emphasized in media coverage, and individuals' cognitive networks, thus fostering different priming effects from different issues for different people. To examine these ideas, this research systematically altered a single issue—which varied in the types of values in conflict—across four otherwise constant political environments to examine how voters process, interpret, and use issue information while 'voting' in a simulated election. Two sub-populations expected to differ in their core values and the interconnection of those values with political attitudes were selected for study: evangelical Christians and university undergraduate students. These groups were chosen for three reasons: (1) evangelical Christians have demonstrated increasing prominence and power in recent U.S. elections; (2) there has been little systematic study of evangelical Christians' political cognitions, although many have speculated about their values and behavior in electoral contexts; (3) most important, evangelical Christians, as a group, seem much more likely than undergraduate students to have well-integrated mental frameworks in which ethical or moral values—a key component of the theory advanced in this article—are closely linked with political attitudes. Thus, utilizing the same experimental design with these two populations provides a more thorough examination of our theory and allows consideration of differences in priming.