Agenda-setting media effects hit the least-informed citizens hardest
Evidence
In the case of the Iran- Contra affair, the news media’s daily updating would presumably have the greatest impact on citizens who absorbed the complete story and the least impact on those exposed only to fragments of it. Our results suggest just the opposite. Citizens with the least knowledge (and presumably the least exposure) manifested the largest priming effects. Thus, change in support for the president in response to the Iran-Contra revelations appears to have been dominated by the least-informed, a result that has troubling implications for the exercise of power in Washington. Presidents who enjoy popular support typically have success in shaping the political agenda of the nation (Kernell, 1986; Rivers & Rose, 1985). Our findings suggest that change over time in popular approval—and thus the waxing and waning of presidential power—may depend the most on the citizens who know the least. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1628
Categorization
- SEED: An essay angle: the puzzle that mass media’s priming effects are strongest on the least-informed, inverting the intuitive expert-vulnerability assumption and raising questions about who actually drives presidential power swings.
- DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely counterintuitive empirical finding with sobering normative implications for democratic accountability: the least-informed citizens may wield disproportionate influence over presidential power through media priming. Dense, nuanced, and worth sitting with.
- XREF: connects to: Sovereign influence over government hinges on mass-media enlightening quality. — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 18; New media expose more climate science while shrinking comprehension needed to act on it. — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 844