Alert viewers are better able to resist media’s agenda-setting priorities

Evidence

These results work against the claim that the classical agenda setting and priming effects are special products of artificially high levels of attention induced by our experimental setting. In the first place, as we argued earlier, attention did not seem to be artificially high. Second, the information recall results imply the greater the attention, the less (marginally) beliefs are changed. Third, the counterarguing results imply, similarly, that the more “alert” viewers are, the more able they are to defend themselves against the media’s priorities. All this suggests that our experimental setting, if anything, underestimates the influence of network news. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1509

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: News coverage affects attitudes with a peak two-week memory window. — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 622