Media framing shifts which issues novices weigh in judging political performance

Evidence

Among political novices, the Iran-Contra revelation had a substantial priming effect (see the upper panel of Table 8.3). Opinions on foreign affairs were more important in novices’ assessments of Reagan’s performance after the revelation than before, whereas national economic assessments were no more important, and opinions on federal programs to aid blacks were less important. Particularly noteworthy was the dramatically enhanced prominence of Central American policy in novices’ presidential evaluations after 25 November (the regression coefficient nearly tripled, from . to .35). As a general matter, the pattern of priming effects noted for the public as a whole is maintained and sharpened among novices alone. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1611

Categorization

• QUESTION: The regression coefficient is cut off mid-stream (’. to .35’) in the source — the starting value is missing, a curiosity worth chasing in the original.
• XREF: connects to: Media agenda shifts alter the political weight the public assigns to events over time — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 1626; Media shifts made politician scrutiny constant and pushed structural issues to the background — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 598; New media expose more climate science while shrinking comprehension needed to act on it. — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 844