Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Research based on the Heuristic-Systematic Model (HSM) suggests that modes of media technology affect persuasion by making source cues salient (e.g., Chaiken & Eagly, 1983). This paper explicates modality-induced salience in terms of vividness and resulting social presence, and explains modality’s effect as resulting from the ability of social presence to facilitate source-related heuristic processing. Two models predicted that vivid media will increase social presence and subsequent information processing styles (either heuristic or systematic) which shape attitudes differentially as a function of source likeability. An experiment manipulated media vividness (print, small screen, medium screen, large screen) and source likeability (liked, disliked). The results suggest that more vivid technology can increase social presence, which affects both heuristic and systematic processing shaping attitude. Contrasting paths for liked and disliked source models indicate that heuristic and systematic processing were interwoven, and this suggests that both processing styles can operate simultaneously to effect attitude.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Prior research has found consistent support for the heuristic-processing model of cultivation effects, which argues that cultivation effects can be explained by the availability heuristic. The present study presents an experimental test of the heuristic-processing model and tests the impact of frequency, recency, and vividness on construct accessibility and social judgments. 223 students participated in a 2 x 2 x 2 experimental design varying the frequency of exposure to violent TV programs, the level of vividness in the programs, and the timing of the dependent measures. Dependent measures were accessibility (reaction times) and social reality beliefs. Results showed that reaction times were largely unresponsive to most of the independent variables. Although there were no main effects for frequency on social reality beliefs, there was a significant interaction between frequency and vividness on beliefs: people watching vivid violent media gave higher estimates of the prevalence of crime in the real world in the 3x viewing condition than those in the 1x viewing condition. In concluding, it is argued that this study has important implications for the heuristic-processing model, cultivation theory, and vividness.

Publication Type: Session Paper
Abstract: News value research and exemplification theory share the assumption that personalized news presentations facilitate news selection, issue perception, and recall. Exemplification is effective by providing the audience with vivid and concrete personal case descriptions (“exemplars”) rather than facts and statistics. However, a theoretical ambiguity remains: It may not be the exemplar, but the story that is effective in news reception. Broad definitions of exemplification that comprise mere examples as well as elaborate stories encourage this ambiguity.

Evidence from narrative persuasion (e.g., Green & Brock, 2000), physiological phenomena in information processing (episodic buffer/memory in humans: Harris, Cady & Tran, 2006), and dual-process theories (Chaiken & Trope, 1999) suggests that message selection, liking, and recall are better for stories compared to mere exemplars or factual presentations in news.

This paper thus expands the view on news personalization by theoretically and empirically distinguishing between (a) no presentation of exemplars, (b) presentation of exemplars, and (c) telling the story of exemplars. We hypothesize that selection, liking and recall is highest when a text is written as a story, moderate when it features exemplars, and low as factual text. In an experiment with 126 respondents, three news topics were manipulated to correspond to these three presentation types. Respondents first stated their reading preferences for these articles. After reading them, respondents indicated their liking and completed a free and a cued recall test of article facts. The findings will be discussed in terms of theoretical advancement of exemplification theory and relevance for journalistic news presentations.