ECREA16-Abstract_book

519 / 658

517
Thursday, November 101 4 : 3 0 – 1 6 : 0 0
POL05 Framing
PP 131 The Democratic Potential of Conflict Frames. How the Level of Substantiveness and Journalistic Intervention in Conflict Framing Affects
Political Engagement
G. Bartholomé1, S. Lecheler1, C. de Vreese1
1 University of Amsterdam, Communication science, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Research has shown that conflict framing is one of the most important mechanisms of political news reporting (Neuman, Just and Crigler 1992). Conflict
frames have been linked to a number of detrimental effects. For example, exposure to conflict news has been found to increase political cynicism (Avery,
2009). Furthermore, Kleinnijenhuis, van Hoof and Oegema (2006) point to a sleeper effect of conflict framing on political participation via distrust. However,
other studies conclude that exposure to conflict frames can lead to an increase in political participation (Schuck et al. 2014; De Vreese & Tobiasen 2007).
Indeed, exposure to conflict frames may lead citizens to realise what is at stake and why political decision-making is important. We argue that these
seemingly contradictory results may be explained by the focus on conflict framing as a generic concept, rather than looking at different types of conflict
frames. Hence, the dependent variable in this project political engagement, with a particular focus on effects of exposure to different types of conflict
frames on‘democratic’behaviours. This idea stems from the notion of civic behaviour or civic engagement, which includes individual behaviour to influence
political decision-making (e.g., voting), but also more civic collective acts and cooperation (e.g., demonstrations, signing a petition) and online political
participation. We specifically look at the effects of substantive conflict frames, with a focus on issues and policy solutions when compared to conflict frames
characterised by personal attacks and strategy. We expect more substantive conflict frames with lead to a greater increase in political participation when
compared to non-substantive conflict frames. Furthermore, we look at the role of interventionism (Strömbäck & Esser 2009). We will compare effects
of exposure to news articles with high journalistic visibility in terms of journalistic evaluations of politicians involved in the political conflict articles without
those evaluations, offering a more detached type of journalism. For this purpose, two experiments will be conducted. Both use a 3x2 between subjects
factorial design where participants are randomly assigned to one of five conditions. Manipulations varied in level of substance (focus on issues, personal
attacks and focus on strategy) and level of interventionism (detached journalism versus journalistic evaluation). The first study focuses on self-reported
measures of political participation using validated scales for different types of political participation (Zúñiga, Puig-i-Abril & Rojas, 2007). The second study
seeks to replicate the findings using behavioural measures, which include for instance online political participation in commenting on online news articles
after exposure and participants signing a petition presented to them after participating in the experiment. The main contribution of this study will be that
by focussing on different types of conflict frames, a more nuanced view will be given of the democratic potential of conflict framing. Furthermore, the focus
on both self-reported and behavioural measures will ensure the validity and robustness of the findings.
PP 132 The Processing and Duration of Multimodal Framing Effects
T. Powell1, H. Boomgaarden2, K. De Swert1, C. de Vreese1
1 University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam School of Communication Research, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2 University of Vienna, Department of Methods in the Social Sciences, Vienna, Austria
The contemporary media environment delivers a rich sensory experience via multiple modalities – auditory, visual, textual and even tactile. Accordingly,
a burgeoning political communication literature has begun to uncover how citizens’ opinions and behaviors can be influenced by multimodal news mes‑
sages, or frames, with a particular focus on text and visuals (e.g., Coleman, 2010). Despite this, little is known about how the specific qualities of each
modality contribute to these effects, and for how long they continue to influence an audience. We use an experiment to address these issues and shed new
light on the mechanisms and duration of visual and textual framing effects. The contribution of visuals and text to framing effects can be considered by
the way in which they are processed (Geise & Baden, 2014). Generally, vivid visuals are eye-catching, perceived quickly, and can have an amplifying effect
on our psychological processes by fostering an emotional connection with the reader which endures in memory (e.g., Paivio, 1991). By comparison, text is
less salient but its syntactic structure lends itself to cognitive deliberation and, in turn, a more prescribed construction of meaning (Messaris & Abrahams,
2001). Building on dual processing theories of persuasion (e.g., Chaiken, 1980; Sojka & Giese, 2006), we examine whether visuals and text are processed
via qualitatively different pathways – with visuals more emotionally and heuristically processed than the systematic and cognitive processing of text. We
also assessed whether visuals can help framing effects to persist over a period of up to a week (Lecheler & de Vreese, 2016). To do so we combined experi‑
mental manipulations, individual differences data, and a delayed test. First, by randomly assigning participants to a cognitive load task or an inducement
of cognitive involvement, we encouraged a heuristic or systematic information processing style, respectively. At the same time, participants read an online
news report containing congruent and incongruent pairings of image and text counter-frames fromwar and conflict news.Then, by measuring opinions and
actual donating behavior immediately after exposure, and again four days later, we assessed whether inducing these processing pathways pushed effects in
the direction supported by the framed image or text, and if this persisted over time. In addition, by measuring participants’dispositional affective/cognitive
and visual/verbal processing style, we assessed whether those with particular processing styles were more strongly influenced by the framed image or text.
Results showed that inducement of systematic processing pushed framing effects in the direction conveyed by the text frame. Heuristic processing did not,
however, influence effects in the direction of the image frame. Moderation analyses showed that those with a highly affective and visual processing style
were more strongly influenced by the image frame. In contrast, those with a verbal processing style were more strongly influenced by the text frame. Finally,
comparison of T1 and T2 data (3 to 7 days later, M = 4 days) showed that framing effects persisted in those who viewed an article containing an image,
compared to those who saw an article without an image.