ECREA16-Abstract

Friday, November 11

1 4 : 3 0 – 1 6 : 0 0

PS 008

The Aggregation of Time in Agenda Setting Research

S. Kohler

University of Muenster, Department of Communication, Muenster, Germany

When talking about media effects, about changes, and development of attitudes, opinions, or emotions, we are always talking about time, too. No research‑

er would probably deny time is an important parameter when measuring media effects. Many of our most prominent theories and approaches are only

comprehensible when taking time into account e.g. spiral of silence, knowledge gap, or cultivation theory. Nevertheless, it is surprising many studies do not

consider the impact which the particular construction of time might have on their findings. When it comes to time aggregation, that is the accumulation

of data from several points of time to one data point, little attention is paid to how and why a certain time span was chosen. Public opinion surveys or media

content analyses conducted daily, weekly, or once every month, exemplify the diversity in sampling and aggregation. Ever since the first study of McCombs

and Shaw (1972), many studies on media effects refer to agenda-setting. The great amount of empirical work that has been done in this field during

the last decades shows the huge relevance and importance of agenda-setting as a theoretical framework in mass communication research. Unfortunately,

agenda-setting is often characterized“as something of an iron law rather than the subtle, highly contingent effect that years of careful research has shown

it to be." (Kosicki, 1993: 100) In fact, studies are very heterogeneous and come to different results. One of the main problems is the great number of different

study designs which makes it difficult to compare one study to another. Yet, while researchers try to define and to explain their understanding of issues and

topics, public and individual agenda, throughout the studies, they generally do not discuss the role of time. Although effects of different time aggregates

have been examined years before with a rather economic focus such questions remain largely neglected in agenda-setting research. Since research about

the construction of time is largely missing, I try to take a closer look at the impacts that the aggregation of time might have. I’ve got a data set which allows

to model different forms of time aggregation, like aggregates on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis. The data derives from a secondary analysis of sur‑

vey data which was conducted as part of a research project in agenda-setting research. The data set came from a German study which was realized by Forsa

during 372 consecutive weeks from 1999–2006. On each working day, 500 telephone interviews were organized as an independent random digital dialing

procedure. The sample is representative of the German population from the age of 14 and above. The complete data record contains about one million

cases. The interviewees were asked about the three most interesting topics in the media during the previous days and the three most important problems

in Germany at that point of time. With this data set I am able to give an answer to the research question: How do media effects change if the level of time

aggregation will be modified?

PS 009

Perception of Media Change and Attitudes Towards Media Education

P. Müller

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Department of Communication, Mainz, Germany

Societal debates about media literacy and media education often arise in times of major changes in the media sector (see, e.g., Buckingham & Willett,

2006; Kubey & Larson, 1990; Livingstone, 2008; Wartella & Reeves, 1985). In this context, it is often argued that exposure to new media can have severe

(negative) consequences for children and adolescents. Empirical studies, however, in many cases demonstrate that these fears are over-exaggerated. We

argue that adults’own negative expectancies toward new media could be projected upon children and adolescents (cf. Fields & Schuman, 1976; Gunther &

Christen, 2002) resulting in stronger claims for media education programs for children and adolescents. The origin of this projected opinion could be seen in

the perception of a strong and rather uncontrollable media change. Social-psychological research has demonstrated that the perceived rate of social change

in the environment relates to the feeling of stress and can thus reduce social well-being (Kim, 2008; Lauer, 1974; Rafferty & Griffin, 2006).The same could be

true for media change. Individuals who experience strong changes of the media environment could more strongly tend to evaluate media change as a bur‑

den in their own life (H1). This could be projected upon children and adolescents and, thus, boost the perception that media innovations are dangerous for

them (H2). As a result, claims for more media education programs should also be increased (H3). Therefore, there should be an indirect effect of perceived

strength of media change on claims for more media education programs through the perception of media change as a burden in the own life and the per‑

ception of media change as a danger to children and adolescents (H4). We tested these assumptions in a representative telephone survey of the German

population (n = 434). The data were analyzed within the structural equation modelling framework using the software package MPlus 7.3. We calculated

a serial mediation model in which age, education, and having own children or grandchildren under the age of 18 were controlled as covariates. Results

support our hypotheses.The perceived strength of media change increases the evaluation of media change as a burden in the own life.This leads to a higher

estimation of new media being dangerous for children and adolescents which significantly increases the estimated importance of media education. All

indirect effects within the model are confirmed when tested with 5.000 bias corrected bootstrap subsamples on a 95% confidence interval (see, Preacher

& Hayes, 2008). These results indicate that attitudes toward media education strongly depend one individuals’ perception of the changes taking place in

the media sector. More specifically, adults seem to project their own fears and concerns resulting from media change onto children and adolescents. This

could have far-reaching consequences for the support of political measures to increase media literacy as well as for the media education of own children.

Since this research is correlational in nature, the direction of causality of the observed relationships remains unclear. We therefore also discuss alternative

interpretations of the observed relationships.