Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T10:28:47.498Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Media Priming Effect: A Preregistered Replication Experiment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 September 2017

Tetsuro Kobayashi ,
Asako Miura  and
Kazunori Inamasu
Tetsuro Kobayashi
Affiliation:
City University of Hong Kong, e-mail: [email protected], Twitter: @tkobyashi
Asako Miura
Affiliation:
Kwansei Gakuin University, e-mail: [email protected], Twitter: @asarin
Kazunori Inamasu
Affiliation:
Kwansei Gakuin University, e-mail: [email protected], Twitter: @k_inamasu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Iyengar et al. (1984, The Evening News and Presidential Evaluations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 46(4): 778–87) discovered the media priming effect, positing that by drawing attention to certain issues while ignoring others, television news programs help define the standards by which presidents are evaluated. We conducted a direct replication of Experiment 1 by Iyengar et al. (1984, The Evening News and Presidential Evaluations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 46(4): 778–87) with some changes. Specifically, we (a) collected data from Japanese undergraduates; (b) reduced the number of conditions to two; (c) used news coverage of the issue of relocating US bases in Okinawa as the treatment; (d) measured issue-specific evaluations of the Japanese Prime Minister in the pre-treatment questionnaire; and (e) performed statistical analyses that are more appropriate for testing heterogeneity in the treatment effect. We did not find statistically significant evidence of media priming. Overall, the results suggest that the effects of media priming may be quite sensitive either to the media environment or to differences in populations in which the effect has been examined.

Keywords

Media primingdirect replicationlab experimentpre-registration
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Experimental Political Science , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , Spring 2017 , pp. 81 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © The Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bambor, T., Clark, W. R., and Golder, M.. 2006. “Understanding Interaction Models: Improving Empirical Analyses.” Political Analysis 14 (1): 63–82.Google Scholar
Bennett, W. L. and Iyengar, S.. 2008. “A New Era of Minimal Effects? The Changing Foundations of Political Communication.” Journal of Communication 58 (4): 707–31.Google Scholar
Hart, A. and Middleton, J. A.. 2014. “Priming Under Fire: Reverse Causality and the Classic Media Priming Hypothesis.” Journal of Politics 76 (2): 581–92.Google Scholar
Hendrick, C. 1991. “Replication, Strict Replications, and Conceptual Replications: Are they important?” In Replication Research in the Social Sciences, ed. Neuliep, J. W.. Newbury Park: Sage, 41–9.Google Scholar
Iyengar, S. and Hahn, K. S.. 2009. “Red Media, Blue Media: Evidence of Ideological Selectivity in Media Use.” Journal of Communication 59 (1): 19–39.Google Scholar
Iyengar, S., Kinder, D. R., Peters, M. D., and Krosnick, J. A.. 1984. “The Evening News and Presidential Evaluations.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 46 (4): 778–87.Google Scholar
Lenz, G. S. 2009. “Learning and Opinion Change, Not Priming: Reconsidering the Priming Hypothesis.” American Journal of Political Science 53 (4): 821–37.Google Scholar
Lenz, G. S. 2012. Follow the Leader? How Voters Respond to Politicians’ Policies and Performance. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, J. M. and Krosnick, J. A.. 2000. “News Media Impact on the Ingredients of Presidential Evaluations: Politically Knowledgeable Citizens are Guided by a Trusted Source.” American Journal of Political Science 44 (2): 301–15.Google Scholar
Nisbett, R. E. 2003. The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently. . .and Why. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Pashler, H. and Harris, C. R.. 2012. “Is the Replicability Crisis Overblown? Three Arguments Examined.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 7 (6): 531–6.Google Scholar
Prior, M. 2007. Post-Broadcast Democracy: How Media Choice Increases Inequality in Political Involvement and Polarizes Elections. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roskos-Ewoldsen, D. R., Klinger, M., and Roskos-Ewoldsen, B.. 2007. “Media Priming.” In Mass Media Effects Research: Advances through Meta-Analysis, eds. Preiss, R. W., Gayle, B. M., Burrell, N., Allen, M., and Bryant, J. B.. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 53–80.Google Scholar
Schmidt, S. 2009. “Shall We Really Do It Again? The Powerful Concept of Replication Is Neglected in the Social Sciences.” Review of General Psychology 13 (2): 90–100.Google Scholar
Stroud, N. J. 2011. Niche News: The Politics of News Choice. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Kobayashi et al supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Kobayashi et al supplementary material(File)
File 44.5 KB