"The Impact of the Person in Media Frames of Political Policies"
Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Political
Science Association, Seattle WA, March 25-27, 1999. Panel:
The Impact of the Person in Media Frames of Political Policies
Abstract
Media often frame stories about political policies
in a dramatic fashion. How these frames influence perceptions about
policies and politics has been a topic of research (Iyengar 1991; Neuman,
Just, and Crigler 1992). However, the influence of the person in
the dramatic issue frame on the reader's (or viewer's) understanding of
the issue has not been fully explored. Through an experimental design
I examine the degree to which the mere presence of a person alters understanding
of a policy. Subjects who read about a policy with a person attached
had less accurate comprehension about the specifics of the policy and a
greater tendency for bias than did those who read about the policy with
no person attached. In addition, determinants of vote choice varied
across conditions. For those reading the personless version an expected
and obvious set of factors explained their vote choice; for those reading
the personified version the obvious factors did not explain vote choice,
while feelings about the person did. Some implications of these findings
and possibilities for future research are discussed.