Schematic Processes and the Effect of Television News on theCognitive Complexity of Political Thought

本研究考察了不同的新闻事件呈现方式对观众对这些事件的理解和政治理解的影响。进行了三个实验。第一种是用新闻广播呈现不同组的受试者，其中包括对相同事件的不同类型的解释。然后是对受试者对事件的思考的复杂性的衡量，特别是关于个人能够考虑的关于该问题的不同观点的数量。第二项研究考察了新闻事件的戏剧性呈现在多大程度上激起了人们的情绪，以及这种唤醒是否限制了观众对新闻故事的理解。最后的实验考察了暴力呈现对新闻的影响，以及这种刻画对观众理解和回忆故事中事实的影响。这些研究的结果将有助于通过检查在大众媒体上观看不同信息对个人思维的影响来促进一般的科学知识。这些研究还应有助于社会科学的理解，特别是通过审查不同社会认知过程在媒体观看方面的运作。不同的政治概念，如“狂热分子”或“受压迫的少数民族”，意味着对事件的因果解释大相径庭。让不同的概念变得突出，可能会对个人思考不同政治事件的方式产生重大影响。这些实验有助于理解语言如何影响个人对政治世界运作的理解。这项研究的结果还应有助于加深对大众媒体对公众对政治事件感知的影响的理解。大众媒体在公民获取公共事务知识的途径中发挥着越来越重要的作用。如果新闻事件的呈现方式实际上阻碍了个人对这些事件的理解，那么可以采取措施改变媒体的风格和内容。

This research examines the effect of different ways of presenting news events upon viewers' comprehension and political understanding of those events. Three experiments are undertaken. The first presents different groups of subjects with news broadcasts that include different types of explanations for the same events. This is followed by a measurement of the complexity of the subjects' thinking about the events, particularly with respect to the number of different perspectives on the issue that the individuals are able to consider. The second study examines the extent to which the dramatic presentation of news events is emotionally arousing and whether this arousal limits the viewers' comprehension of the news stories. The final experiment examines the effect of the presentation of violence on the news and the effect such portrayals have on the viewers' comprehension and recall of the facts in the stories. The results of these studies will contribute to scientific knowledge in general through an examination of the effects on individuals' thinking of viewing different messages in the mass media. These studies should also contribute to social scientific understanding in particular by examining the operation of different social cognition processes in the context of media viewing. Different political constructs, such as "fanatic" or "oppressed minority" imply very different causal explanations for events. Making different constructs salient will likely have a significant impact on the way in which individuals think about different political events. These experiments contribute to an understanding of the way in which language influences individuals' understanding of the operation of the political world. The results of this research should also make a substantial contribution to increased understanding of the effects of mass media on the public's perception of political events. The mass media are an increasingly important part of the way in which citizens acquire knowledge about public affairs. If the manner of presentation of news events actually inhibits individuals' comprehension of those events, then steps could be taken to change the media's style and content.