It is generally believed that what is reported on media must be the truth, but the media has differently constructed social issues by selecting news materials and news frames according to the orientation of its ideology.
This study is based on previou...
It is generally believed that what is reported on media must be the truth, but the media has differently constructed social issues by selecting news materials and news frames according to the orientation of its ideology.
This study is based on previous studies which show that the attitude of audiences is influenced by the dominant news frame in media, and the present study focuses on the media frame effect related to the schema cognitive mechanism.
For the experiment of this study, two scientific materials were selected, GMO(Genetically Modified Organisms) and irradiated food. Both materials have the common feature of 'unnatural food by technical processing'. From this feature, it was hypothesized that the formulation of audiences' thoughts about one subject would operate in the process of judgment about an adjacent subject as another audiences' frame.
A survey was conducted to examine the audiences' changes in their attitudes by news frame. University students were chosen for the survey and the participants were randomly assigned to one with two framing conditions and the other with a controlled condition.
The results are as follows:
As a result of analyses of the experiment, the exposure to different news frames of GMO led to different attitudes of the respondents about GMO according to the main topic of each news frame. In addition, also it was recognized that the level of respond on both of the news frames of GMO wasn't equal. The result became a premise for the test of the second hypothesis.
Second, a hypothesis was confirmed that the frame effect on the audience reached to not only the limited the subject (GMO) but also the adjacent subject (irradiated food) and it is called 'the secondary frame effect' in this study. The effect seems to be derived from the schema structure in the human cognitive system which is associated with ideas and linked to each other. That means an activation of one idea brings about an activation of the other idea, as a result of its reaction.
Also, the third hypothesis was confirmed partly that audiences' prior scanty knowledge about irradiated food would make a difference in the response of the experimental group. Participants responded more sensitively to the safety of food, but the level of audiences' prior knowledge was not an absolute factor in making the differences in the audiences' response to any news frame.
The result of this study indicates that the influence of media frame can spread out to the whole social society and media frame effect can be revaluated by considering consecutive operations in cognitive schema system.