Political News with a Personal Touch

Author(s)
Mark Boukes, Hajo Boomgaarden, Marjolein Moorman, Claes de Vreese
Abstract

Journalists increasingly use personal exemplars in news stories about political ibues. This study experimentally investigated how such human interest framing indirectly affects political attitudes via the way people attribute responsibility of an ibue. Results show that exposure to human interest-framed television news increased attribution of responsibility to the government for the portrayed problem, which in turn decreased support for the government to cut public spending on this ibue. This article explains how and why these findings are in line with exemplification theory but run counter to findings of studies on episodic framing effects.

Organisation(s)
Department of Communication
External organisation(s)
University of Amsterdam (UvA)
Journal
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
Volume
92
Pages
121-141
No. of pages
21
ISSN
1077-6990
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699014558554
Publication date
11-2014
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
508006 Communication theory
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Communication
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/9d2b77fb-a3c3-4de0-8fef-0b4f3ed68703