Media Theories and Persuasion Techniques: Agenda Setting, ELM, and Media Literacy

Agenda Setting Theory

Repeated media coverage makes people view an issue as more important.

Transfer of Salience

The media's priorities become the public's priorities.

Methods to Test Agenda Setting

Content analysis (of news) and survey (of public opinion).

Limits of Agenda Setting

Correlation not causation; possible third variables.

Obtrusive Issue

One people experience directly (e.g., inflation).

Unobtrusive Issue

One learned mainly from media (e.g., foreign policy).

Agenda Building

How media agendas are set—by elites, PR, other outlets, journalists, and the public.

Need for Cognition

A person's tendency to seek and enjoy thinking deeply about information.

High-NFC News Processing

Actively, critically, through the central route.

News Framing

Selecting and emphasizing certain aspects of an issue to shape interpretation.

Factors Prompting Trust in News

Credible organizations, reliable sources, transparency, and accuracy.

Hostile Media Perception

People with strong views think neutral news is biased against them.

Causes of Hostile Media Perception

Confirmation bias—seeing info through one's own beliefs.

Selective Exposure

Choosing media that matches existing attitudes.

Media Hybridity

Blurring between traditional news and entertainment/social content.

News Desert

A community with little or no credible local news coverage.

Persuasion

Intentional communication aimed at changing or reinforcing attitudes or behavior.

Persuasion's Three Dimensions

Belief change, attitude change, and behavior change.

ELM Routes

Central and peripheral.

Central Route

Careful thinking, motivated attention, lasting change.

When Central Processing Occurs

When the message is relevant or counter-attitudinal.

Peripheral Route

Little thought; influenced by cues like attractiveness or credibility.

Parts of Credibility

Expertise and trustworthiness.

Example of Peripheral Persuasion

Product placement in a TV show.

Field experiment

A field experiment showing TV programs can change donations via value messages.

Third-person effect

People think media affect others more than themselves.

Self-enhancement

A reason why the third-person effect occurs, where individuals view themselves in a more favorable light.

Illusion of invulnerability

A reason why the third-person effect occurs, where individuals believe they are less likely to be affected by negative outcomes.

Health campaigns

Persuasive messages promoting healthy or discouraging unhealthy behavior.

Fear appeals

When threat feels real and the response feels doable.

Reactance theory

When people feel their freedom is threatened, they do the opposite of the message.

Entertainment education

Inserting prosocial or health messages into entertainment media.

Reactance reduction in entertainment education

Audiences don't realize they're being persuaded.

Benefit of entertainment education

Reaches large audiences through relatable characters.

Drawback of entertainment education

Viewers may misinterpret or miss the message.

Inattention

Overload of media reduces focus on any one message.

Ad targeting

Delivering ads to specific audiences using data.

Demographic information

Age, gender, income, race, education, etc.

Psychographic information

Personality, lifestyle, values, and attitudes.

Algorithms in advertising

Predicting which ads individuals will find relevant.

Truth decay

Growing disagreement about facts and less trust in factual sources.

Causes of truth decay

Opinion replacing fact, social media spread, lower institutional trust.

Media literacy

The ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, reflect, and act using media.

Components of media literacy

Access, Analyze/Evaluate, Create, Reflect, Act.

Critical ignoring

Intentionally avoiding low-quality or misleading content.

Self-nudging

Redesigning your media habits (time limits, deleting apps).

Lateral reading

Checking multiple sources before trusting a claim.

Do-not-feed-the-trolls heuristic

Ignore or report misinformation instead of engaging.

Inoculation theory

Forewarning + refutation builds resistance to misinformation.