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Effects of Lead Framing on Selective Exposure to Internet News Reports

Communication and information sciences and of psychology at the University of Alabama

Lei Chen

Mass Communications Programat the University of Alabama

Silvia Knobloch

Department of Communication Studies, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

Coy Callison

School of Mass Communication at Texas Tech University

With headlines and texts held constant, the subheads of articles embedded in an Internet newsmagazine were manipulated in an overview from which articles could be selected. In a control condition, the lead, indicating deplorable happenings,was framed in a factual manner.In the other conditions,the leads were framed either in terms of conflict between feuding parties, the unfolding of disastrous occurrences, the emotional upheaval and agony suffered by the victims of these occurrences, or the economic implications of the incidents. Selective exposure to the articles was accumulated in minute intervals and automatically recorded. Leads projecting aggravated conflict or the agony over suffered misfortunes were found to foster increased reading times of the associated articles. The effects of highlighting misfortunes by themselves or of emphasizing the misfortunes’ economic implications proved to be negligible, however.

Key Words: Internet news • overview function • lead framing • article choice • selective exposure • dramatic frames • conflict • misfortune • agony • economy

Communication Research, Vol. 31, No. 1, 58-81 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0093650203260201


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