This article proposes an extended model of how “media priming effects” come about, distinguishing between several mediators and moderators of priming. The model is tested using data from an experiment on Swiss foreign policy in which undergraduate students were provided with different types of biased information about the relationships between Switzerland and the European Union. The empirical analysis suggests that cross-sectional and cross-temporal effects are facilitated by quite different moderators, and that very few variables moderate priming according to both perspectives. In that respect, political knowledge, the level of recall of the experimental message, and awareness of the persuasive intent of the message appear central to the priming mechanism.
Ajzen, Icek and Sexton, James (1999). “Depth of Processing, Belief Congruence, and Attitude-Behavior Correspondence,” in Shelly Chaiken and Yaacov Trope (eds), Dual-Process Theories in Social Psychology. New York: Guilford Press.
2.
Alcalay, Rina and Bell, Robert A. (2000). Promoting Nutrition and Physical Activity Through Social Marketing: Current Practices and Recommendations. Center for Advanced Studies in Nutrition and Social Marketing, University of California at Davis.
3.
Alvarez, R. Michael and Brehm, John (2002). Hard Choices, Easy Answers: Values, Information, and American Public Opinion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
4.
Anderson, John R. (1983). The Architecture of Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
5.
Ansolabehere, Stephen and Iyengar, Shanto (1995). Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate. New York: Free Press.
6.
Bartels, Larry M. (1988). Presidential Primaries and the Dynamics of Public Choice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
7.
Blumler, Jay G. and Gurevitch, Michael (1996). “Media Change and Social Change: Linkages and Junctures,” in James Curran and Michael Gurevitch (eds), Mass Media and Society. London: Arnold.
8.
Bushman, Brad J. and Huesmann, L. Rowell (2001). “Effects of Televised Violence on Aggression,” in D. Singer and J. Singer (eds), Handbook of Children and the Media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
9.
Christin, Thomas and Trechsel, Alexander H. (2002). “Joining the EU? Explaining Public Opinion in Switzerland,” European UnionPolitics3(4): 415—43.
10.
Conover, Pamela Johnston and Feldman, Stanley (1984). “How People Organize the Political World: A Schematic Model,” American Journal of Political Science28(1): 95—126.
11.
Converse, Philip E. (1964). “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics ,” in David Apter (ed.), Ideology and Discontent. New York: Free Press.
12.
DeCoster, Jamie and Claypool, Heather M. (2004). “A Meta-Analysis of Priming Effects on Impression Formation Supporting a General Model of Informational Biases,” Personality and Social Psychology Review8(1): 2—27.
13.
Dehaene, Stanislas et al. (2002). “Imaging Unconscious Semantic Priming ,” in John Cacioppo et al. (eds), Foundations in Social Neuroscience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
14.
Delli Carpini, Michael X. and Keeter, Scott (1996). What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press .
15.
De Vreese, Claes H. (2004). “Primed by the Euro: The Impact of a Referendum Campaign on Public Opinion and Evaluations of Government and Political Leaders ,” Scandinavian Political Studies27(1): 45—64.
16.
Domke, David, Shah, Dhavan V., and Wackman, Daniel B. (1998). “Media Priming Effects: Accessibility, Association, and Activation,” International Journal of Public Opinion Research10(1): 51—74.
17.
Donaldson, D.I., Petersen, S.E., and Buckner, R.L. (2001). “Dissociating Memory Retrieval Processes Using fMRI: Evidence that Priming Does Not Support Recognition Memory,” Neuron31: 1047—59.
18.
Eagly, Alice H. and Chaiken, Shelly (1993). The Psychology of Attitudes. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
19.
Eagly, Alice H. et al. (2000). “Why Counterattitudinal Messages are as Memorable as Proattitudinal Messages: The Importance of Active Defense Against Attack,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin26(11): 1392—408.
20.
Edelman, Gerald M. and Tononi, Giulio (2000). A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination. New York: Basic Books .
21.
Feldman, Jack M. and Lynch, John G., Jr (1988). “Self-Generated Validity and Other Effects of Measurement on Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behavior,” Journal of Applied Psychology73(3): 421—35.
22.
Fiske, Susan T. and Taylor, Shelley E. (1991). Social Cognition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
23.
Gidengil, Elisabeth et al. (2002). “Priming and Campaign Context. Evidence from Recent Canadian Elections,” in David Farrell and Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck (eds), Do Political Campaigns Matter? Campaign Effects in Elections and Referendums. London and New York: Routledge.
24.
Gilens, Martin (2001). “ Political Ignorance and Collective Policy Preferences,” American Political Science Review95(2): 379—96.
25.
Greenwald, Anthony G. (1968). “Cognitive Learning, Cognitive Response to Persuasion, and Attitude Change,” in A. Greenwald, T. Brock and T. Ostrom (eds), Psychological Foundations of Attitudes. New York and London: Academic Press.
26.
Hastie, Reid and Park, Bernadette (1986). “The Relationship Between Memory and Judgment Depends on Whether the Judgment Task is Memory-Based or On-Line,” Psychological Review93(3): 258—68.
27.
Holbrook, Allyson L. et al. (2001). “Attitudes Toward Presidential Candidates and Political Parties: Initial Optimism, Inertial First Impressions, and a Focus on Flaws,” American Journal of Political Science45(4): 930—50.
28.
Iyengar, Shanto (1991). Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
29.
Iyengar, Shanto and Kinder, Donald R. (1987). News that Matters: Television and American Opinion. Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press.
30.
Iyengar, Shanto and Simon, Adam (1993). “News Coverage of the Gulf Crisis and Public Opinion. A study of Agenda-Setting, Priming, and Framing,” Communication Research20(3): 365—83.
31.
Iyengar, Shanto et al. (1984). “The Evening News and Presidential Evaluations,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology46(4): 778—87.
32.
Kiefer, Markus and Brendel, Doreen (2006). “Attentional Modulation of Unconscious `Automatic' Processes: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials in a Masked Priming Paradigm ,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience18(2): 184—98.
33.
Kinder, Donald R. (1998). “Communication and Opinion,” Annual Review of Political Science1: 167—97.
34.
Krosnick, Jon A. and Alwin, Duane F. (1987). “An Evaluation of a Cognitive Theory of Response-Order Effects in Survey Measurement,” Public Opinion Quarterly51(2): 201—19.
35.
Krosnick, Jon A. and Brannon, Laura A. (1993). “The Impact of the Gulf War on the Ingredients of Presidential Evaluations: Multidimensional Effects of Political Involvement,” American Political Science Review87(4): 963—75.
36.
Krosnick, Jon A. and Kinder, Donald R. (1990). “Altering the Foundations of Support for the President through Priming,” American Political Science Review84(2): 497—512.
37.
Lodge, Milton and McGraw, Kathleen M. (1991). “Where is the Schema? Critiques,” American Political Science Review85(4): 1357—64.
38.
Lodge, Milton, Steenbergen, Marco R., and Brau, Shawn (1995). “The Responsive Voter: Campaign Information and the Dynamics of Candidate Evaluation,” American Political Science Review89(2): 309—26.
39.
McCombs, Maxwell and Zhu, Jian-Hua (1995). “Capacity, Diversity, and Volatility of the Public Agenda: Trends From 1954 to 1994,” Public Opinion Quarterly59(4): 495—525.
40.
McGraw, Kathleen M. and Ling, Cristina (2003). “Media Priming of Presidential and Group Evaluations,” Political Communication20(1): 23—40.
41.
McGraw, Kathleen M. and Pinney, Neil (1990). “The Effects of General and Domain-Specific Expertise on Political Memory and Judgment,” Social Cognition8(1): 9—30.
42.
McGuire, William J. (1960). “A Syllogistic Analysis of Cognitive Relationships ,” in C. Hovland and M. Rosenberg (eds), Attitude Organization and Change: An Analysis of Consistency Among Attitude Components. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
43.
McGuire, William J. (1985). “Attitudes and Attitude Change,” in G. Lindzey and E. Aronson (eds), The Handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. 2. New York: Random House.
44.
McGuire, William J. and Papageorgis, Demetrios (1962). “Effectiveness of Forewarning in Developing Resistance to Persuasion,” Public Opinion Quarterly26(1): 24—34.
45.
Marquis, Lionel and Gilland Lutz, Karin (2004). Thinking About and Voting on Swiss Foreign Policy: Does Affective and Cognitive Involvement Play a Role ? Sussex European Institute, EPERN Working Paper No. 18, URL (consulted June 2005): http://www.sussex.ac.uk/sei/documents/wp83.pdf.
46.
Mendelsohn, Matthew (1996). “The Media and Interpersonal Communications: The Priming of Issues, Leaders, and Party Identification,” Journal of Politics58(1): 112—25.
47.
Miller, Joanne M. and Krosnick, Jon A. (1996). “News Media Impact on the Ingredients of Presidential Evaluations: A Program of Research on the Priming Hypothesis,” in D. Mutz, P. Sniderman, and R. Brody (eds), Political Persuasion and Attitude Change. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
48.
Miller, Joanne M. and Krosnick, Jon A. (2000). “News Media Impact on the Ingredients of Presidential Evaluations: Politically Knowledgeable Citizens are Guided by a Trusted Source,” American Journal of Political Science44(2): 301—15.
49.
Ottati, Victor C. and Wyer, Robert S. (1990). “The Cognitive Mediators of Political Choice: Toward a Comprehensive Model of Political Information Processing,” in J. Ferejohn and J. Kuklinski (eds), Information and Democratic Processes. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
50.
Petty, Richard E. and Cacioppo, John T. (1979). “Issue Involvement Can Increase or Decrease Persuasion by Enhancing Message-Relevant Cognitive Responses,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology37(10): 1915—26.
51.
Petty, Richard E. and Cacioppo, John T. (1986). Communication and Persuasion: Central and Peripheral Routes to Attitude Change. New York : Springer-Verlag.
52.
Pollock, Philip H., III (1994). “Issues, Values, and Critical Moments: Did `Magic' Johnson Transform Public Opinion on AIDS?” American Journal of Political Science38(2): 426—46.
53.
Rahn, Wendy M., Krosnick, Jon A., and Breuning, Marijke (1994). “Rationalization and Derivation Processes in Survey Studies of Political Candidate Evaluation,” American Journal of Political Science38(3): 582—600.
54.
Rogers, Everett M. and Dearing, James W. (1988). “Agenda-Setting Research: Where Has It Been, Where Is It Going?” in J. Anderson (ed.), Communication Yearbook 11. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
55.
Schacter, Daniel L. (1996). Searching for Memory: The Brain, the Mind, and the Past. New York: Basic Books .
56.
Schacter, Daniel L. and Buckner, Randy L. (1998). “Priming and the Brain,” Neuron20: 185—95.
57.
Sciarini, Pascal and Listhaug, Ola (1997). “Single Cases or a Unique Pair? The Swiss and Norwegian `No' to Europe,” Journal of Common Market Studies35(3): 407—38.
58.
Squire, Larry R. and Kandel, Eric R. (1999). Memory: From Mind to Molecules. New York: Scientific American Library.
59.
Stoker, Laura (1993). “Judging Presidential Character: The Demise of Gary Hart,” Political Behavior15(2): 193—223.
60.
Tesser, Abraham (1978). “Self-Generated Attitude Change,” in L. Berkowitz (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 11). New York: Academic Press.
61.
Todorov, Alexander (2000). “The Accessibility and Applicability of Knowledge. Predicting Context Effects in National Surveys,” Public Opinion Quarterly64(4): 429—51.
62.
Tourangeau, Roger, Rips, Lance J., and Rasinski, Kenneth (2000). The Psychology of Survey Response. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
63.
Tourangeau, Roger et al. (1989). “Carryover Effects in Attitude Surveys ,” Public Opinion Quarterly53(4): 495—524.
64.
Valentino, Nicholas A., Hutchings, Vincent L. and White, Ismail K. (2002). “Cues that Matter: How Political Ads Prime Racial Attitudes During Campaigns,” American Political Science Review96(1): 75—90.
65.
Verplanken, Bas, Hofstee, Godelieve, and Janssen, Heidi J. (1998). “Accessibility of Affective Versus Cognitive Components of Attitudes,” European Journal of Social Psychology28(1): 23—35.
66.
Wyer, Robert S. and Srull, Thomas K. (1989). Memory and Cognition in its Social Context. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
67.
Zaller, John R. (1992). The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
68.
Zaller, John R. (1998). “Monica Lewinsky's Contribution to Political Science,” PS: Political Science and Politics31(2): 182—9.
69.
Zaller, John R. and Feldman, Stanley (1992). “A Simple Theory of the Survey Response: Answering Questions Versus Revealing Preferences,” American Journal of Political Science36(3): 579—616.
70.
Zhu, Jian-Hua et al. (1993). “Public Issue Priority Formation: Media Agenda-Setting and Social Interaction,” Journal of Communication43(1): 8—29.
