EFFECTS OF EXEMPLIFICATION IN NEWS REPORTS ON THE PERCEPTION OF SOCIAL-ISSUES

A news report on the plight of a minority of American family farmers w as manipulated to create versions differing in the degree of precision of general information (precise, imprecise) and in the use of exempli fying case histories (selective, blended, representative). Selective e xemplification featured only histories of failing farms, representativ e exemplification a distribution of histories of failing and successfu l farms proportional to their actual occurrence. Respondents reported their own views concerning the farmers' plight either shortly after re ading or after a delay of one or two weeks. The accuracy of estimates of failing farms was found to be highest for representative and lowest for selective exemplification - despite the availability of correctiv e general information. These effects were stable over time.