THE MEDIAS ROLE IN PUBLIC NEGATIVITY TOWARD CONGRESS - DISTINGUISHINGEMOTIONAL-REACTIONS AND COGNITIVE EVALUATIONS

Theory: The nature of political news as presented by the mass media in the modern United States is such that it affects people's emotional r eactions more than their cognitive evaluations of political actors and institutions. Hypotheses: People who rely on electronic media for the ir news and people who consume a great deal of news from the mass medi a will not be more likely to evaluate Congress negatively but will be more likely to have negative emotional reactions to Congress. Methods: Regression analysis of data from a 1992 national survey (N = 1430) on public attitudes toward political institutions, inter alia. Results: People who primarily obtain their news from television or radio are no t any more or less likely to evaluate Congress negatively than are peo ple who primarily obtain their news from newspapers. Similarly, people who are exposed to news a great deal do not evaluate Congress more ne gatively than those who pay little attention to the news. The same can not be said for emotional reactions: a primary reliance on television and especially radio for news and a generally heavy exposure to news g enerate significantly more negative emotions than newspaper use and lo w exposure to the news.