MEDIA PRIMING EFFECTS - ACCESSIBILITY, ASSOCIATION, AND ACTIVATION

In studying 'priming effects'-the process by which activated mental co nstructs can influence how individuals evaluate other concepts and ide as-political communication scholars have focused primarily on the freq uency and recency of construct use in the accessibility of specific co gnitions; less attention has been given to the spread of activation am ong related cognitions. Drawing from both of these research interests, we argue that media framing of issues in moral or ethical terms can p rime voters to (I) make attributions about candidate integrity, and/or (2) evaluate other political issues in ethical terms. To examine thes e relationships, this research used the same experimental de si gn wi th two sub-populations-evangelical Christians and university undergrad uate students-expected to differ in the inter-connectedness of core va lues with political attitudes. A single issue, which varied in the typ es of values in conflict, was systematically altered across four other wise constant political environments to examine priming effects. Findi ngs suggest that future research should conceptualize priming more bro adly to include considerations of both the accessibility of cognitions in short-term memory and the pathways among information in long-term memory.