Framing Public Opinion in Competitive Democracies
Top Cited Papers
- 1 February 2007
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in American Political Science Review
- Vol. 101 (4), 637-655
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055407070554
Abstract
What is the effect of democratic competition on the power of elites to frame public opinion? We address this issue first by defining the range of competitive contexts that might surround any debate over a policy issue. We then offer a theory that predicts how audiences, messages, and competitive environments interact to influence the magnitude of framing effects. These hypotheses are tested using experimental data gathered on the opinions of adults and college students toward two policy issues—the management of urban growth and the right of an extremist group to conduct a rally. Our results indicate that framing effects depend more heavily on the qualities of frames than on their frequency of dissemination and that competition alters but does not eliminate the influence of framing. We conclude by discussing the implications of these results for the study of public opinion and democratic political debate.Keywords
This publication has 40 references indexed in Scilit:
- Political Campaigns and Open-Minded ThinkingThe Journal of Politics, 2006
- Values, Framing, and Citizens’ Thoughts about Policy Issues: Effects on Content and QuantityPolitical Psychology, 2005
- Framing and Deliberation: How Citizens' Conversations Limit Elite InfluenceAmerican Journal of Political Science, 2003
- Values, Political Knowledge, and Public Opinion about Gay RightsPublic Opinion Quarterly, 2003
- The Influence of Framing on Risky Decisions: A Meta-analysisOrganizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 1998
- The impact of accuracy motivation on interpretation, comparison, and correction processes: Accuracy × knowledge accessibility effects.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1998
- Automaticity of chronically accessible constructs in person × situation effects on person perception: It's just a matter of time.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1988
- Consequences of priming: Judgment and behavior.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1986
- Communication and PersuasionPublished by Springer Science and Business Media LLC ,1986
- Individual construct accessibility and subjective impressions and recall.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1982