Mass Media and Public Opinion: An Experimental Study of Media Effects

Glen Smith Department of Political Science Washington State University smith631@wsu.edu

1Abstract The medias ability to change public opinion has long been a concern in political science research. Recent research has found that news coverage can influence public opinion on political issues and voting decisions. One shortfall of traditional media effects research is that it tends to lump together editorials and opinion columns with straight news articles; a practice that prevents the researchers from analyzing the influence of each type separately. One exploration of media effects did separate the influence of news from the influence of opinion, and found the opinion columns and editorials had more influence on voting decisions than news articles. I expand on this research by performing an experiment testing the influence of opinion columns and editorials. The results indicate that 1) opinion columns have a persuasive influence over readers, 2) this influence is generalizable to readers opinions on political issues, 3) the salience of the issue makes little difference in the persuasive power of editorials and opinion columns, and 4) opinion columns make readers more ideologically consistent in their issue opinions.

Paper prepared for the annual meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology on July 5, 2007. Introduction

The impact of the mass media on public opinion has long been an area of great concern in political science and popular culture. Hitlers propaganda machine and its assumed influence on the German people during World War II caused great concern among government officials and academics. This concern was largely put to rest after research into media effects found that the news media tend to reinforce existing opinions rather than persuade people to change opinions (Hovland, 1953; Klapper, 1960). Although past research has mostly examined the influences of straight news articles, recent research has pointed to the power of opinion columns to influence voting decisions (Dalton, Beck and Huckfeldt, 1998; Beck et al., 2002). Unfortunately, the pervasiveness of this influence is unclear because the research has been limited to an examination of the 1992 presidential election. My research aims at testing the persuasive power of opinion columns in a broader context. I attempt to expand our understanding of the persuasive power of the opinion section of newspapers in the following ways. First, I test the power of opinion columns in an experimental setting, adding a measure of internal validity to past research which relied on surveys and content analyses. Second, I test whether opinion columns influence public opinions on political issues and policy options. Past research found opinion columns and editorials influence voting decisions, but no research has investigated whether that persuasive power translates to public opinion concerning political issues. Finally, I investigate whether the salience of the issues (the readers levels of interest in the issues) influence the persuasive power of opinion columns or news articles. In the present research, I test the influence of opinion columns by exposing three groups of participants to three different types of articles: balanced articles, biased articles, and opinion columns. One group is exposed to two articles each one containing a two-

sided communication flow (positive and negative aspects) concerning reform plans. One article discussed Bushs Social Security reform plan and the other discussed the 2005 bankruptcy reform legislation that was eventually passed by Congress. A second group was exposed to the same articles minus almost all negative aspects of the reform plans, isolating the absence of negative aspects as the only difference between the two groups. Participants in the third group were exposed to the same (balanced) articles as the first group, but were also exposed to opinion columns opposing each of the issues. The experimental conditions I have set up pit manipulation against persuasion. If a journalist gives only positive aspects of a plan to the public without mentioning the negative aspects and this influences public opinion, it is certainly manipulation. On the other hand, if peoples opinions change because they read an argument in an opinion column that presented a reasoned argument, it is difficult to call this manipulation as it more closely resembles persuasion. Although it is certainly possible for opinion columns to manipulate readers, I show in the results section that this is not likely the case because those reading opinion columns held opinions that were more ideologically consistent than either of the other two groups. In the end, my research adds important insights into the medias power to persuade the public. My findings suggest that while the news media have little power to manipulate public opinion, they are able to persuade people through the opinion section of the newspaper. Opinion columns and editorials also allow people to better understand how the issue fits with their values and predispositions. The results from my experiment coupled with the findings of past survey research suggest that future research may find more media effects by separating opinion columns and editorials from straight news articles.

Media Effects Research Are the news media able to persuade readers? If so, that would give them the power to influence public opinion; a topic at the center of media effects research. Most past research has found that the media are ineffective at changing public opinion (Klapper, 1960). Rather than change opinion, the news media tend to reinforce peoples current opinions (Klapper, 1960). Reinforcement occurs because of such psychological factors as selective exposure and selective retention. People are more likely to remember information that they agree with, and tend to avoid exposure to information that is contrary to their current beliefs. People generally resist and avoid discordant information because of the discomfort that usually follows. Because of these processes, the news media are often ineffective at persuading people to change their opinions on political issues. As we will see, however, this is not always the case as certain circumstances have the potential to increase the news medias power to persuade the public. One circumstance likely influencing media effects is the salience of the issue at hand. The salience of a political issue represents the amount of interest one has in an issue, as well as how often and how recently they have thought about the issue. Less experience with a political issue allows for more media effects because people lack the previous considerations necessary to reject information contrary to their opinions (Zaller, 1992). It is impossible to reject information contrary to ones previous opinion if there are no previous opinions. A lack of previous considerations would reduce selective retention and increase the influence of the information provided by the news media concerning the issues. Another factor influencing the medias power to influence opinions are

characteristics of the messages. The media are likely to influence public opinion when they consistently present a one-sided communication flow to the public. Zaller (1992, 1996) used survey data to show how mass opinion during the Vietnam War was linked to the amount of discord among political elites. Throughout most of the War, the public was overwhelmingly favorable to staying the course. Zaller (1992, 1996) argues that the consistent support among the public was due to a consensus among political elites on the issue. The intermediate actor in this relationship is the news media. Elite consensus on the issue resulted in the media presenting a one-sided communication flow to the public; the public only heard the pro-war side of the debate. This occurred because the news media relied on political elites as information sources, which caused the level of discord in the media to be indexed to the level of discord among political elites.1 The presentation of a one-sided communication flow in the news media caused those paying attention to the media to have a consensus concerning the War. Thus, when the media presents a one-sided communication flow concerning political issues, large media effects on public opinion are possible. One problem with Zallers (1992, 1996) study is that the media are taken as a whole, and not separate parts. Elite opinion can be transferred through straight news articles or opinion columns and editorials. Although it is very likely that news articles presented a one-sided communication flow concerning the War, it is unclear whether that was the cause of public consensus. If opinion columns and editorials follow elite opinion, they are also likely to present a consensus view concerning the War. The use of survey data makes it impossible to determine whether the medias influence on public opinion is driven by opinion columns and editorials or straight news articles.2
For more on the concept of indexing in the media see Bennett (1996). Zaller was not looking at this question, but rather he examined whether elite consensus influenced public opinion through the media. Whether the influence was caused by the opinion section or the straight news
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The news media were also found to influence retrospective evaluations of the economy. Hetherington (1996) found that increased exposure to the news media (prior to the 1992 election) caused people to perceive the economy more negatively. In turn, those economic perceptions influenced peoples voting decisions. Because most of the economic news was negative, the incumbent president (George H. W. Bush) suffered at the polls. This study, too, fails to determine whether economic evaluations were influenced by learning about the economy from news articles, or from the elites in opinion columns and editorials. Perhaps people took cues from the elites in the opinion section on how the economy was doing. Brody (1991) suggests that evaluations of presidential performance are influenced by elite opinion, one source of which are the opinion sections of newspapers. In short, both Zaller (1992, 1996) and Hetherington (1996) found important media effects on public opinion, but it is unclear whether these effects were driven by the information contained in straight news articles or the opinions and persuasive arguments contained in the opinion sections of the newspaper. Recent research has also found media effects on evaluations of political candidates. Research on Senate election coverage has indicated that the news media can influence peoples voting decisions, although the influence is minor. Kahn and Kenney (2002) performed a content analysis of the largest newspaper in each of the fifty states and combined it with data from surveys asking people in each state about their media consumption habits and voting decisions. The results indicate that the medias tone toward Senate candidates influenced readers vote choice. More favorable coverage in the local newspaper caused candidates vote totals to increase. Kahn and Kenney (2002) argued that this resulted from the endorsement decisions of the ownership and editorial
articles was of little concern in his research. Therefore, this takes nothing away from his research, but merely points to an avenue for future research. 6

staffs because endorsements influenced straight news coverage of Senate candidates. Editors and owners caused more positive straight news coverage, and the slanted news influenced readers voting decisions. Similar findings were reported in a case study of the Minnesota Senate race during the 2000 election (Druckman and Parkin, 2005). The content analysis in both Kahn and Kenney (2002) and Druckman and Parkin (2005) failed to separate the influence of editorials and opinion columns from the influence of straight news articles. Perhaps editorials and opinion columns had a larger influence on voting decisions than straight news articles. The true cause of opinion change in these studies, then, might be the content of the opinion section rather than straight news articles. Opinion columns and editorials are likely slanted toward the ideological direction of the publisher or editor (Page, 1996). If opinion content is influenced by the partisan leanings of the newspaper ownersand this is likely the case it would explain the influence of endorsement decisions. In other words, the partisan leanings of newspaper editors and owners may cause biased news coverage, but they are also likely to cause biased opinion content. Without separating the content of the opinion section from the news articles, it is impossible to determine whether the influence found in Senate election research was driven by the slant of the newspapers opinion sections or the papers slanted news coverage of the candidates. A similar study to Kahn and Kenney (2002) was done on the 1992 presidential election, but unlike the Senate election research, the researchers in this study separated the content of opinion columns and editorials from the content of straight news articles. Dalton, Beck and Huckfeldt (1998) performed a content analysis of newspaper and television coverage of the candidates in the 1992 presidential election. The results indicated that the content of the election coverage was mostly objective, but editorials

and opinion columns were more partisan. They combined the content analysis with a representative survey of select counties throughout the United States. Separating the opinion content from the content of straight news articles allowed the researchers to determine which factor was a stronger influence on peoples voting decisions. Survey results indicated that vote choice was influenced by the content of the newspapers that people read. Furthermore, the influence of the editorials and opinion columns was stronger than the influence of straight news articles (which was minimal). The researchers concluded that editorials and opinion columns influenced voting decisions by providing partisan cues to the readers that simplified the choices in the election. Although straight news articles were mostly objective, when bias did existed it had little influence on readers voting decisions. Rather, it was the more partisan editorials and opinion columns that influenced voting decisions. In short, Dalton, Beck and Huckfeldt (1998) provide strong evidence that opinion columns influence public opinion more than straight news articles.3 The findings of Dalton, Beck and Huckfeldt (1998) are limited by their reliance on data from the 1992 presidential election. Hetherington (1996) suggests that the 1992 presidential election had uncharacteristically high levels of media effects because of the poor economy at the time. The dominance of negative economic news coverage during the campaign caused large media effects on voting decisions, but media effects were much weaker during the 1984 and 1988 presidential elections. Thus, sole reliance on the 1992 election might have exaggerated the influence of the news media on public opinion. Reliance on survey data also poses many of the same problems with external validity that plague most survey research. For one, it is impossible to know whether the survey
Subsequent analysis showed that opinion columns and editorials influenced voting decisions even when readers interpersonal communications were taken into account (Beck et al., 2002).
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participants actually read the opinion columns or editorials. An experimental design is required to isolate the opinion columns as the only factor influencing opinion. In sum, past research suggests that the media can influence public opinion on political issues and voting decisions. It is unclear, however, whether these media effects are driven by the content of straight news articles or by the content of the opinion section of the newspaper. Dalton, Beck and Huckfeldt (1998) did find opinion columns to have a stronger influence on public opinion than news articles, but the context of these findings are limited to one presidential election. My research expands on past research in the following ways. First, I investigate whether opinion columns influence public opinion on political issues. Although past research has found that opinion columns influence vote choices during elections, it is unclear whether the same influence exists in less partisan contexts, and on issue opinions in addition to voting choices. It is undoubtedly important to understand media effects during elections, but it is also important to understand whether those effects are similar on opinions outside of the election periods.4 Second, I provide an experimental test of the persuasive power of opinion columns compared to the manipulative power of straight news articles. My experimental design allows me to isolate opinion columns as the only stimulus influencing participants opinions. Although past research has shown that opinion content has a strong influence on voting decisions, an experimental design is required to isolate the influence of opinion columns as separate from straight news articles.

The rise of going public as a political strategy, as well as the permanent campaign, have both increased the importance of public opinion in American democracy (Kernell, 1997). Presidents have heightened their efforts to influence public opinion, and this has made it nearly impossible to pass major policy initiatives without at least majority support from the American people.
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Third, I expand on past research by examining whether media effects are influenced by the salience of the issues discussed. If opinion columns do influence support for public policies, is the influence magnified on issues of low salience? I examine opinions on two issues: Social Security and bankruptcy reform. Social Security is a moderately salient issue as two years before the experiment, reforming the system was at the top of President Bushs agenda. Bankruptcy reform took a back seat to Social Security reform in spring 2005, which likely resulted in people having less knowledge or interest in the bankruptcy issue. As I discuss in the results section, the lower salience of the bankruptcy issue is evidenced by the lower levels of interest in bankruptcy reform (compared to Social Security reform) among participants in my experiment. Looking at these issues allows me to investigate whether media effects are more powerful on low salience issues. It is likely that manipulation and persuasion are greater on issues of low interest or when people have few previous considerations concerning the issues. Theory Given the results of past research, I expect opinion columns will have a larger influence on public opinion than straight news articles. Past research has shown that the news media act to reinforce, rather than change public opinion (Klapper, 1960). I expect that reading a biased presentation of a reform plan will not influence peoples level of support for that plan. Those reading biased news articles are likely to have the same levels of support as those reading balanced articles. Although I do not expect straight news articles will influence public opinion, I do expect opinion columns will be persuasive in bringing people to the side advocated by the columnist. As mentioned, past research indicates that bias in opinion content influences readers voting decisions. This leads me to expect opinion content to have a significant

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influence on public opinion. Those reading opinion columns written in opposition to the plan will have significantly less support for the plan than those only reading balanced straight news articles. Opinion columns are likely to have more influence because they are meant to be persuasive. The influence of the opinion sections results from the fact that opinion columns and editorials generally argue a position. Opinion columnists are typically political elites who are skilled at developing the best argument for or against a policy. They also possess the ability to frame the argument in the best possible light, making some values and considerations appear more relevant than others (Nelson, Clawson and Oxley, 1997). In short, the persuasiveness of opinion columns and editorials results from the quality of argument found in the articles. Another expectation relates to the difference in salience between the two issues involved in my research. I expect that media effects will have an inverse relationship with the salience of the issues discussed. The less someone knows about or cares about an issue, the more likely they are to be influenced by the medias presentation of that issue. Media effects are more likely to occur on low salience issues compared to higher salience issues.

Experimental Procedures For the experiment, participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups. All participants were exposed to articles concerning Social Security and bankruptcy reform legislation. One article was written in spring 2005 and concerned adding private accounts to the Social Security system. Also in the spring of 2005, Congress passed bankruptcy reform legislation that altered the laws regulating how people could file for

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bankruptcy and the rules regarding repayment. In the control group, participants were exposed to articles presenting both positive and negative aspects of the reform plans; I refer to this group as the balanced group. A separate group was exposed to the same articles as the control group, but those articles were modified to exclude almost all negative considerations concerning the plans.5 This group presents a biased account of the reform plans, and thus I refer to it as the biased group. Articles for both groups mentioned positives concerning the bankruptcy and private accounts policies, but only the balanced group read the negative aspects of the plans. The experiment effectively isolated the lack of negative considerations as the treatment condition. A comparison of opinion between the balanced group and the biased group will indicate whether exposure to a one-sided communication flow influences support for the plan. A third group of participants were exposed to both the balanced straight news articles and opinion columns concerning each issue. In other words, the opinion column group read the two-sided articles (just like the balanced group) but also read opinion columns concerning each issue.6 The opinion columns were written in the New York Times and are opposed to both reform plans. A comparison between the balanced group and the opinion columns group allows me to determine whether the addition of opinion columns influences the participants support for the plans. The participants in the experiment were recruited from undergraduate political science classes at Washington State University. In all, there were 153 participants in the
Articles in both the control and experimental groups provided party cues on the issue. This allows them to use the party as a heuristic to determine whether they support or oppose the policy. The Social Security article mentions Bushs support, but the Bankruptcy article only mentions Republican Senators as supporting the plan; Bushs name is absent. Providing party cues tests whether people rely more on information in evaluating policy or rely more on heuristics using effective evaluations of parties (Brady and Sniderman, 1985). 6 Those in the opinion columns group read four pieces altogether. They read two articles: one article concerning bankruptcy, one concerning Social Security. In addition, they read an opinion column concerning Social Security and an opinion column concerning bankruptcy reform.
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experiment and all received course credit in exchange for their participation. Although the drawbacks to using undergraduates are well-documented (Sears, 1986), I do not expect my results to stand alone. My experiment is designed to supplement past research indicating that editorials and opinion columns have more influence on public opinion than straight news articles (Dalton, Beck and Huckfeldt, 1998; Beck et al., 2002). The experiment allows me to overcome the internal validity problems of past research by isolating opinion columns as the causal stimulus influencing any measured opinion change. In short, the findings of Dalton, Beck and Huckfeldt (1998) provide external validity for the basic findings of my experiment, and my results provide the necessary internal validity lacking in their survey-based research. Perhaps the most important criticism of using undergraduate students in experiments is that, because they are younger, they are typically more susceptible to opinion change or manipulation than a representative sample (Sears, 1986). I attempt to overcome this problem by comparing the influences of two different stimuli. By comparing the influence of opinion columns to the influence of news articles, I control for the increased susceptibility to manipulation found among undergraduates. If undergraduates are more susceptible to influence, it will cause opinion change in both groups. If opinion columns are found to be persuasive, but news articles are not, it is not likely due to the increased susceptibility of college students, but rather it is due to the persuasiveness of the opinion columns. In other words, by comparing the influence of opinion columns to biased news articles, I am able to control for undergraduates greater susceptibility to influence. Essentially, the balanced and biased articles groups serve as tests of the influence of normal or biased articles on undergraduates perceptions of bias. Survey Questions

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After reading the articles, all participants completed surveys asking various questions concerning their opinions on the issues. The dependent variables in this study were the participants opinions on the Social Security and bankruptcy reform policies. Support for Social Security reform is measured by the following question: Do you support or oppose changing the current Social Security system to include personal retirement accounts? Opinion on bankruptcy reform was measured by asking: In 2005, new laws were passed that made it more difficult to file for bankruptcy. Based on what you know about the changes to the past laws, do you support or oppose those changes? For each of these questions, participants were asked to rate their level of support on a 7point scale from strongly oppose to strongly support.

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Table 1

Characteristics of Participants Across Groups Balanced Group Biased Group 20.71 40% 4.25 3.75 3.01 47% 32% 1.03 0.78 0.84 0.28 55 Opinion Columns 20.33 37% 4.29 3.64 2.96 43% 39% 0.77 0.72 1.03 0.27 51

Age Female Ideology S.S. Interest Bank Interest Republican Democrats Television Newspapers Internet Radio N

20.51 57% 4.09 3.78 3.36 38% 38% 1.05 0.83 1.24 0.17 47

The columns represent the characteristics of the participants in the study according to the groups to which they were assigned. Age is in years and female shows the percentage of women in each group. Ideology is the mean for the group and is based on a 7-point scale with 1 representing the most liberal position and 7 representing the most conservative position. Interest in both bankruptcy and Social Security reform are also measured on 7-point scales from not at all interested to very interested. Both the Republican and Democrat rows represent the percentage of participants in each group identifying as Republicans or Democrats, respectively. The rest of the participants are used as the baseline for comparison. All of the exposure media sources variables were the mean number of hours in an average day that participants received news from that source. The bottom row represents the number of participants in each group.

Interest in the issues was measured by asking participants to: Please rate how closely you follow news concerning the following issues on the scale below. The participants rated their interest in the Social Security and bankruptcy issues on 7-point scales ranging from not at all interested to very interested. Ideology was measured on a 7-point scale ranging from liberal (one) to conservative (seven). In addition, participants were asked whether they consider themselves Republicans or Democrats.
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Participants were also asked how many hours per day they usually get news from television, newspapers, radio, or the internet. Accompanying these measures were other standard demographic variables such as age and gender. Table 1 reports the basic demographics, ideology, partisanship and media attention of the participants by experimental group. The groups were similar across most independent variables. One exception to this was the distribution of female participants across the groups, which ranged from 57% in the balanced group to 37% in group opinion columns group. Because of these differences, all of the models below include a dummy variable indicating gender. Age was not included in the final models because it was found to have little influence on the overall results or on the dependent variables.

Results Are opinion columns more persuasive than straight news articles? Before getting to the influence of opinion columns, it is important to understand the influence (or lack of influence) of straight news articles. Table 2 reports the results from an ordered probit regression model with support for Social Security and bankruptcy reform as the dependent variables. The results indicate that the contents of straight news articles have little influence on participants support for reform. On both issues, the coefficients for membership in the biased group were negative, indicating that those reading articles biased in favor of reform had less support than those reading balanced articles. Therefore, taking away all negative aspects of a policy did not cause more support for that policy. This is consistent with my expectations given the results of previous research finding minimal media effects (Klapper, 1960). Surprisingly, on both issues the biased
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group showed less support for the plans than the balanced group when other predictors are taken into account. This is an interesting finding as the biased articles did not present any negative aspects of the reform plans. One would expect that exposure to only positive aspects of the plans would cause at least a modest increase in support for the reform plan. The direction of the influence provides strong evidence that the content (or slant) of straight news articles does not influence public opinion on political issues. In short, the contents of straight news articles are not persuasive even when they present a biased account of public policies.

Table 2

Influences on support for Social Security and bankruptcy reform. Social Security Opinion Bankruptcy Opinion -.031 (.216) -.477 (.222)* .122 (.071) -.038 (.260) -.544 (.249)* -.020 (.068) -.345 (.185) -.112 (.109) -.059 (.125) -.101 (.092) .090 (.115) -2.823 (.528) -1.825 (.475)

Biased Group Opinion Columns Group Ideology Republican Democrat Interest in the Issue Female Television Paper Internet Radio Cut 1 Cut 2

-.240 (.219) -.525 (.227)* .113 (.072) .566 (.264)* .052 (.252) .183 (.065)** .199 (.188) -.280 (.112)* .179 (.129) -.131 (.091) .082 (.117) -0.878 (.495) 0.039 (.483)
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Cut 3 Cut 4 Cut 5 Cut 6 N Log Likelihood Chi-Square (11) (p-value)

0.322 (.481) 1.647 (.492) 2.679 (.515)

-1.27 (.468) -0.858 (.466) 0.136 (.463) 1.308 (.468)

150 -207.93 35.44 (p< .001)

150 -232.26 35.69 (p< .001)

The results in the first column are from an ordered-probit with opinion toward Social Security as the dependent variable. The second column reports the results with opinion toward bankruptcy as the dependent variable. The columns report the coefficients for both models with standard errors in parentheses. Both dependent variables are on a 7-point scale, with 1 representing strong opposition and 7 representing strong support for the Social Security and bankruptcy reform measures discussed in the articles and throughout spring of 2005. The biased group and opinion column group variables are dummy variables indicating the group of the participants. The balanced group is used as the base-line for comparison to the other groups. Interest in the issues is based on a 7-point scale (with 7 representing very interested and 0 indicating no interest) and was asked for each issue separately. Ideology represents a 7point scale (with 7 as most conservative). The Republican and Democrat variables are dummy variables indicating identification with a political party. Those not identifying with either party are used as the baseline for comparison. Finally, the television, paper, internet and radio variables represent how many hours in the average day that participants get news from those sources. *p< .05 **p<.01

If straight news articles have no influence in such an extreme case, how can I explain the results of past research indicating that slanted news influences public opinion (Druckman and Parkin, 2004; Kahn and Kenney, 2002)? In addition to my results, the results in Dalton, Beck and Huckfeldt (1998) indicate that news articles have less influence on the vote than editorials and opinion columns. There are at least two possible explanations for the differences between my results (and Dalton, Beck and Huckfeldt, 1998 results) and the findings during Senate elections (Kahn and Kenney, 2002; Druckman and Parkin, 2005). One explanation is that the media effects found in past research were driven by the influence of opinion columns and editorials and not straight news articles. Perhaps researchers found media effects in the past because they did not separate the influence of the two sections of the papers.
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Another explanation is that news articles have more influence on public opinion in Senate elections compared to presidential elections. The lower levels of interest and knowledge about Senate elections might cause the impressions supplied in news coverage to be more important in those elections than in presidential elections. Also, in Senate elections, people are generally restricted to one newspaper for coverage of their Senator, but there are many different sources in presidential elections that cover the race. Another factor could be the generally favorable relationship between most Congressmen and their local reporters (Arnold, 2004; Prior, 2006). This is a matter for future research, as I will turn to an investigation of the power of opinion columns to influence public opinion. Although articles have little power to influence public opinion, opinion columns appear to have some persuasive power over readers. Participants in the opinion columns group read the same balanced articles read by the control group, and also read one opinion column on each issue. The results indicate that reading opinion columns decreased support for the reform plans. This effect is in the expected direction, as the opinion columns were written in opposition to both plans. Thus, the opinion columns were persuasive in moving opinion toward opposition (the desired direction) to both Social Security and bankruptcy reform. This provides strong evidence that opinion columns can influence public opinion more than straight news articles. In addition, these findings show that the influences of opinion columns are not confined to voting decisions in presidential elections, as previous research has found (Dalton, Beck and Huckfeldt, 1998). Opinion columns can also have an influence on public opinion concerning such issues as Social Security and bankruptcy reform. These findings, coupled with the results in Dalton, Beck and Huckfeldt (1998) suggest that opinion columns have broad persuasive power to influence public opinion.

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The influence of opinion columns on support for reform is similar for both issues. Bankruptcy reforms status as a lower salience issue did not influence the persuasiveness of the opinion columns. The low salience of bankruptcy in comparison to Social Security is evidenced by the lower levels of interest in the bankruptcy issue. When all the groups are combined, bankruptcy had a mean score of 3.10 on a 7-point scale. This score is significantly lower than the participants interest in the Social Security issue (3.72).7 Although bankruptcy is a lower salience issue than Social Security, reading opinion columns had a similar influence on both issues. Opinion columns had the same influence on peoples support for bankruptcy reform as they did on support for Social Security reform. The salience of the issues also had little influence the manipulative power of straight news articles. In short, the lack of interest in the bankruptcy issue did not appear to have any impact on peoples susceptibility to influence from either straight news articles or opinion columns. What other factors influence support for reform? Surprisingly, ideology had very little influence on peoples level of support for the plans. Republicans were more likely to support reforming Social Security than Democrats or Independents, but Democrats were no less likely to oppose reform than Independents. On the bankruptcy issue, Republicans were no more likely to support reform than Independents, but Democrats were significantly more likely to support reform than either Republicans or Independents. The strongest predictor of support for Social Security reform was interest in the issue, but this had little influence on opinions toward bankruptcy reform. An interesting finding is the influence of watching television on peoples support for Social Security reform. The more television one watched, the more likely they were
A difference in means test showed a significant difference between interest in the two issues (t = 5.82, p< .05).
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to oppose Social Security reform, and this effect exists even when party identification, ideology and interest are controlled. An explanation for this is that those watching television regularly were more likely to have previous knowledge of Bushs Social Security reform plan. This effect did not exist on the bankruptcy issue because there was less news coverage of that issue in the mainstream media during 2005. It is likely that watching television increased participants previous knowledge of the Social Security issue and made them less reliant on the articles read in the experiment for information concerning Bushs plan. Thus, watching more television appeared to increase the participants knowledge of Bushs plan and this made them less willing to support the reform measures that he proposed. In addition to the findings given above showing that opinion columns are persuasive, my results also indicate that opinion columns make people more ideologically consistent. Those reading opinion columns showed a stronger correlation between their opinions on the issues and their self-reported ideological scores. The correlation between support for Social Security reform and ideology went from .13 in the balanced articles group to .24 in the biased articles group, but jumped to .38 in the opinion columns group. Although less pronounced, a similar change occurred in the bankruptcy issue, as the correlations went from .35 in the balanced articles group to .36 in the biased articles groups, but then jumped to .43 in the group exposed to opinion columns. These results indicate that opinion columns allow people to connect the issues to their ideological predispositions. Perhaps opinion columns simplify the issues for the readers. It is likely harder for readers to understand the considerations and values involved with complex political issues when reading news articles that typically present fact-based or strategy coverage of the news. Opinion columns provide clear partisan and ideological cues to the

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readers, but news articles often lack these cues. That opinion columns increase the readers ideological consistency with their issue opinions appears to add further evidence that opinion columns persuade rather than manipulate public opinion. .

Discussion The results from my experiment add important insights into the medias power to influence public opinion. First and foremost, my results add support to past research indicating that opinion columns and editorials have a significant influence on public opinion. Past research relied on survey techniques which lack internal validity (Dalton, Beck and Huckfeldt, 1998), but my experimental design allowed me to isolate opinion columns as the only variable influencing public opinion. When coupled with the findings of Dalton, Beck and Huckfeldt (1998), my results suggest that the content of the opinion section is more likely to influence public opinion than the content of straight news articles. Future research into media effects in the aggregate would likely find it useful to differentiate between opinion columns and straight news articles, as the former are more likely to influence opinion than the latter. In addition to adding internal validity to past survey results, my results also suggest that the power of opinion columns exist outside of the election seasons. Not only do opinion columns influence voting decisions (Dalton, Beck and Huckfeldt, 1998; Beck et al., 2002), but they also influence public opinion on policy options. Little research has examined whether the media can influence public opinion on political issues or policy options.8 The results presented here suggest that the persuasive arguments contained in opinion columns can increase support for reform plans. It is unclear, however, whether
Past research suggests that how the media frames an issue can influence public opinion (Nelson, Clawson and Oxley, 1997; Iyengar, 1991).
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competing opinion columns in the same newspaper (advocating both sides of the debate) cancel out that influence, but that is likely the case. Given the increased partisanship of opinion sections (Dalton, Beck and Huckfeldt,1998), competing arguments are more likely in the news section rather than the opinion section of the newspapers. This is troublesome, as the results presented here suggest that competing arguments are needed more in the opinion sections. A somewhat surprising result from my experiment is that salience has little influence on the persuasive power of the opinion columns or straight news articles. Straight news articles and opinion columns were no more persuasive on a low salience issue (bankruptcy reform) than they were on a moderately salient issue (Social Security reform). I tested whether the difference in media effects increased by running the models without interest in the issues as independent variables. If the interest variable controlled for the influence of salience across the two issues, I would expect the articles and opinion columns to be more persuasive in bankruptcy than Social Security. This was not the case, as the results were no different from the results reported in Table 2. The lack of difference between the two models indicates that issue salience had little influence on the persuasive power of opinion columns. My results also suggest that media effects on public opinion are better characterized as persuasion than manipulation. Opinion columns influence public opinion because they expose readers to persuasive arguments. This is certainly not an instance of manipulation, especially when the readers know that they are reading someones opinion. Opinion columns and editorials simulate the deliberative process by exposing people to well-crafted arguments concerning political issues. Those reading opinion columns held opinions on the issues that were more consistent with their self-

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identified ideological positions. Thus, reading opinion columns increases ones likelihood of holding an opinion that is consistent with their ideology. A possible explanation for this effect is that opinion columns provide cues to the readers that allow them to understand how the issues relate to their predispositions. In other words, opinion columns simplify the issues by connecting them to values and predispositions. The persuasive power of the opinion section has the potential to become manipulation if only one side of an issue is given. Persuasive arguments advocating one position need to be collided with persuasive arguments on the opposing side. By increasing the perceived importance of certain values concerning the issues, opinion columns and editorials are framing the issues in certain ways. Framing effects have been shown to influence opinions on political issues when people are exposed to only one frame (Nelson, Clawson and Oxley, 1997; Druckman and Nelson, 2003). On the other hand, when people are exposed to competing frames there is little influence on public opinion (Druckman, 2004). The power of opinion columns is very similar to the power of framing; they both present persuasive arguments. Presenting opinion columns on both sides of political issues is an important step in reducing the chance of media manipulation.

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1Bibliography Arnold, D.A. 2004. Congress, the press, and political accountability. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Beck, P. A., Dalton, R. J., Greene, S. and Huckfeldt, R. 2002. The Social Calculus of Voting: Interpersonal, Media, and Organizational Influences on Presidential Choices. American Political Science Review 96(1): 57-73. Bennett, W. L. 1996. News: The politics of Illusion. New York: Longman. Brody, R. A. 1991. Assessing the President: The media, elite opinion and public support. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Dalton, R. J., Beck P.A., and Huckfeldt R. 1998. Partisan Cues and the Media: Information Flows in the 1992 Presidential Election. American Political Science Review, 92(1): 111-126. Day, K. April 15, 2005. Bankruptcy Bill Passes; Bush Expected to Sign; For Many, Erasing Debt Would be Harder. Washington Post, April 15, 2005, p. E1. Druckman, J.N. 2004. Political Preference Formation: Competition, Deliberation, and the (Ir)relevance of Framing Effects. American Political Science Review, 98(4): 671-686. Druckman, J.N., and Nelson, K. 2003. Framing and Deliberation: How citizens conversations limit elite influence. American Journal of Political Science 47(4): 729-45. Druckman, J.N., and Parkin, M. 2005. The Impact of Media Bias: How Editorial Slant Affects Voters. Journal of Politics. 67 (4): 1030-49. Hetherington, M. J. 1996. The Medias Role in Forming Voters National Economic Evaluations in 1992. American Journal of Political Science 40(2): 372-95. Hovland, C. L., Janis I.L., and Kelley, H. H. 1953. Communications and persuasion: Psychological Studies in opinion change. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Iyengar, S. 1991. Is Anyone Responsible. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Kahn, K. F., and Kenney, P. J. 2002. The Slant of the News: How Editorial Endorsements Influence Campaign Coverage and Citizens Views of Candidates. American Political Science Review. 96 (2): 381-94. Kernell, S. H. 1997. Going Public: New strategies in presidential leadership. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press. Klapper, J. T. 1960. The Effects of Mass Communication. New York: Free Press. Krugman, P., The Debt-Peonage Society. New York Times, March 8, 2005, p. A23. Krugman, P., Three-Card Maestro. New York Times, February 18, 2005, p. A27. Nelson, T. E., Clawson, R. A., and Oxley, Z. 1997. Media Framing of a Civil Liberties Conflict and Its Effect on Tolerance. American Political Science Review. 91 (3): 567-84 Page, B. I. 1996. Who Deliberates? Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Porter, E., Working out the numbers. New York Times, February 6, 2005, Sec. 1, p. 15. Prior, M. 2006. The Incumbent in the Living Room: The rise of television and the incumbency advantage in U.S. House elections. Journal of Politics 68(3): 65773. Sears, D. O. 1986. College Sophomores in the Laboratory: Influences of a narrow database on psychologys view of human nature. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 51 (3): 515-30. Zaller, J. R. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press. Zaller, J. R. 1996. The Myth of a Massive Media Impact Revisited: New Support for a Discredited Idea. In D. Mutz, P. Sniderman, and R. Brody, Political Persuasion and Attitude Change. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

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Appendix A Survey Questions Social Security Opinion Do you support or oppose changing the current Social Security system to include personal retirement accounts? Strongly Oppose = 1, 4 = No Opinion, Strongly Support = 7 Bankruptcy Opinion In 2005, new laws were passed that made it more difficult to file for bankruptcy. Based on what you know about the changes to the past laws, do you support or oppose those changes? Strongly Oppose = 1, 4 = No Opinion, Strongly Support = 7 Interest in the Issues How closely do you follow the following issues [Social Security or bankruptcy reform]? Not interested = 1, Somewhat Interested = 4, Very Interested = 7 Ideology Do you consider yourself more conservative or more liberal in ideology? Liberal = 1, Neutral = 4, Conservative = 7 Party Identification Despite where you may rank yourself in ideology, what party do you typically support? Democratic Party, Republican Party, No Party Age What is your age? Female What is your Gender? Female = 1, Male = 0 News Sources How often do you get your news from the following sources? Television, Newspaper, Internet, Radio.

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