The Power of the Press: The Effects of Press Frames in Political Campaign News on Media Perceptions

This article discusses how the behaviors, roles, and standards of mainstream journalism are framed in political campaign news and empirically examines applicability and accessibility effects of so-called press frames on individuals' media perceptions, specifically on news information quality and negative aspects of content (cf. Kosicki & McLeod, 1990). Following previous work, we posited that journalists frame the press in three ways, called conduit, strategy, and accountability. Participants in a between-subjects experiment were exposed to a political campaign story about an exemplar "character issue" containing these frames. Regarding applicability effects, exposure to each press frame differentially prompted individuals to think frame-relevant propositions were salient in the story. Further, participants exposed to the strategy press frame interpreted the press as being significantly more negative than individuals exposed to the conduit or accountability frame; participants exposed to the accountability press frame interpreted the press as having higher news information quality than individuals exposed to the conduit or strategy frame. Regarding accessibility effects, only the accountability press frame prompted individuals to access prior beliefs about the news media to form opinions about negativity and quality. Implications for future study of press framing are discussed.