Abstract: Causal beliefs are important ingredients of public opinion. Citizens are able to identify the causes of complex national issues and do so spontaneously. Evidence is presented that individuals; explanations of political issues are significantly influenced by the manner in which television news presentations “frame” these issues. These results are politically consequential, for individual explanations of national issues independently affect their assessments of presidential performance.
Causal beliefs:
Why is explanatory knowledge important?
Answers to causal questions abound in popular culture, making the task of explanation relatively inexpensive (consider information costs in this regard to be low)
Its usable! More important, explanatory knowledge is connotative knowledge. To “know” that unemployment occurs because of motivational deficiencies on the party of the unemployed is relevant to our attitudes toward the unemployed and our policy prefs regarding unemployment.
Iyengar conducted experiments
People watched 7 stories, 1 was manipulated.
Then answered open-ended questions.
Poverty question:
Iyengar found that there were corresponding responses to the frame and to some extent on the type of person depicted in the story (ie. Race).
Unemployment question:
High unemployment (structural frame)
Focus on unemployed person (individual frame)
Individual frame: more supportive of Reagan—problem is seen as individual, not governmental. (are both actually “correct?” doesn’t get at this. just
For the least informed, framing effects can drive the changes.
It appears to be that institutions have this effect
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