Public's Responses to Aviation Accidents: The Role of Exemplification and Attributions

Abstract

Although aviation accidents are due to various causes, the media may focus on particular causes, which is likely to contribute to the public's perceptions about aviation accidents. This research examines how the public's prevalence estimates of the causes of aviation accidents can vary when the media provides exemplars of internal causes (pilot error and mechanical failure) and on external causes (weather). The distribution of these exemplars varied between the two experimental messages: internal attribution message and external attribution message. Compared with the external attribution message, the internal attribution message resulted in higher prevalence estimates of internal causes. The internal attribution message had indirect effects on punitive opinions mediated by responsibility judgments. In addition, exemplification effects were observed two weeks after exposure, and the effects were greater among respondents who better recalled the exemplifying information. The results of this study suggest that journalists need to be cautious when using exemplars, corporate communication and public relations practitioners should actively respond to biased exemplification in the media, and the public would benefit from enhanced media exemplification literacy.

Keywords:

• Exemplification
• Attribution
• Punitive Opinion
• Journalistic Messages
• Aviation

Notes

1. We conducted a brief content analysis of news reports on aviation accidents for the period of May 2010 to May 2012. News articles were obtained using the LexisNexis database, which included from major news sources across the world. From the LexisNexis database, we found 150 news articles using the search term “aviation accidents.” We focused on stories that described aviation accidents in general rather than specific cases and those that contained causal attributions. Of the 21 news stories that matched these criteria, 20 (95%) attributed aviation accidents to internal causes, whereas only one (5%) attributed such accidents to external causes. This statistic deviates from the distribution of the actual causes of aviation accidents: 70% due to internal causes and 12% due to external ones.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yoori Hwang

Yoori Hwang (PhD) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Digital Media at Myongji University

Se-Hoon Jeong

Se-Hoon Jeong (PhD) is Assistant Professor in the School of Media and Communication at Korea University