Effects of Valenced Media Frames of Cancer Diagnoses and Therapies: Quantifying the Transformation and Establishing of Evaluative Schemas

Abstract

Journalists portray health issues within different frames, which may shape news recipients’ evaluations, attitudes, and behaviors. As the research on framing continues to face theoretical challenges and methodological concerns, this study examines the transformation and establishing of evaluative schemas, which are steps in the process toward attitudinal change. The study measures recipients’ evaluations of actual television clips dealing with cancer diagnoses and cancer therapies. Two valenced (positive vs. negative) media frames were tested in a 3-week online panel (n = 298) using a pretest–posttest design with a German sample. The results offer limited support for the hypothesis that media frames transform participants’ schemas, but do not support the hypothesis that new schemas are established in response to media frames. The study also investigates interactions between framing and participants’ issue involvement, as well as between framing and topic-specific interest and media use.

Notes

¹ German science TV programs (e.g., Nano, W wie Wissen, or Quarks & Co) are typical and objective broadcasts of public channels, which, unlike science programs in the United States, such as NOVA, or Nature (both produced for PBS), are composed of multiple individual clips, usually introduced by a moderator, which do not necessarily share a common theme. They primarily focus on informing the public about new technologies and discoveries in the fields of science and medicine. Some of these programs are broadcast several times per week, while others are broadcasted weekly or monthly.

² TV clips were approximately equal in length: TV1.1, 5 min 55 sec, TV1.2, 4 min 36 sec, TV1.3, 5 min 37 sec; TV2.1, 6 min 1 sec, TV2.2, 4 min 35 sec, TV2.3, 5 min 12 sec.

³ This is the corrected version of t due to violating the equality of variance assumption of the test.

⁴ The entire response of the participant was coded with a number, whether the participant provided single sentences or whole paragraphs. For instance, for judgments as dependent variable, Participant 10437 said, “Research in recent years obtained some important results”; this was coded as a positive evaluation. Participant 10142 said, “Some problems of cancer diagnoses and therapies are unfortunately difficult to avoid, but they already improved a lot compared to treatments of the last decade,” indicating a response with both evaluative sides. Participant 1037 said, “Regarding diagnosis and treatment of cancer, there are too many unnecessary operations. Like my colleague, she had breast cancer, her breasts were removed and half a year later, she nevertheless died,” indicating a negative evaluation. Participant 1056’s response was a nonresponse: “I cannot answer that.”