Voters' Reasoning Processes and Media Influences during the Persian Gulf War

Voters engage in complex reasoning processes in deriving their policy preferences. Such reasoning processes take place in the environment of media helping to construct the discourse of an issue. To demonstrate the reasoning processes and media influences on the processes, this study analyzes the pan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Political behavior 1994-03, Vol.16 (1), p.117-156
Main Authors: Pan, Zhongdang, Kosicki, Gerald M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Heuristics
Mass Media
Mass Media Effects
Middle East
Modeling
News content
Persian Gulf
Public affairs
Public Opinion
Reasoning
Television programs
United States
Voter attitudes
Voting Behavior
War
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Summary:Voters engage in complex reasoning processes in deriving their policy preferences. Such reasoning processes take place in the environment of media helping to construct the discourse of an issue. To demonstrate the reasoning processes and media influences on the processes, this study analyzes the panel data gathered from a national probability sample before and after the Persian Gulf War. The results show a process of forming one's support of the Bush administration's Gulf War policies that involved feelings toward Bush, patriotic feelings, and acceptance of the official statements of U. S. foreign policy goals. These positive contributors are all related to heavier exposure to television news. Respondents' level of public affairs information and exposure to newspaper public affairs functioned as a contingent factor in the reasoning processes: Those at the upper half of the scale showed a greater emphasis on ideology and negative emotional reactions to the destruction of the war in forming their support of the Bush administration's Gulf War policies. The importance of the homogeneity in the discourse of the issue is further demonstrated by the effects of the news media exposure on higher likelihood of dissent concerning the end of the war.
ISSN:0190-9320
1573-6687
DOI:10.1007/BF01541645