How the Media Affect What People Think: An Information Processing Approach

The political messages of newspapers are significantly associated with the substantive political attitudes of a national sample of their readers. Diversity of news perspectives and editorial liberalism show significant relationships to readers' support of interest groups, public policies, and politicians. The relationships vary among self-identified liberals, conservatives, and moderates in accordance with the predictions of information-processing theory. The standard assertion in most recent empirical studies is that “media affect what people think about, not what they think.” The findings here indicate the media make a significant contribution to what people think—to their political preferences and evaluations—precisely by affecting what they think about.