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In this study, we investigated the impact of personalized news web portals on selective exposure. Results from analyses of secondary survey data from national random samples of U.S. adults show a positive relationship between personalized news and increased exposure to offline news. Users of personalized news report viewing more sources and categories of news online compared with nonusers. Partisan users of personalized news do not report increased partisan news exposure. No difference in preferences for perspective sharing or challenging news sources is found between personalized news users and nonusers. The implications for future research on personalized information systems and selective exposure are discussed.

The period between August 1990 and early November 1992 was characterized by two "issue regimes," the Gulf War and an economic recession. Analysis of aggregate media content and opinion poll data shows that President George Bush's job approval ratings were closely tied to the changes in the salience of these two issues. Guided by priming theory, hypotheses were formulated and tested concerning media effects on voters' evaluations of President Bush. Results show that the pattern of forming Bush's approval ratings is related to two different issue regimes. The total dominance of the public arena by one issue during an issue regime sets the foundation of Bush's overall approval ratings. However, direct media priming effects are found limited. Implications of these results are discussed.

Researchers have shown that news discourse contains images, episodes, themes, and vocabulary that comprise a negative portrayal of Blacks. But evidence linking news media content to Whites' racial policy opinions has lacked clear specification of the opinion formation process and mechanisms of news media influences on such process. This study mimics Whites' reasoning process via a causal model involving ideological orientations, affect toward Blacks, assessment of situations of racial inequality, and causal attributions of the inequality. The characteristics of this reasoning process may be affected by the news media in several ways. By analyzing the National Election Study (NES) 1990 Post-Election Survey data, this study examines how Whites' reliance on ideological principles or affect in forming their opinions is contingent on news media exposure. The data show that increased information-oriented media use enhances the role of ideological orientation and, possibly, causal attributions in Whites' racial policy reasoning.

This study focused on the reasoning process through which people decided whether to support President Reagan during the Iran-Contra affair, and the role of the media in that reasoning process. Content analyses of network news showed that the media framed the Iran-Contra affair, with a high level of salience, as a valence issue (the Reagan administration's complicity in the secret dealing) rather than a position issue (the affair's international policy dimension). Path analyses of the national survey data supported the hypothesized differences in the reasoning processes based on the levels of political sophistication: Highly sophisticated people demonstrated a higher level of complexity and consistency in their reasoning process, considering more factors than less sophisticated people. The data also supported the hypothesized framing effects of the media.

Voter reasoning processes take place in the environment of media helping to construct the discourse of an issue. To demonstrate the reasoning processes & media influences on them, panel data were gathered from a national probability sample of 1,385 US residents before & after the Persian Gulf war. Results show a process of forming one's support of the Bush administration's Gulf war policies that involved feelings toward Bush, patriotic feelings, & acceptance of the official statements of US foreign policy goals. These positive contributors are all related to heavier exposure to TV news. Respondents' level of public affairs information & exposure to newspaper public affairs functioned as a contingent factor in the reasoning processes, with those at the upper half of the scale showing a greater emphasis on ideology & 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. 6 Tables, 2 Figures, 47 References. Adapted from the source document.

Framing analysis is a constructivist approach used to analyze the news media's framing of public policy issues. The approach is based on the conceptualization of news texts into four empirically operationalizable structural components: syntactical, script, thematic, & rhetorical. Framing analysis avoids the pitfalls of traditional content analysis & emphasizes systematic study of political language & communication. It provides a coherent framework that can be applied to all public discourse. As an extended empirical example, a news story of an anti-abortion rally in Wichita, Kan, is subjected to framing analysis. 1 Table, 2 Figures, 50 References. Adapted from the source document.