Cognitive and attitudinal effects of the news frame and group cue on processing news about immigration

  1. Juan Jose Igartua 1
  2. Lifen Cheng
  3. Félix Moral
  4. Itziar Fernández
  5. José Gómez-Isla 1
  6. José Antonio Otero
  7. Elena Palacios
  8. Tania Acosta
  1. 1 Universidad de Salamanca
    info

    Universidad de Salamanca

    Salamanca, España

    ROR https://ror.org/02f40zc51

Proceedings:
59th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association

Year of publication: 2009

Type: Conference paper

Abstract

Content analysis studies have found negative treatment of immigration in the media, yet there is very scanty empirical research developed on effects of news frames about immigration. This work deals with this topic by conducting an experimental study in which 355 students in the University of Salamanca (Spain) participated. The news article used in the experiment mentioned information about the growing immigration in Spain highlighting, a) either positive (economic contribution frame) or negative (growth on delinquency frame) consequences, b) information about the origin of the immigrants, Latin Americans vs. Moroccans. Results showed that the type of stressed news frame in the report exerted significant cognitive and attitudinal effects. Moreover, an indirect effect of group cue was found in the dependent variables. These outcomes are discussed in relation with analysis of the underlying explanatory mechanisms for framing effect.