6
Media Priming and Accessibility
David R. Ewoldsen and Nancy Rhodes
Imagine you are talking with a colleague about some research and that colleague asks you about
a particular theoretical approach to the issue you are discussing. If the theory is one that you
work with extensively, then your knowledge of that theory should come to mind quickly, maybe
even automatically (e.g., with no intentional eﬀort on your part). Conversely, imagine that the last
time you had discussed this theory was 30 years ago in graduate school. In this instance, the
knowledge of the theory is not likely to easily be brought to mind. In other words, these two theories
(and the related knowledge) vary in how chronically accessible they are from memory.
Now imagine a slightly diﬀerent scenario. In this instance, due to serendipity, you had just
received an email from the individual who developed that past theory minutes before talking to
your colleague. In this instance, the knowledge related to that old theory was temporarily more
accessible due to the recent email activating the information in memory related to the author of
the theory. Because information related to the author of the theory had been active, information
about the theory was likely activated at the same time. In other words, that knowledge had been
primed, which temporarily increased its accessibility. We discuss both chronically accessible constructs,
that is, the theory you work with daily, and contrast it with temporary accessibility, or the
priming of constructs in speciﬁc situations, in this chapter. Research on priming and chronic
accessibility has grown increasingly important for media scholars during the past 30 years. This
chapter will review this work and the major theories that explain these related phenomena.
Accessibility
Simply put, accessibility refers to the ease by which a concept is activated from memory.
Research on accessibility originated in theoretical work within cognitive and social psychology
during the 1970s and 1980s. Speciﬁcally, network models of memory posited that concepts are
represented in memory as nodes (J. Anderson, 1983; Wyer, 2004).1
Going back to the opening
example, you would have a node in memory for the theory you learned in grad school, as well
as potentially separate nodes for elements of the theory depending on how elaborate the
memory representation was for that theory. You may have very elaborate networks for those
aspects of the theory that you work with a lot and only a few nodes in components of the
83
84 • David R. Ewoldsen and Nancy Rhodes
theory that are not relevant to your current work. The critical point is that your representation
in memory is hypothesized to reﬂect your knowledge of that domain.
A node in a resting state is not active. But a node can receive activation if something in the
environment or the cognitive system triggers that concept (e.g., someone mentions an old
theory or you think about a related theory). Each node is hypothesized to have a threshold, and
once there is enough energy in the node to reach that threshold, the node ﬁres or is activated.
A concept’s threshold is not set but can change for various reasons. For example, if a concept is
activated repeatedly, the threshold for that concept is hypothesized to change so that it is easier
for the concept to be activated (J. Anderson, 1983). This change in the threshold explains how
concepts can vary in their chronic accessibility.
Research suggests several ways in which the resting threshold of a concept can change to
make it more accessible. By far the most often cited way to chronically increase a concept’s
accessibility is through frequency of activation (Wyer, 2004). Likewise, more eﬀortful processing
of a concept should increase the chronic accessibility of that concept (Wyer, 2004). The activation
threshold can also weaken across time so that the concept becomes less accessible. If
a concept is not activated for an extended period of time, it will become less chronically accessible.
In other words, once accessible does not mean always accessible (Grant & Logan, 1993).
These models also hypothesize that nodes are interconnected via associative pathways. These
pathways allow energy to spread from one node to a related node. Further, the strength of
these associative pathways varies. Stronger pathways allow more energy to transfer from one
node to another node. The classic example is that if the “doctor” node is activated in memory,
activation will travel from the “doctor” node to the “nurse” node because doctor and nurse are
likely highly associated. Assuming the strength of the pathway is high, if doctor is activated
(e.g., its activation threshold is met), then energy should travel to the “nurse” node, which may
result in the “nurse” node becoming active or it may increase the ease by which nurse is activated
because the node is closer to its activation threshold. The energy that spreads from
“doctor” to “nurse” dissipates in time. Therefore, the eﬀect of the spreading activation is to
increase temporarily the accessibility of “nurse.” This is commonly referred to as priming.
Chronic Accessibility
Construct Accessibility
As already discussed, the chronic accessibility of various concepts can vary in memory. Research
has generally considered chronic accessibility across three domains: construct accessibility, attitude
accessibility, and norm accessibility. Construct accessibility has not been studied extensively
by media scholars. Research in media eﬀects in this stream has relied on the availability heuristic,
which maintains that people make quick judgments of how frequently something occurs based on
the ease with which they can activate exemplars of that construct from memory. The most extensive
use of the availability heuristic to understand media eﬀects comes from Shrum’s (2009) line
of work on cultivation theory. Brieﬂy, cultivation theory (see Chapter 5 of the current volume)
hypothesized that heavy viewers of television would have their perception of social reality distorted
to assimilate with the reality depicted on television. Later, Shrum focused his explanation
more on construct accessibility with the development of the heuristic processing model of cultivation
(Shrum, 2009). Numerous studies have supported the construct availability explanation of
cultivation eﬀects (Bradley, 2007; Busselle & Shrum, 2003; Riddle, 2010).
Media Priming and Accessibility • 85
The availability heuristic has been oﬀered as an explanation for the agenda-setting eﬀect of
the media (Scheufele, 2000; see Chapter 3 of the current volume). Agenda setting refers to the
impact of heavy news coverage of an issue on the public’s judgment of the importance of that
issue. The basic idea is that heavy coverage of an issue should increase the accessibility of that
issue from memory. The ease of activating that issue from memory acts as a piece of information
to form the judgment that this is an important topic (Roskos-Ewoldsen, Bichsel, & Hoﬀman,
2002).
Research on political communication has also demonstrated that construct accessibility
can serve as both a mediator and moderator of media eﬀects. Consider the area of political
framing. Framing refers to the information that is emphasized and made salient within
a story (see Chapter 4 of the current volume). One obvious explanation for framing eﬀects
is that a story’s frame inﬂuences what information people have accessible from memory after
reading the story (Schuldt & Roh, 2014). In this way, then, construct accessibility operates as
the mechanism by which message framing aﬀects the audience’s perceptions of the issue.
However, construct accessibility can also limit the inﬂuence of media frames on how people
interpret a story. When viewers’ accessible constructs about a candidate were contrary to
how a message was framed, the message had less inﬂuence on viewers’ judgments (Shen,
2004). In this case, the chronic accessibility of the audience’s constructs overrode the eﬀects
of the frame.
Attitude Accessibility
A second area of research that has focused on chronic accessibility is the work on attitude
accessibility (Rhodes & Ewoldsen, 2013). Attitude accessibility refers to the ease by which an
evaluative response to an object is activated from memory (Fazio, 1986). This work hypothesizes
that summary attitudes toward an object (broadly deﬁned) are stored in memory, and
these stored attitudes exist along a continuum. At one end of the continuum are attitudes that
are so highly accessible from memory that they are automatically activated when the attitude
object is in the environment without any intention to activate the attitude on the part of the
individual (Roskos-Ewoldsen & Fazio, 1992). For example, many people have an automatic “dislike”
response whenever they see a rat or other rodent and may react with revulsion without
consciously thinking about it. At the other end of the continuum are attitudes that are stored in
memory but that are not accessible and require conscious eﬀort on the part of the individual to
activate from memory. For example, if you were asked about a class that you took in graduate
school, you almost certainly had an attitude toward that class that was accessible at the time.
Even though that attitude may still be stored in memory, because of the passage of time, you
now would have to work hard to recall how well you liked that class.
The work on attitude accessibility grew out of work on the attitude–behavior relationship
(Fazio, 1986). Extensive research has demonstrated that attitudes that are more accessible from
memory are more likely to predict a person’s behavior (Rhodes & Ewoldsen, 2009, 2013). This
makes sense because an attitude can only inﬂuence behavior to the extent it is active in
memory, and accessible attitudes should be more likely to be active at the time when the
person is engaging in the behavior. Later research demonstrated that accessible attitudes are
more likely to bias how a person processes information (Rhodes, Roskos-Ewoldsen, Edison, &
Bradford, 2008). For example, people will process information that is contrary to their accessible
attitude in a biased manner. Other research has also demonstrated that if you have an accessible
86 • David R. Ewoldsen and Nancy Rhodes
attitude toward the topic or source of a message, it inﬂuences how much you elaborate on
a message (Rhodes et al., 2008; Roskos-Ewoldsen et al., 2002). Finally, accessible attitudes will
inﬂuence what people attend to in their environment (Roskos-Ewoldsen & Fazio, 1992).
Research on processing of media messages is consistent with these ﬁndings. For example,
people with accessible racist attitudes interpreted a movie in a way so that the movie did not
threaten their attitude (Eno & Ewoldsen, 2010). Likewise, people with more accessible racist
attitudes interpreted newspapers that were sympathetic to blacks as being of lower quality
(Holt, Ellithorpe, & Ralston, 2017). Similarly, smokers were biased in how they processed antismoking
Public Service Announcements (PSAs), which is not surprising; however, this eﬀect
was moderated by the accessibility of their pro-smoking attitudes (Rhodes et al., 2008).
Research has demonstrated that media messages can inﬂuence the accessibility of attitudes
from memory. For example, a feature length anti-racism movie was found to decrease the accessibility
of participants’ racist attitudes (Eno & Ewoldsen, 2010). Fear appeal messages have been
found to increase the accessibility of people’s attitudes toward performing adaptive behaviors
(e.g., breast self-exams) and the accessible attitudes predicted future intentions to engage in the
behavior (Roskos-Ewoldsen, Yu, & Rhodes, 2004). We believe this ﬁnding has important implications
for health promotion campaigns, given the role of accessible attitudes in predicting
behavior. Studies have demonstrated that heavy viewing of TV is associated with more accessible
attitudes (Shrum, 2009). Likewise, several studies have also demonstrated that long-term
exposure to coverage of an issue or topic can inﬂuence the accessibility of attitudes from
memory (Arendt, 2010; Arendt & Brantner, 2015).2
As Arendt (2010) noted, consistent
with second-order cultivation eﬀects, long-term exposure to media can inﬂuence the accessibility
of people’s attitudes from memory.
Additionally, consistent with a network model of memory, it appears that media can inﬂuence
the accessibility of attitudes indirectly through spreading activation. Rhodes, Toole, and
Arpan (2016) found that entertainment programming that contained incidental mentions of
pro-environmental practices increased the accessibility of viewers’ attitudes toward those practices
that were depicted in the program. Importantly, the increased activation of those attitudes
also increased the activation of related pro-environmental practices, such as recycling, that were
not depicted in the program. The increased accessibility of these related attitudes predicted
increased intention to engage in these related, but not depicted, behaviors.
Finally, as discussed, research has found that accessible attitudes inﬂuence what people
attend to in the environment (Roskos-Ewoldsen & Fazio, 1992). Consistent with these ﬁndings,
research has found that accessible attitudes are related to selective exposure. Speciﬁcally,
research suggests that accessible attitudes toward a topic will inﬂuence whether people select
a news story about that topic (Knobloch-Westerwick, 2015; see also Chapter 10 of this volume).
For example, people with more accessible negative attitudes toward the European Union were
more likely to avoid reading stories about the EU (Arendt, Steindl, & Kumpel, 2016; cf. Knobloch-Westerwick,
2015). Relatedly, people with more accessible attitudes toward a topic were
also more likely to share news stories about that topic on social media (Arendt et al., 2016).
Roskos-Ewoldsen (1997) proposed a transactive model of attitude accessibility. The main
point of the transactive model is that accessible attitudes operate to maintain or protect themselves.
As already discussed, attitudes that are activated frequently or that are primed are more
accessible. The model also posits merely expecting to need an attitude toward a particular
object increases chronic accessibility, and cognitive elaboration is another manner by which attitudes
become more accessible. According to the transactive model, accessible attitudes tend to
Media Priming and Accessibility • 87
operate in a manner that maintains their accessibility through frequent activation and elaboration.
For example, because accessible attitudes orient our attention to objects in our environment,
the accessible attitudes are reactivated (Roskos-Ewoldsen, 1997). Additionally, the
activation of an attitude motivates biased elaborative processing that maintains or increases the
attitude’s accessibility (Rhodes et al., 2008; Roskos-Ewoldsen et al., 2002). For example, in
a recent study, cigarette smokers showed more biased processing of anti-smoking messages than
did non-smokers (Rhodes et al., 2008). In addition, as the smokers judged the anti-smoking ad
to be more biased, they also indicated they were less likely to quit smoking. In other words, the
anti-smoking ad created reactance in the smoker, which reinforced their desire to smoke.
Importantly, the accessibility of the smokers’ attitudes mediated this process. The accessible
pro-smoking attitude operated as a defense mechanism for these smokers to protect their smoking
behavior from threats such as anti-smoking ads, and their accessible attitudes strengthened
the behavioral response to continue smoking.
Norm Accessibility
Normative beliefs, such as the subjective norm discussed in the theory of reasoned action (TRA;
Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010), can vary in accessibility (Rhodes & Ewoldsen, 2009). The subjective
norm is made up of beliefs about whether important others in one’s social world would approve
or disapprove of one’s engaging in a particular behavior. Take, for example, the case of a high
school student at a party with friends who is oﬀered an opportunity to smoke marijuana. The
decision to smoke or not may rest on the accessibility of normative constructs. If the student
anticipates that the other kids at the party will approve, then the student may go ahead and partake.
However, if that student can quickly recall that his or her parents would be strongly disapproving,
then the student might decline. Research in this area has found that accessible norms are
related to a variety of behaviors, such as drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, using marijuana, or
engaging in early sexual behavior (Rhodes, Ewoldsen, Shen, Monahan, & Eno, 2014). For teenagers,
there is often a conﬂict between parental and peer norms, such that peer norms favor riskier
behavior. Accessible parental norms have been found to be a protective factor for teens: When
parental norms are accessible from memory, they appear to be predictive of that teen’s behavior.
The accessibility of norms also has implications for how individuals process information. In
a study of smokers’ processing of anti-smoking public service announcements (PSAs), the accessibility
of smoking norms was measured, and then participants viewed anti-smoking PSAs.
Smokers with accessible norms that were supportive of smoking engaged in less central processing
and more peripheral processing than did smokers whose norms were less accessible or were
opposed to smoking (Rhodes et al., 2008). Further research found that teens with accessible
pro-smoking peer norms reported higher reactance after viewing an anti-smoking PSA. Three
months later, these teens reported greater readiness to smoke cigarettes than did their peers
with accessible anti-smoking norms (Rhodes, Ralston, & Bigsby, 2016). Thus it appears that
chronically accessible norms operate to insulate the individual from thinking about information
that may challenge the behaviors that are approved by the peer group.
Two types of norms are commonly discussed in the literature (Cialdini, Reno, & Kallgren,
1990). Descriptive norms refer to beliefs about how common a particular behavior is within
a particular group. Injunctive norms refer to one’s belief that a particular behavior will meet
with approval from important people in one’s life. In this chapter so far, we have mostly
reported results of studies that examined the accessibility of injunctive norms, as these measures
88 • David R. Ewoldsen and Nancy Rhodes
were modeled after the subjective norm (a type of injunctive norm) featured in the TRA (Fishbein
& Ajzen, 2010).
Theories of norms have tried to explicate when and how these diﬀerent norms aﬀect behavior.
Most work in this area has suggested that there is an interactive eﬀect between injunctive
and descriptive norms, such that the eﬀect on behavior is strongest when injunctive and
descriptive norms align (e.g., Rimal, 2008). Recent work has examined this relationship by
measuring the accessibility of injunctive and descriptive norms and has found these variables
interact to aﬀect behavioral intention to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors such as
recycling. These data suggest that when injunctive norms are strong and accessible, there is
little additional eﬀect of descriptive norms on behavior. In contrast, when someone lacks an
accessible injunctive norm, descriptive norms have the strongest eﬀect on behavior (Toole,
Arpan, & Rhodes, 2012). Our ﬁndings suggest that when individuals lack an accessible injunctive
norm to guide their behavior, they seek the environment for information about what people
typically do in this situation, an interpretation that is consistent with dual process theories such
as the MODE model (see next section; Ewoldsen, Rhodes, & Fazio, 2015).
Predicting Deliberative and Spontaneous Behaviors
Several models incorporate attitudes and norms to predict behavior such as the TRA. The TRA
hypothesizes that a person’s attitude toward a behavior and the subjective norms concerning
that behavior combine to predict a person’s behavioral intention. The behavioral intention then
predicts behavior. There have been several derivatives of the TRA (Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010).
These models have been tested extensively over the years, and research generally has supported
these models. However, one criticism of this category of models is that they predict behavioral
intentions and thus only explain deliberative behavior (Fazio, 1990; Rhodes & Ewoldsen, 2013).
Fazio’s (1986) process model of the attitude–behavior relationship addresses how accessible
attitudes predict behavior. The process model maintains that accessible attitudes are more likely
to be activated when an object is in the environment. The activation of this attitude biases the
perception of the object and, consequently, how the event is deﬁned. A person with an accessible
negative attitude toward spiders is likely to have that attitude activated when they see a spider;
they will perceive the spider as “bad” and deﬁne the event as aversive. Norms operate within the
process model by inﬂuencing how the situation is deﬁned. Speciﬁcally, the accessible norm deﬁnes
the range of behaviors that are appropriate in the situation. For example, if I see a spider in my
basement, I am in a diﬀerent situation than if I see a spider walk across my plate at my favorite
eating establishment. I am much more likely to scoop up the spider and take it outside when in
my basement than when I am at a restaurant. As already discussed, accessible injunctive norms
guide a person’s behavior, and the process model hypothesizes that this occurs because the accessible
norms dictate what are or are not acceptable behaviors within that situation.
At this point, we would seem to be in a situation where we have two competing models: the
TRA and its derivatives, and the process model and related models (e.g., transactive model of
attitude accessibility; Roskos-Ewoldsen, 1997). However, these models apply in diﬀerent contexts.
As already discussed, the TRA and its derivatives do an excellent job of predicting deliberative
behavior. Conversely, the process model predicts spontaneous behavior. The Motivation
and Opportunities as DEterminants (MODE) model merges these two frameworks (Ewoldsen
et al., 2015; Fazio, 1990). Speciﬁcally, the MODE predicts that when people are highly motivated
and have the opportunity, they will carefully consider the available information when deciding
Media Priming and Accessibility • 89
how to act. In these situations, people are engaged in deliberative behavior, and models such as
the TRA and the Integrative Model do an excellent job of predicting behavior. Conversely,
when people are not motivated or do not have the opportunity to carefully make a decision,
they are more likely to engage in spontaneous behavior and will rely on accessible information
(Rhodes & Ewoldsen, 2013).
We believe that the MODE model has important implications for media scholars. Speciﬁcally,
the distinction between spontaneous and deliberative behavior is often ignored by media
scholars (Ewoldsen et al., 2015), but if scholars are going to understand the processes that
underlie behaviors related to the media (e.g., media selectivity, binging, outcomes of viewing),
then these distinctions need to be carefully considered because the processes underlying these
diﬀerent types of behavior will diﬀer.
Priming
Priming refers to the eﬀect of some preceding stimulus or event on how we react, broadly
deﬁned, to some subsequent event or person (Roskos-Ewoldsen, Klinger, & Roskos-Ewoldsen,
2007; Roskos-Ewoldsen, Roskos-Ewoldsen, & Carpentier, 2009). As applied to the media, priming
refers to the eﬀects of the content in the media on people’s later behavior, thoughts, or
judgments. Priming is used to explain the short-term eﬀects of media violence, the eﬀects of
political coverage on evaluations of a candidate, and stereotyped portrayals of minorities
(Roskos-Ewoldsen et al., 2007). More recently, priming emerged as an explanation for the eﬀect
of avatars on people’s judgments and behaviors (Peña, 2011).
Characteristics of Priming Eﬀects
Not surprisingly, theory predicted and research quickly found that not all primes are the same.
Research on priming has demonstrated three important characteristics of priming. First, the
eﬀect of a prime dissipates with time. Recent primes have a greater eﬀect on judgments or
behaviors than temporally distant primes (Higgins, Bargh, & Lombardi, 1985). Recency refers to
the time lag between the prime and the target (e.g., the time between seeing a gun on TV and
seeing an ambiguous behavior that could be interpreted as hostile). Eventually, given no more
activation, the activation level of the node returns to its resting state and is no longer primed.
With cognitive tasks such as lexical decision tasks, which involve judgments of whether a string
of letters is a word, or attitude priming tasks, which involve judgments of whether a word has
positive or negative connotations, the priming eﬀect dissipates typically within one second (Higgins
et al., 1985). However, in tasks that involve social judgments or evaluations of a social
stimulus, the priming eﬀect can last up to 15 to 20 minutes and possibly up to one hour
(Roskos-Ewoldsen et al., 2007). Whereas much media research has ignored the inﬂuence of
time and the fading of priming eﬀects (Arendt, 2013b; Roskos-Ewoldsen et al., 2009), metaanalysis
suggest that media primes do fade with time (Roskos-Ewoldsen et al., 2007) and experimental
research clearly indicates that at least certain types of media primes fade with time
(Arendt, 2013b; Riddle, 2010; Roskos-Ewoldsen et al., 2007).
Second, primes that are stronger (e.g., involve more energy) will tend to have stronger eﬀects
on people’s judgments and behavior (Higgins et al., 1985). One of the problems with discussions
of prime strength involves exactly what makes a prime stronger. The strength or intensity
of a prime is manipulated either through the frequency of the priming event (e.g., a single
90 • David R. Ewoldsen and Nancy Rhodes
exposure to a gun vs. ﬁve exposures to a gun in quick succession) or the duration of the priming
event (e.g., 15 minutes of exposure versus 1 minute). Research has demonstrated both frequency
(Arendt, 2013a, 2015) and intensity of priming as inﬂuencing media priming eﬀects
(Dillman Carpentier, Roskos-Ewoldsen, & Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2008). Vividness might also inﬂuence
priming, with highly vivid portrayals resulting in stronger priming eﬀects (Riddle, 2010).
Importantly, a linear increase in the strength of the prime does not result in a linear increase in
the priming eﬀect (Arendt, 2015).
Third, primes tend to have stronger eﬀects on situations that are ambiguous (RoskosEwoldsen,
1997). Unambiguous situations leave little room for diﬀerent interpretations, but an
ambiguous behavior can be interpreted in myriad ways. Given the ambiguity of much of social
behavior, priming eﬀects can be occurring quite frequently in our day-to-day lives. Arendt
(2017) demonstrated this is the context of news coverage priming racial stereotypes. The
primed stereotype inﬂuenced judgments only when the to-be-judged object was ambiguous.
Priming of Violence and Aggression
Research on media violence and aggressive thoughts, feelings, emotions, and behaviors has been
studied extensively (Huesmann, Dubow, & Yang, 2013). The available research indicates that TV
and video game violence may inﬂuence people’s behavior, particularly in the short term (Huesmann
et al., 2013), and these eﬀects can range from decreased sensitization to violent behavior to
increases in such behavior. Consistent with a priming explanation for media violence, many studies
have demonstrated that people who are exposed to a violent TV clip or play a violent video game
are more likely to think aggressive thoughts (see Bushman, 1998; Bushman & Anderson, 2002).
However, does the priming of aggressive thoughts translate into aggressive behavior? The answer
seems to be “it depends” (see Chapter 14 of the current volume).
There are two major models of aggression priming. The ﬁrst is Berkowitz’s (1984, 1990)
neo-associationistic model, which draws heavily from network models of priming. The model
hypothesizes that depictions of violence in the media activate hostility and aggression-related
concepts in memory. The activation of these concepts increases the likelihood that ambiguous
behavior is interpreted as aggressive or hostile and increases the likelihood that one will engage
in aggressive behaviors. Without further input, however, the activity levels of these hostile and
aggressive concepts fades with time, as does their associated likelihood of inﬂuencing aggressive
behavior. Across the research on Berkowitz’s model, people who are primed with violent media
content are more likely to respond with hostility when a person provokes them after the priming
event. Consistent with our earlier discussion, this provocation is ambiguous and the violent
prime leads people to interpret the provocation as aggressive.
The second model is the General Aggression Model (or GAM), which is an extensive elaboration
of the neo-associationistic model (C. A. Anderson, Gentile, & Buckley, 2007). This model incorporates
aﬀect and arousal into a network framework and introduces a multi-stage process by which
situations inﬂuence aggressive behavior. In the ﬁrst stage of the GAM, situational variables (e.g.,
pain, frustration, depictions of violence) prime aggressive cognitions (e.g., hostile thoughts, memories)
and aﬀect (e.g., hostility, anger). These external situational variables can result in increased
arousal, aggressive thoughts, and aggressive emotions. This ﬁrst stage involves relatively automatic
processes that are outside the control of the individual. In the second stage, the primed cognitions
and aﬀect, in conjunction with the increased arousal, inﬂuence primary appraisals. Primary appraisal
involves the interpretation of the situation, including the attribution of one’s arousal in that
Media Priming and Accessibility • 91
situation, and tends to be more automatic than eﬀortful in nature. This stage of the model is similar
to Fazio’s (1986) process model and explains spontaneous behaviors similar to the MODE. The
ﬁnal stage of the model involves secondary appraisals, which are more eﬀortful, controlled appraisals
of the situation, and involve thoughtful consideration of various behavioral alternatives to the situation
(e.g., deliberative behaviors within the MODE). This ﬁnal stage can override the primary
appraisal. For example, a person may have aggressive thoughts primed by playing a violent ﬁrstperson
shooter game. The activation of these thoughts leads to an increased likelihood of making
hostile attributions when, for example, someone cuts the person oﬀ in traﬃc. However, the person
can override these attributions and choose not to respond in a hostile manner towards the other
driver.
Political Priming
Political priming research has traditionally focused on how media coverage of diﬀerent events
inﬂuences what information people use when making judgments about politicians and political
issues (Iyengar & Kinder, 1987; S.-H. Kim, Han, & Scheufele, 2010; Krosnick & Kinder, 1990).
Historically, scholars in this area have focused on global judgments of presidential approval as
the chief outcome variable. Political priming research has found that when the media predominately
focus on domestic issues, then judgments of how well the president is doing on domestic
issues weigh heavier in people’s overall evaluations of the president, compared to the case
where international news is the predominant focus of the media. Importantly, in political priming,
the emphasis is on how the media inﬂuence what information is salient (e.g., weighted)
when people make judgments.
In a classic study, Krosnick and Kinder (1990) measured the priming eﬀect of Iran-Contra
media coverage on public evaluations of President Reagan’s overall performance. In 1986, the
Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan conducted lengthy face-to-face
interviews which included evaluations of President Reagan, both overall and regarding his
performance on foreign aﬀairs, domestic policy, and other publicized issues. The interviews
were conducted both before and after the date on which the Attorney General publicly conﬁrmed
the sale of arms to Iran and the subsequent distribution of the sale proﬁts to the Contras.
Krosnick and Kinder (1990) compared responses obtained before and after the IranContra
announcement (the priming event) to see which foreign or domestic aﬀairs issues contributed
most to the respondents’ overall performance evaluations of President Reagan. Before
the priming event, domestic issues predicted overall evaluations of Reagan more than foreign
aﬀairs issues. After the priming event, the opposite was true; foreign aﬀairs issues, especially
those issues involving Central America, predicted the respondents’ overall evaluations of
Reagan more than domestic issues. This study shows that media coverage of political events
can prime the information that people use when making judgments of presidential
performance.
In addition, there is a growing focus in research on political priming on the types of information
that are primed by news coverage and what type of information people use when
primed by the media (S. Kim, Scheufele, & Shanahan, 2002). Research on political priming has
implicitly assumed a “hydraulic model” in which the media prime people to use certain information
at the expense of competing information. In a study of political priming in coverage of
the ﬁrst Gulf War, Y. M. Kim (2005) found evidence that news coverage increased the variety
of information that was used by people who pay careful attention to the media.
92 • David R. Ewoldsen and Nancy Rhodes
Models of Political Priming
Until recently, the theoretical mechanisms by which the media prime evaluations of the President
have been largely unspeciﬁed. Initially, some scholars argued that priming is really just an
extension of agenda setting (Iyengar & Kinder, 1987). Consistent with this idea, Iyengar and
Simon (1993) used the availability heuristic to explain political priming eﬀects. As in other
domains, the availability explanation has not been well developed within the political priming
domain.
Only one model of political priming has been developed suﬃciently to explain the political
priming (Price & Tewksbury, 1997). Price and Tewksbury’s model of political priming is based
on network models of memory and the role that the media play in increasing the accessibility
of information from memory. As discussed earlier, network models maintain that both chronic
and temporary accessibility of constructs inﬂuences their likelihood of ﬁring. In addition, Price
and Tewksbury incorporate the applicability of information into their model. Applicability
refers to deliberate judgments of the relevance of information to the current situation. Clearly,
if primed information is not relevant, it should not be used when making political judgments.
Within Price and Tewksbury’s model, constructs that are activated by the media and judged as
applicable to the current situation inﬂuence how the message is framed or interpreted. On the
other hand, those constructs that are activated by the media and judged as not applicable to the
current situation are not brought into working memory, but the activation of these constructs
by the media means that they may act as a prime.
The research by Dillman Carpentier et al. (2008) is generally consistent with Price and
Tewksbury’s model of political priming. The one diﬃculty is the time frame of the priming
eﬀect. Dillman Carpentier and her colleagues found that the eﬀect of a prime faded within 30
minutes after exposure (see also S.-H. Kim et al., 2010). Although these time frames are consistent
with Price and Tewksbury’s model, they are diﬃcult to reconcile with much of the political
priming literature that looks at eﬀects of exposure that last for several weeks. Price and Tewksbury’s
model can explain these long-term priming eﬀects by assuming that continued media
coverage makes the concepts chronically accessible.
Some research challenges the accessibility explanation of political priming. Miller and Krosnick
(2000) experimentally manipulated media exposure to current issues and found a standard
priming eﬀect. The accessibility of the primed issues was also measured using reaction times.
Contrary to an accessibility explanation, those participants who were quicker at the reaction
time task did not weigh the accessible information more heavily than those who were slower.
Thus, the researchers concluded that construct accessibility could not be the direct cause of political
priming. However, Miller and Krosnick (2000) incorrectly interpret the role of deliberative
processing as meaning that accessibility was not an important component of the political priming
eﬀect. The activation of highly accessible constructs can motivate deliberative processing
(Rhodes et al., 2008; Roskos-Ewoldsen et al., 2002). Thus, the deliberative processing that they
found evidence for may well be a consequence of increases in the accessibility of the constructs
primed by the manipulated media coverage.
Priming of Stereotypes
A growing area of research concerns the potential for media to prime various stereotypes,
including gender (Hansen & Hansen, 1988), mental illness (Holman & McKeever, 2017), and
Media Priming and Accessibility • 93
racial stereotypes (Arendt, 2013b, 2017; Dalisay & Tan, 2009; Oliver, Ramasubramanian, &
Kim, 2007; Power, Murphy, & Coover, 1996; see also Chapter 16 of this volume). This area of
research has grown remarkably with a focus on the impact of media primes on perceptions of
both individuals in interpersonal settings and on the media, and the eﬀects of stereotype primes
on political judgments (Oliver et al., 2007).
Exposure to rock music videos that portray stereotypical images of men and women resulted
in more stereotypical impressions of a man and a woman interacting in a second video (Hansen
& Hansen, 1988). In particular, participants perceived the woman as less dominant after exposure
to the stereotypical portrayals than after exposure to rock music videos that included no stereotypical
portrayals. Also focusing on perceptions of individuals, Power et al. (1996) found that
reading stereotypical information in a newsletter about either African Americans or women inﬂuenced
judgments of later unrelated media events concerning the target group. For example, counter-stereotypical
depictions of women resulted in higher ratings in Anita Hill’s credibility in the
Clarence Thomas sexual harassment hearings, whereas stereotypical depictions lowered ratings of
Hill’s credibility (see also Brown Givens & Monahan, 2005). However, research is mixed on the
impact of stereotypical depictions in video games on the accessibility of racial stereotypes (Burgess,
Dill, Stermer, Burgess, & Brown, 2011; Cicchirillo, 2015).
An interesting area of research involves how priming a stereotype can spread to inﬂuence
other judgments. For example, representations of African Americans in the news was found to
inﬂuence people’s attitudes toward various political issues (Oliver et al., 2007). Dixon (2006)
found that participants had stronger support for the death penalty after viewing a newscast with
African American suspects as compared to a newscast involving the same crimes but in which
the race of the criminal was unspeciﬁed. Domke, McCoy, and Torres (1999) also demonstrated
that the framing of a news story about immigration (the story focused on the economic eﬀects
versus the ethics of immigration) could inﬂuence whether racial stereotypes of Hispanics were
primed, despite no mention of Hispanics in the story. These activated stereotypes also inﬂuenced
subsequent political judgments such as the eﬀects of immigration on the economy (see
also Domke, 2001). Similarly, priming the Asian American as a “model minority” stereotype
resulted in more positive judgments of Asian Americans and more negative judgments of
African Americans, even though African Americans were not represented in the story (Dalisay
& Tan, 2009). In addition, priming the Asian American “model minority” stereotype undermined
support for aﬃrmative action.
A ﬁnal issue that has been explored in research on racial stereotypes involves whether highly
accessible stereotypes can be further primed. In a laboratory setting, chronically accessible constructs
can be primed so that they are even more accessible in memory (Bargh, Bond, Lombardi,
& Tota, 1986). The question is whether such an eﬀect—which is by its nature subtle—can be
demonstrated in a media context. Speciﬁcally, for Caucasians in the United States, racial attitudes
of African Americans tend to be highly accessible from memory. Can these already chronically
accessible racial stereotypes be primed? Certainly, evidence suggests political campaigns
have attempted to prime high accessible racial stereotypes. For example, a content analysis of
pictures of Barack Obama from the 2008 presidential campaign suggests that the McCain campaign
might have used pictures of Obama with darker skin tone, particularly in ads that associated
Obama with crime issues (Messing, Jabon, & Plaut, 2015). However, can media prime
already highly accessible racist attitudes? Research does suggest that media can increase the
accessibility of these chronically accessible attitudes through priming (Luttig & Callaghan, 2016;
Messing et al., 2015).
94 • David R. Ewoldsen and Nancy Rhodes
Avatars as Primes
Other than the research on video games, little research has directly assessed the impact of new
communication technologies on chronic accessibility or priming and the research. Research has
found that pictures and texts interact to inﬂuence priming, suggesting the potential for complex
priming eﬀects from websites (Northup & Dillman Carpentier, 2015). Likewise, sidebar and
banner ads on a website that featured strong sexual appeals primed judgments of an individual’s
social media proﬁle picture (Dillman Carpentier, Parrott, & Northup, 2014). Research like this
has certainly demonstrated that priming can occur in rather novel ways in online environments.
But the area that has received by far the most recent research is the potential for avatars to
prime people’s judgments and behavior (Peña, 2011). In a particularly clever experiment, Peña,
McGlone, and Sanchez (2012) demonstrated that avatars could prime social stereotypes. Specifically,
participants assigned sophisticatedly dressed avatars used signiﬁcantly diﬀerent language
than participants assigned a glamorously dressed avatar. For example, participants with sophisticatedly
dressed avatars were more likely to talk about education and books, whereas participants
with glamorously dressed avatars talked more about sports, entertainment, and clothes.
The Proteus eﬀect is the ﬁnding that the appearance of a person’s avatar can inﬂuence judgments
of the self (Yee, 2014). Research suggests that the Proteus eﬀect is consistent with priming
eﬀects (Peña, Hancock, & Merola, 2009). As an illustration, Peña et al. (2009) had
participants in a virtual museum use avatars that were either wearing Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
garb or dressed as a doctor (or the “avatar” was transparent in the control condition). The
KKK garb primed more aggressive thoughts and potentially inhibited positive thoughts.
The research on media priming has greatly improved in the last decade with a growing focus
on understanding the processes underlying media priming eﬀects. Clearly, media content act as
a prime. In addition, media operate as a prime in a number of diﬀerent domains, through
a number of diﬀerent channels. Critically, there has been an increased focus on understanding
the processes underlying the media priming phenomenon. Unfortunately, there have been no
attempts to integrate the research on media priming across the diﬀerent research domains.
Conclusion
This chapter has reviewed research on both chronic and momentary accessibility (i.e., priming)
of concepts in memory. Using Fazio’s MODE model and Roskos-Ewoldsen’s transactive model
as an organizing framework, we have shown how the media can aﬀect the chronic accessibility
of concepts through repeated exposure and in the moment through priming. In turn, we have
shown how the accessibility of concepts in memory aﬀects interpretation of media content as
well as the prediction of future behavior.
This is an exciting time to be studying accessibility and priming eﬀects. The research across
the last decade in this area is much more theoretically driven than was true of earlier research.
Likewise, research is demonstrating greater generality of both of these phenomena. The study of
norm accessibility has emerged in the last decade. Likewise, although the study of political
priming has a much longer history, early research on political priming only focused on the
impact of television news on judgments of the U.S. president. Today, a much broader range of
topics are studied and priming and accessibility eﬀects continue to be found. Furthermore,
although early work on violence priming focused on video games, research on priming and
accessibility eﬀects is found across media platforms. The work on the Proteus eﬀect as an
Media Priming and Accessibility • 95
example of priming is a promising line in theorizing. As this work shows, priming and accessibility
eﬀects are found across media technologies.
Notes
1 We will be using examples from network models of memory such as J. Anderson’s (1983)
ACT* model because that is the way accessibility and priming are often discussed in the communication
literature. However, there are many diﬀerent theoretical models of memory. For
example, connections models assume a very diﬀerent cognitive system, yet these models can
also explain accessibility and priming (Sun, 2014). Although our examples use the language of
network models, we are agnostic in this chapter as to which model of cognition is correct.
2 Arendt and Brantner (2015) argue that they were studying attribute agenda setting, which refers
to the ability of the media to make particular attributes of a phenomenon salient. However, they
used Payne, Cheng, Govorun, and Stewart’s (2005) aﬀective misattribution measure (AMP) to
measure attribute agenda setting. The AMP is traditionally interpreted as a measure of automatically
activated attitudes; so, we think this is a clearer interpretation of their results. Indeed,
many of the more recent studies cited in this chapter rely on implicit measures of attitudes. An
implicit measure involves measuring a variable without the participants’ awareness. A number
of implicit measures exist and a complete discussion of these measures is beyond the scope of
this chapter (see Blanton & Jaccard, 2015). However, all of these measures are based on the
assumption that they are measuring highly accessible attitudes (Ewoldsen et al., 2015).
Scholars often appear to assume implicit measures are measuring a diﬀerent attitude than
explicit measures. To be clear, based on one’s theoretical perspective, it may make sense to talk
about implicit vs. explicit attitudes (see for example, Arendt, 2013a). However, not all models
assume implicit measures are measuring a diﬀerent attitude (Ewoldsen et al., 2015).
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