Chapter 24 Quiz: Framing, Priming, and Persuasion

Instructions: Select the best answer for each multiple-choice question. Short-answer questions should be answered in 2-4 sentences unless otherwise noted.

Multiple Choice

1. Robert Entman's definition of framing includes four functions. Which of the following is NOT one of Entman's four framing functions?

a) Problem definition b) Causal interpretation c) Audience identification d) Treatment recommendation

Answer: c

2. Iyengar's research on episodic vs. thematic framing found that:

a) Thematic framing consistently produced more negative attitudes toward government than episodic framing b) Episodic framing led audiences to attribute political problems to individual behavior, while thematic framing led to systemic/policy attributions c) Both framing types produced equivalent levels of political accountability attribution d) Episodic framing was more effective in laboratory settings but thematic framing was more effective in natural viewing conditions

Answer: b

3. The "death tax" versus "estate tax" distinction is best classified as:

a) Equivalence framing, because both terms refer to the same tax policy b) Emphasis framing, because the terms foreground different morally salient features of the same policy c) Agenda-setting, because the choice of term determines whether the tax receives media coverage d) Priming, because exposure to the term "death" increases mortality salience

Answer: b (Note: This is a deliberately challenging question. While "death tax" does exploit mortality salience as a psychological mechanism—which is priming-related—the classification of the frame type as emphasis framing is the primary intended answer. A strong case could be made that it is a hybrid. Discussion of the ambiguity is valuable in class settings.)

4. McCombs and Shaw's 1972 Chapel Hill study established that:

a) The media changes what people think—their opinions—on political issues b) The media changes what people think about—the perceived importance of issues c) Voters' issue preferences drive media coverage through market demand signals d) Agenda-setting effects are strongest for highly obtrusive issues close to voters' personal experience

Answer: b

5. The Elaboration Likelihood Model predicts that political messages are most effective through "peripheral route" processing when:

a) Recipients have high motivation and high ability to evaluate message arguments carefully b) The message is delivered by a highly credible source in a formal context c) Recipients have low motivation or low ability to evaluate arguments, relying instead on heuristics and emotional cues d) The message involves a policy issue directly relevant to the recipient's economic interests

Answer: c

6. Nelson and Oxley's Klan rally framing experiment found that:

a) Free speech framing increased tolerance for the rally, while public safety framing decreased tolerance b) Public safety framing increased tolerance for the rally because it made the community context more salient c) Neither frame had a significant effect on tolerance because the subject matter was too extreme d) Free speech framing produced backlash effects because it was perceived as insensitive to victims

Answer: a

7. The "accessibility" component of priming refers to:

a) The degree to which a voter can identify and remember the policy positions of political candidates b) The degree to which a consideration is cognitively available at the moment of evaluation following recent exposure c) The relevance of an accessible consideration to the specific evaluation task being performed d) The ease with which a political message can be understood by a low-information voter

Answer: b

8. Druckman and Nelson's immigration framing experiments found that framing effects were reduced when:

a) Subjects were given additional factual information before the framing exposure b) Subjects were able to discuss the issue with others who held different views before making a judgment c) The framing messages were delivered by sources perceived as politically motivated d) Subjects were given more time to deliberate before responding to survey questions

Answer: b

9. Kalla and Broockman's 2018 meta-analysis of field experiments found that average persuasion effects of political campaign contact in general elections were:

a) Large and consistent across different campaign types and voter segments b) Significant but concentrated among low-information voters who had little prior candidate knowledge c) Approximately zero, with some positive effects in primary elections and for down-ballot races d) Negative for negative advertising and positive for positive advertising, approximately canceling out

Answer: c

10. ODA's "frame absence analysis" is designed to detect:

a) Stories that fail to include any identifiable frame category b) The frames that are conspicuously absent from coverage given the available information c) The gap between a journalist's intended frame and the frame readers actually perceived d) Technical errors in the automated frame classification system

Answer: b

Short Answer

11. Distinguish equivalence framing from emphasis framing and explain why the distinction matters for evaluating the ethics of political communication. (4-5 sentences)

Model Answer: Equivalence framing presents logically equivalent information in formats that produce different judgments—as in Kahneman and Tversky's gain/loss framing, where mathematically identical probabilities produce different preferences. Emphasis framing foregrounds different aspects of a multifaceted issue rather than presenting logically equivalent content differently. The ethical distinction matters because equivalence framing demonstrably exploits cognitive inconsistency—it produces different judgments despite identical factual information, indicating that the frame is doing work that rational deliberation would reject. Emphasis framing, by contrast, involves genuine disagreements about which policy features are most morally salient, making it more defensible as legitimate advocacy even when strategically deployed. The "death tax" example sits in contested territory: it is technically emphasis framing (different features of the same tax) but also exploits mortality salience in ways that seem more like equivalence framing's exploitation of irrational bias.

12. Explain the mechanism of priming through the accessibility-applicability distinction and give one specific example from electoral politics. (3-4 sentences)

Model Answer: Priming works because recently encountered information increases the cognitive accessibility of related considerations—making them more available for subsequent evaluation tasks. However, accessible considerations only influence evaluations when they are also judged applicable to the evaluation at hand. In electoral politics: heavy crime coverage makes crime-related considerations accessible to voters, which will prime them to evaluate Senate candidates on public safety grounds—but only if they also judge public safety to be an applicable criterion for Senate evaluation, which varies by voter context. Candidates whose strongest ground is primed by current media coverage benefit from the applicability judgment even when they haven't worked to prime it themselves.

13. Why does the dominance of episodic framing in television news have politically conservative implications even when television news is not ideologically conservative? (4-5 sentences)

Model Answer: Iyengar's research establishes that episodic framing—presenting political issues through individual cases and events—consistently produces individualistic causal attributions rather than systemic ones. When audiences attribute poverty, crime, or unemployment to individual behavior and circumstances, they are less likely to hold political institutions accountable for those outcomes through policy demands. This structural tendency benefits political actors who prefer to reduce government accountability and emphasize personal responsibility, which in the American political context correlates with conservative policy positions. The effect is independent of whether individual journalists or news organizations are politically conservative; it emerges from the commercial and technological pressures that make episodic storytelling dominant regardless of editorial ideology. This is an example of how measurement and format choices—not just content choices—have political consequences.

14. Adaeze's "transparency test" for ODA's own framing choices asks whether audiences would feel informed or manipulated if they knew the framing choice and its rationale. Identify one strength and one limitation of this test as an ethical standard. (3-4 sentences)

Model Answer: A strength of the transparency test is that it anchors the ethical evaluation to the perspective of the people being communicated with, rather than solely to the communicators' intentions—it asks whether audiences would endorse the framing choice if given full information, which is a reasonable approximation of a consent-based ethical standard. A limitation is that the test relies on communicators accurately modeling what their audiences would find manipulative versus informative, which is a judgment the communicators themselves are poorly positioned to make objectively—their own political commitments and professional interests will inevitably shape their modeling of audience perspectives. An independent audit by members of the audiences being communicated with would provide a more reliable version of the same principle.