Bryant et al 05.
fm Page 74 Friday, April 13, 2012 12:11 PM
five
chapter
Priming
It is assumed that concepts that have some relation to each other
are connected in some mental network, so that if one concept
is activated, then concepts related to it are also activated.
—Entry on “Priming,”
University of Alberta’s Cognitive Science Dictionary, 1998
Suppose someone in your family once battled cancer and overcame it through
conventional treatment. Years later, a Hollywood star appears on the television
news and in the tabloids, suffering from the same cancer that your family mem-
ber had. Chances are you would be more interested in reading about the star’s
plight with the disease, curious about treatment, and so forth. You would
already have certain information stored in your memory about that particular
kind of cancer due to personal experience with someone who battled the dis-
ease. Your memories would be activated by the new information.
Priming is the study of this activation of related concepts archived in the
mind of a media consumer. Studies of priming usually test priming activation
from the introduction of information from media messages.
Many priming studies, for example, have looked at media content related to
political issues and tested how exposure to that content affects presidential per-
formance ratings or other measures of public opinion. In the case of these stud-
ies, the media are said to “prime” certain information in the minds of audience
members, which can cause them to give more importance to one issue (i.e.,
agenda setting, see Chapter 6), or even influence their judgments on important
matters (i.e., persuasion, see Chapter 10).
Consider the example of viewing media content. What mental associations
would you expect such content to prompt in viewers? Does media violence
cause viewers to make associations with angry or critical thoughts stored in
their own memories? More significantly, does the viewing of mediated violence
74
Bryant et al 05.fm Page 75 Friday, April 13, 2012 12:11 PM
Priming 75
and the mental associations it arouses make viewers more likely to commit acts
of violence themselves?
These types of questions lie at the heart of many social scientific investiga-
tions of media effects, as well as questions related to the psychological processes
present whenever media effects do indeed occur. Cognitive research typically
explores short-term media effects that sometimes have long-term implications.
Historically, such research has employed strong experimental designs and tight
controls that lend rigor and specificity to the research, although at the expense
of generalizability to “real-world” media-violence issues.
The cognitive theoretical emphasis involves application of theories from
psychology, including social psychology, to explain media effects phenomena,
including social cognitive theory and priming, the subject of this chapter. Prim-
ing is a popular area of media effects research based upon the psychological
principles of information processing by means of cognitive components. Priming
theory often serves as a theoretical basis for particular studies in other areas of
media effects research, including agenda setting and other political communica-
tion issues. As with the other major theories in the body of media effects
research, so many studies have focused on the priming mechanism itself that an
entire body of media effects literature related to priming now exists.
This chapter examines the theoretical underpinnings of priming and
reviews some of the important studies that have measured priming effects
resulting from mediated communication. Following a description of the priming
mechanism and factors that may determine its activation, the chapter provides a
glimpse into the conceptual foundations for the theory, examines a research tra-
dition rooted in principles of cognitive psychology, and explores variables that
enhance priming effects. Finally, the most recent research studies involving
priming mechanisms and future directions in priming research are considered.
Activation of Priming
Priming occurs when exposure to mediated communication activates
related thoughts that have been stored or “archived” in the mind of an audience
member. Media message content triggers concepts, thoughts, learning, or
knowledge acquired in the past that are related to the message content. In this
way, message content is connected, associated, or reinforced by related thoughts
and concepts that it brings to mind. For a certain period of time after viewing
such content, a person is more likely to have thoughts about the content, related
thoughts, or memories. In some instances, the related thoughts or memories
become permanently associated with the message content or stimulus (Fiske &
Taylor, 1991).
For example, a network newscast that features a story on the U.S. recession
may cause a viewer to remember her grandparents’ horror stories of life during
the Great Depression. Any knowledge already acquired regarding economic
depressions would be associated with new information gathered from the news-
cast. The viewer’s interest in the news story and reaction to it may well be
Bryant et al 05.fm Page 76 Friday, April 13, 2012 12:11 PM
76 Chapter Five
affected by existing knowledge and previous experiences. If, for example,
depression stories heard during childhood caused much anxiety, the story of
current economic hardships might cause the recollection of such feelings. In
other words, the news story primed a particular reaction.
As applied to the media, priming refers to the effects of the content of the
media on people’s later behavior or judgments related to the content that
was processed. . . . [I]t is important to understand that, with priming, the
effect of the priming event is time bound. For example, in media priming
focused on violence, studies often find that the priming effect fades
quickly—oftentimes within the time course of the experimental setting (Far-
rar & Krcmar, 2006; Josephson, 1987; Roskos-Ewoldsen, Klinger, & Roskos-
Ewoldsen, 2007). For political priming, the effects are often argued to last
for perhaps two months. . . . (Roskos-Ewoldsen, Roskos-Ewoldsen, & Car-
pentier, 2009, pp. 74–75)
The priming activation may also influence a person’s behavior, causing a par-
ticular reaction, sometimes with undesirable consequences. For most people,
priming effects cause only mild reactions that usually diminish in time and may
even pass unnoticed. Nevertheless, the overall evidence for priming has been sub-
stantial. The strength of the activation, the types of thoughts provoked, and the
behavioral results of the activation depend upon a number of contingent factors.
Conceptual Roots
Media violence priming has been based upon two models, cognitive neoasso-
ciation (Berkowitz, 1984, 1990, 1994, 1997) and the general affective aggression
model (Anderson, 1997). Political priming has also been explained by a network
model that takes into account the accessibility or frequency of primed informa-
tion from mass media, along with the applicability of such information in the
mind of the viewer (Price & Tewksbury, 1997; Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007).
Whereas Roskos-Ewoldsen and his associates (2009) point out that “prim-
ing, as conceptualized by network models of memory, clearly occurs with the
media” (p. 84), they also note the shortcomings of the network models for
explaining the different areas of priming and argue for the use of mental models
as an alternative approach for understanding the mechanisms present in prim-
ing effects.
Cognitive Neoassociation
The concept of cognitive neoassociation is a social psychological perspec-
tive that attempts to explain a portion of the phenomenon of memory (Ander-
son & Bower, 1973; Landman & Manis, 1983). To understand cognitive
neoassociation, one must picture the brain as a complex network of pathways
that connect associative ideas, thoughts, feelings, and concepts. Memory can be
described as the overall network. When a person watches a television program
or reads a newspaper, the information being processed triggers or activates cer-
