Heuristic - Mass Communication

Mass Communication

Research has shown that humans are cognitive misers who use low-information rationalities to make decisions. Because we are presented with an overwhelming amount of information every day, we take in only the necessary information to make decisions and rely on heuristics and informational shortcuts the majority of the time. In the study of media effects, judgmental heuristics have been shown to play an active role in the simplifying of news and political communication. Use of these cues and other signals from elites allows average people the opportunity to achieve a modest level of rationality in reaching a decision. This can be accomplished without having to devote any significant measure of cognitive effort normally required to arrive at thoughtful and considered choices. The limited capacity theory model and other information processing models have been influential in the study of how people encode, store and retrieve political information. Most people maintain a minimum level of interest in public affairs, and therefore employ simplifying shortcuts to arrive at political judgments. Common examples include referring to the complex military and intelligence activities by NATO forces in the Middle East simply as “the war on terror,” a reversal of a specific policy or position as a “flip-flop,” and the homogenization of any type of broad government assistance program as “socialism.”

Risk assessment of new technologies offers another example of how ordinary citizens seek shortcuts to expediently arrive at judgments. Most people maintain a low level of interest in issues that are not center to their daily lives, such as developments in the various fields of science and technology. Media frames can produce powerful heuristics that can have significant impact on public opinion about a given new technology. Research has shown media frames that suggest high risk often lead to strong negative perceptions and possible rejection of a technology. An example is the casting of genetically modified foods as “Frankenfoods” and using illustrations containing visual cues to Frankenstein’s monster.