Date of Award

1-1-2012

Document Type

Campus Access Thesis

Department

School of Journalism and Mass Communications

First Advisor

Sei-Hill Kim

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study was to explore attribute agenda setting and priming effects in South Korea. In order to demonstrate the role of the media in shaping people's perceptions of Genetically Modified (GM) foos, I first examined the attributes of GM food that have appeared more often than others in Korean news media (attribute agenda setting). Then, I linked the results of the content analysis to survey data and explored whether certain attributes emphasized in the media became salient in people's minds (attribute priming). Findings support the transmission of issue salience from the media to the public. First, more salient attributes in the news media were more likely to influence people's evaluation of GM food. Second, the media - public correspondence between the media's agenda and the public's agenda of GM food was significantly greater among high media users, especially among high television viewers. With these findings about the attribute agenda setting and attribute priming, Korean news media seem to make certain attributes of an issue more or less salient in people's minds.

Rights

© 2012, Soo Yun Kim

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