Distinguishing Effects of Game Framing and Journalistic Adjudication on Cynicism and Epistemic Political Efficacy

Abstract

An online experiment tested the influence of “he said/she said” coverage versus active adjudication of factual disputes, as well as strategy versus policy framing in postdebate news coverage. Adjudication in policy-framed stories increased epistemic political efficacy (EPE), a measure of confidence in one’s own ability to determine the truth in politics. However, adjudicated policy stories also elicited greater cynicism than passive policy framing. This suggests a caveat for the spiral of cynicism, calling into question its assumption that all policy framing behaves similarly in reducing cynicism. Results also provide several forms of evidence that effects of adjudication on EPE differ from spiral of cynicism effects while further validating the EPE construct as distinct from the reverse of political cynicism. Adjudication also positively affected evaluations of the coverage as interesting and informative.