Post-Exposure Processing

Abstract

Abstract We offer a framework and a model that illuminates how communication technology shapes media effects by first understanding how people are exposed to information, and, second, understanding how they process that information once exposed. The chapter emphasizes that exposure is necessary but insufficient for learning and thus, a more serious treatment of attention is needed. The physical and cognitive access framework underscores the difference between the opportunities mobile devices offer for physical access to information, and the ways that same device structures cognitive access to information. Notably, physical access can mitigate, but not eradicate, the costs associated with information seeking and processing, which are exacerbated by mobile device features. Mobile features make attention allocation, and thus learning, more costly. With this in mind, the post-exposure processing model sets forth parameters for understanding the effects of changes in communication technology. We apply the framework and model to mobile devices.