Proximity, Not Story Format, Improves News Awareness among Readers

Abstract

News researchers have studied various facets of news recall and retention, including recall differences across media (newspapers, radio broadcasts and television newscasts), benefits of visuals in recall and how story style (feature story, news story, etc.) affects recall. The consensus of all these studies has been that media users recall very little of the news presented to them, regardless of medium or method.1 What related studies have determined, however, is that people remember and understand general information (not just news stories) more effectively if it is presented in a manner that is personally relevant or provides cues about importance and salience.2 And while no previous research has specifically tested news stories and editorials together for recall and understanding, research on newspaper editorials has pointed to the importance of editorial pages for informing citizens, helping cement their opinions and encouraging general newspaper readership.3The key concepts of interest in this study are news awareness and proximity. In seeking to expand upon previous research, it is important to test not just news recall but news awareness-defined in numerous earlier studies as a reader's knowledge plus understanding about the topic.4 The proximity concept, when applied to news and journalism, indicates the local nature of the news-how close, both physically and psychologically-an event is to the reader.3 Researchers have repeatedly found that issues to which the reader feels both a high physical and high psychological proximity are best recalled and understood.6 Recall increases directly with level of involvement and with level of prior knowledge about the subject.7There are several benefits of studying story format and story proximity. In a practical sense, story format and proximity are important because they can be changed. Newspapers cannot affect their audiences' educational or socioeconomic status, their previous knowledge or their cognitive frameworks-all factors in readers' news awareness. Newspapers can, however, change the format used to present stories and the proximity of those stories to the readers' everyday lives. The study of story format and proximity has the potential to produce useful, practical information that can improve news awareness in citizens.Research QuestionsTo understand how story proximity is related to news vs. editorial format and how both proximity and format affect recall and awareness, the following research question is posed:RQ1:What is the relationship between proximity of news information, story format (news story vs. editorial) and degree of news awareness?The literature suggests that recall of information is strongest for print media and for topics about which the reader has some previous knowledge. In addition, when recalling information, readers tend to relate it to their lives and fill in the missing spaces with culturally relevant information.8 These ideas, taken together, suggest the following hypothesis:H1:People will have a greater awareness of news when it is presented as local than when it is presented as nonlocal.In addition, reading newspaper editorials and editorial pages may encourage readership of other sections of the newspaper as well as civic participation and a deeper understanding of local issues. Newspaper editorials provide cues about the importance of the information contained in the editorial based on that material's selection as an editorial topic. Editorials also provide visual cues about importance because of their placement on the opinion page and a layout that differs from that of news stories. Editorials provide arguments that can help readers refine their own opinions about important issues. This understanding of newspaper editorials and their functions suggests another research question:RQ2:Does reading newspaper editorials produce a greater awareness of news than does reading hard news stories? …