The Accessibility Bias in Politics: Television News and Public Opinion

The influence of television news over public opinion is traced to the accessibility bias in processing information. In general, the argument stipulates that information that can be more easily retrieved from memory tends to dominate judgments, opinions and de-cisions. In the area of public affairs, more accessible information is information that is more frequently or more recently conveyed by the media. Four different manifestations of the accessibility bias in public opinion are described including the effects of news coverage on issue salience, evaluations of presidential performance, attributions of issue responsibility, and voting choices. The latter half of the twentieth century may well be remembered as the age of television. People in industrialized societies spend a significant portion of time watching television, and television takes up a larger share of the typical persons waking hours than social interaction. The ritualization of television viewing has led to scholarly fascination with the medium, and virtually all forms of behavior, both anti-social and pro-social have been attributed to television viewing. A recent review of communications research identified no fewer than 1043 effects of television on social behavior. Observers of American politics take for granted the pervasive influence of television. While no meta analysis has as yet appeared, a casual reading of the political communication literature suggests that television has been held re-sponsible for declining voter turnout, increased disenchantment with govern-mental institutions, weakening of political parties, changes in the strategies of