What's More Persuasive? How the Internet and Newspaper Change Opinions

The Internet has become an integral part of society. While people have been turning to the Internet for their news, newspapers are still a powerful source of information. This study investigates whether the newspaper or Internet is more effective at altering people’s opinions. Participants included people ranging from 18-78 years old. After reading a political endorsement that appeared to come from either a printed newspaper or a news website, participants rated their opinions on this candidate. When the message included strong arguments, the source of the article did not have an effect on how well the articles were able to change people’s opinions. Conversely, when the message contained relatively weak arguments, people were significantly more persuaded by the newspaper article than the website article. These effects were not moderated by age, income or average time on a computer or reading a newspaper. This shows the overall untrustworthy nature of the Internet despite its growing popularity. How Media Source Changes Opinions 3 What’s More Persuasive? How the Internet and Newspaper Change Opinions People rely on the Internet for everything. They search for the weather rather than walk outside, send a friend a Facebook wall-post rather than call him on the phone, and do research online instead of making the trip to the library. The Internet is not the only powerful medium, however. Prior to the Internet’s popularity, newspapers had always been regarded as the major informant of current events, political candidates and political parties (Kim, 2008). In fact, of all media types, newspaper print and the Internet have been seen as the most similar sources of information. This similarity has been attributed to the similar skills necessary to comprehend both forms of media, such as the ability to judge the source, a high level of literacy and the skill to maneuver through different pages (Bonfadelli, 2002). In recent years, however, these two types of media are drifting apart and newspapers are starting to be put away as people turn to the web for their news. Since both the Internet and newspapers are powerful methods of information sharing, why are people turning to the web? From 1999 to 2009, the total paid circulation for newspapers has decreased by 22% (NAA, 2010). The obvious reason for this decrease in newspaper sales is people’s preference of using the Internet to get their news (Purcell, Rainie, Mitchell, Rosenstiel, & Olmstead, 2010). According to a survey, obtaining the news was found to be the second most popular reason why people use the Internet, only following behind emailing (Holmquist, Holsanova, Barthelson, & Lundquist, 2003). In response to this rapid growth in Internet use, many newspapers now produce an online version of their paper (Kim, 2008). So if there is a definite shift in preferred source for information from printed papers to online news sites, are there any How Media Source Changes Opinions 4 consequences for the change? Even with the massive increase in Internet use for social networking, games and research, is the Internet still too new for people to fully trust it when it comes to the news? Do different types of media change the way people perceive the information presented in them? As stated earlier, newspapers have always been viewed as a powerful source of information. Previous researchers concluded that newspaper’s ability to display a large amount of information in a single edition accounts for its effectiveness at spreading news. Therefore, researchers assumed that the Internet’s greater capacity to hold information would make it an even more effective source of news. Additionally, the Internet embraces its users with its interactive nature (Cliff, Kania, & Yaechkel, 1998; Stern, 1999) and allows viewers to have full control of what information they are seeing, giving readers higher motivation to learn this information (Bandura, 1982; Schunk, 1991). For these reasons, researchers assumed that the Internet would be a better source of information than a printed newspaper. There appear to be many reasons why the Internet should be more effective at informing readers and the trend of turning to the Web instead of printed papers suggests its greater effectiveness. Interestingly, however, studies have found the opposite. Newsprint, rather than the Internet, was found to be better at informing the public on social and political issues. In one study, participants were able to enumerate more topics of articles after having read a printed newspaper compared to an online paper (De Waal & Schoenbach, 2008). Likewise, newspapers, rather than the Internet, were found to be more effective at displaying a particular topic as being important (De Waal & Schoenbach, 2008). Printed newspapers are, in fact, responsible for the public’s greater How Media Source Changes Opinions 5 awareness of different topics and issues. Despite people’s preference for the Internet, the research seems to suggest people actually learn more from reading a newspaper. Perhaps the trend towards the Internet is simply an environmental decision, but the cost for cutting down on paper waste is less-effective learning. The format and the process of using the Internet can explain the findings that people learn a greater variety of information from newsprint compared to online news. Some found that there is simply too much information on the Internet. The greater range of stories actually hurts comprehension as viewers get too distracted on the web and dismiss what they read (Kim, 2008). In fact, one survey found that 70% of the participants felt that the amount of information they can gather from the web is overwhelming (Purcell et al., 2010). The control one possesses when using the Internet might actually be harmful for one’s ability to gain information. For instance, one study used eye tracking technology to discover that those who read news stories on the web spend more time scanning – looking for what they want to read – than actually reading any articles (Homquist, et al., 2003). This study also found that readers of the web also scanned significantly more than newspaper readers, who spent most of the time carefully reading. Readers on the Internet are often too busy making the decision of what to read to actually read the articles. The self-guided nature of the Internet leads to poorer comprehension in other ways as well. The unlimited freedom of the web prevents readers from viewing information that they are not immediately interested in and therefore limits the information they gather (De Waal & Schoenbach, 2008). If one can choose what to read by clicking a link or typing in a keyword, he is very unlikely to stumble upon an article How Media Source Changes Opinions 6 he does not automatically find interesting. While reading a newspaper, on the other hand, one is more likely to glance over an article he would not have actively sought out (Homquist, et al., 2003). Once again, it appears that reading a newspaper is a more powerful method of learning information than browsing the Internet. The Current Research The question remains, does this greater success in sharing information transfer to changing the opinion of the public? Is there another effect of the different types of media? Beyond making the public aware of different information, the media have a powerful role in convincing viewers of particular opinions. Advertisements, of course, aim purely to alter the public’s opinion. So are certain types of media more effective at influencing audiences? Printed information in any form ought to be more powerful than broadcasted information since there is greater control by the viewer in terms of length of time processing the information and choice of what information to focus on (Krugman, 1965). With more freedom, viewers have more time to comprehend the arguments presented and they can focus on the parts of the advertisement they feel is necessary to change their opinion. Similarly, one study found that advertisements on a printed poster or a pop up on the Internet were more powerful than radio advertisements (Nysveen, & Breivik, 2005). In this study, participants saw an advertisement for either airline tickets or a ski resort. Overall, participants rated the product (either the airline tickets or the resort vacation) as more appealing after viewing the advertisement on the Internet or a printed poster rather than a radio. Furthermore, participants showed higher attitudes towards the advertisements from the Internet and printed ads compared to the radio ad. There were no significant differences between the effects of the Internet and printed How Media Source Changes Opinions 7 advertisements on participants’ opinions, suggesting that visual arguments compared to audio arguments are more persuasive. Therefore, the newspaper, whether online or in newsprint, must be a powerful source of information. So which form is more powerful? If both the Internet and newspaper are strong at altering the public’s view, it is important to investigate which of these news sources is more persuasive. This current study investigates which type of media is more effective at changing the opinions of the reader. Because of all the ways in which the format of the Internet might affect a person’s response to the information presented, this current study aims to remove secondary features of the Internet or printed newspaper to find the difference between participants’ responses depending purely on the source of information. Hypothesis 1: Newsprint Is More Persuasive than Internet News One study found a high correlation between people’s preference to reading a printed newspaper and their political knowledge, while there was only a moderate association between reading the Internet and obtaining political knowledge (Kim, 2008). These findings support the experiments previously discussed illustrating that printed papers are better informers on curren