Media Effects On Attitudes Towards Patriotism

Abstract

Every day Americans are subject to various portrayals of political matters and figures. The aim of this study was to address the correlation between media one is recently subjected to and one’s attitudes towards democratic and antidemocratic values. A pre-test of values of patriotism and survey of attitudes on democracy was administered before participants viewed both a “spoof” clip from The Daily Show of the Presidential Inauguration, or, a section from the actual Inaugurational address. A Rokeach values test was administered to offer insight about the correlation of certain terminal values to one’s attitudes about democracy, followed by a post-viewing test of attitudes. It was expected the responses on the attitudes surveys would change to align with the content of the media. Participants consisted of 40-50 college students volunteering from the psychology department. An ANOVA 2x2 mixed factorial test indicated that only scores on Free Speech and Political Equality Tests were significantly altered by media viewed. A number of terminal values however correlated strongly with multiple attitudes tests. Further investigations with a larger sample size and time frame between pretest and viewing/posttest would produce results of greater accuracy