F.

Arendt:
Journalof Cultivation
Media Psychology Ef fects
©2010;
2010 of22(4):147–159
Vol. a Newspaper
Hogrefe Publishing

Original Article

Cultivation Effects of a Newspaper

on Reality Estimates and
Explicit and Implicit Attitudes
Florian Arendt
Department of Communication, University of Vienna, Austria

Abstract. This paper explores the cultivation effect of a newspaper on its readers’ reality estimates and attitudes. Additionally, the study
tries to advance cultivation research by examining implicit attitudes (i.e., automatic affective reactions toward an object). A content
analysis of four months of news coverage in one particular newspaper showed that foreigners were overrepresented as offenders and that
the newspaper had a negative view of the EU. According to cultivation theory, it is assumed that the more people read a newspaper, the
more their reality estimates and attitudes correspond to the most recurrent, stable, and overarching patterns of the newspaper’s content.
To test this hypothesis, a total of 453 students participated in a study that used a cross-lagged panel design with two waves and a time-lag
of two months. Consistent with the cultivation hypothesis, those who spent more time reading the newspaper were more likely to
overestimate the frequency of foreigners as offenders (i.e., first-order cultivation) and had more negative self-reported attitudes toward
the EU (i.e., second-order cultivation). Additionally, those who read more of the newspaper showed more negative implicit attitudes
toward the EU (i.e., implicit cultivation). The data show evidence of a significant causal influence of newspaper exposure on implicit
attitudes, and a marginally significant causal effect on the overestimation of foreigners as offenders and on explicit attitudes toward the
EU. The consideration of implicit attitudes as an additional dependent variable could advance cultivation theory and research.

Keywords: cultivation, newspaper, media effects, implicit attitudes

Introduction
We live in a mass mediated society. The mass media play
important roles in our daily lives. For that reason, the mass
media are considered important social agents, transmitting
social perceptions and attitudes (Weimann, 2000). In fact,
the content of the mass media and their possible effects on
recipients have been major concerns of social scientists for
decades (Bryant & Oliver, 2009).
The empirical work reported in this article investigated
the possible cultivation effects that reading a newspaper
had on readers’ social perceptions and attitudes. The study
also attempted to advance existing cultivation research by
using implicit attitudes as an additional dependent variable.
Previous Cultivation Research
Many studies have claimed to show the effect of exposure
to a mass medium on recipients’ social perceptions and at-
titudes. One prominent theory in this area is cultivation the-
ory (Gerbner & Gross, 1976; Morgan, Shanahan, & Signo-
rielli, 2009). Cultivation theory is based on the findings that
television content often presents a systematic distortion of
reality. For example, content analyses have shown that par-
ticular occupations such as doctor, judge, and police officer
occur with much greater frequency on television than in
reality (Weimann, 2000). The central hypothesis of this the-
ory, called cultivation hypothesis, states that people who
watch more television are more likely to perceive the real
world in ways that reflect the most common and recurrent
messages from television, as compared to people who
watch less, but are otherwise comparable in terms of im-
portant demographic characteristics (Morgan et al., 2009).
For example, if there is an overrepresentation of doctors on
television, heavy viewers should overestimate the real-
world incidence of doctors.
Although the original formulation of the cultivation hy-
pothesis and much of the subsequent research focused on
television, several studies have investigated the cultivation
effect of newspapers (Arendt, 2008, 2009; Bauer, 2005;
Grabe & Drew, 2007; Guo, Zhu, & Chen, 2001; Hicks &
Lee, 2004; Nisbet & Wang, 2004; Reber & Chang, 2000;
Reimer & Rosengren, 1990; Stroman & Seltzer, 1985; Ver-
geer, Lubbers, & Scheepers, 2000). The focus on television
is due to the assertion that television is the “central cultural
arm of American society” (Gerbner & Gross, 1976, p. 175).
No claim has been made regarding the validity of this state-
ment outside of the American context (see Reimer & Ro-

© 2010 Hogrefe Publishing Journal of Media Psychology 2010; Vol. 22(4):147–159

DOI: 10.1027/1864-1105/a000020
148 F. Arendt: Cultivation Effects of a Newspaper
sengren, 1990). It must be noted that the specific media
structure of the country and context that is being studied is
of major importance. In Austria, where more than 75% of
the population reads a newspaper daily, but only 63% of
the population watches television daily (Verein Arbeitsge-
meinschaft Media-Analysen, 2008), the omission of news-
papers from a cultivation discussion would be absurd.
Whether there are different cultivation effects for different
media channels due to different content (e.g., television is
mostly fictitious; newspapers are mostly factual) is an em-
pirical question (see Grabe & Drew, 2007).
The media market in Austria (Steinmaurer, 2009) is a
typical example of a small state market with a giant next-
door neighbor sharing the same language. The print media
market is highly concentrated. Kronen Zeitung (Krone for
short) is the dominant player. Because Krone has approxi-
mately 3 million readers a day in a country of 8 million
inhabitants (Verein Arbeitsgemeinschaft Media-Analysen,
2008), it can be seen as the mainstream of the Austrian
print-based symbolic environment. This newspaper has
been criticized by many observers for its biased news cov-
erage. For example, Wise (2002) wrote:
“With three million readers a day, Austria’s Kronen Zeitung
has perhaps the highest per capita circulation of any newspaper
in the world. It gained this preeminence with an almost dadaist
collage of stories fanning fears that Vienna is being swamped
by undesirable refugees, editorials tinged with anti-Semitic in-
nuendo, and articles trivializing the Holocaust” (p. 12).
In addition, many people in the Austrian public think that
Krone has a strong impact on its readers (Plasser & Leng-
auer, 2010). In the words of one former Austrian Chancel-
lor, “it is impossible to govern without the support of the
Krone” (Art, 2007, p. 336).
From a theoretical point of view, there is a difference
between assuming that newspapers in general (e.g., Aus-
trian newspapers) produce a cultivation effect and claim-
ing a cultivation effect from one particular newspaper
(e.g., Krone). However, in the case of Austria, it seems
appropriate to study the effect of Krone for at least two
reasons. First, the constructed realities in different news-
papers are not the same. Like many other scholars who
promote content-specific cultivation research, Bilandzic
and Rössler (2004) criticized Gerbner and Gross’ (1976)
assumption regarding the homogeneity of the media con-
tent. There are too many differences among, for example,
Der Standard (quality newspaper, leftist), Die Presse
(quality newspaper, conservative), and Krone (tabloid,
opportunistic/conservative) with regard to constructed
realities (Berkel, 2006; Stark & Kraus, 2008). Second,
according to cultivation theory, different media realities
lead to different cultivation hypotheses and thus, should
have different cultivation effects. Consistent with this no-
tion, research has found content-specific cultivation ef-
fects (Bilandzic & Rössler, 2004). Although the majority
of newspaper-cultivation studies have investigated the ef-
fects of general newspaper use, there is empirical work
Journal of Media Psychology 2010; Vol. 22(4):147–159
concerning the cultivation effect of specific newspaper
products (Vergeer et al., 2000).
Shanahan and Morgan (1999) conducted a meta-analy-
sis based on a database consisting of 5,799 separate find-
ings, derived from 97 cultivation studies conducted since
1976. Average Pearson r’s were about .10. Partial r’s were
slightly lower at .09. The authors concluded that the culti-
vation literature has demonstrated that there is a small pos-
itive relationship between watching television and various
dependent variables. Another meta-analysis conducted by
Rossmann (2008) verified Shanahan and Morgan’s results.
There is no meta-analysis regarding newspaper cultivation.
Based on the findings from the small number of available
studies mentioned above, we can assume that newspapers
are also able to produce a cultivation effect.
In Austria, two cultivation studies have been conducted
to investigate the effects of television. Both studies found
support for the cultivation hypothesis (Appel, 2008; Barth,
1988). Additionally, two cultivation studies have tested the
cultivation hypothesis with regard to the effects of a partic-
ular newspaper product and found supporting empirical ev-
idence (Arendt, 2008, 2009).
Implicit Cultivation
In cultivation research, a distinction is made between two
kinds of dependent variables. First-order cultivation refers
to effects on social perceptions (set-size and probability
judgments; see Shrum, 2009), while second-order cultiva-
tion refers to effects on attitudes and values (Shanahan &
Morgan, 1999). This article tries to advance cultivation the-
ory and research by using implicit attitudes as an additional
dependent variable, and thus investigate the phenomenon
of implicit cultivation. Shrum (2007) referred to this new
dimension as a “promising area of research” (p. 265).
In Gawronski and Bodenhausen’s (2006) associative-
propositional evaluation (APE) model, implicit attitudes
are interpreted as “automatic affective reactions resulting
from the particular associations that are activated automat-
ically when a person encounters a relevant stimulus”
(p. 697). This process does not require much cognitive ca-
pacity or an intention to evaluate an object. Associations
can be activated irrespective of whether a person considers
these evaluations as accurate or inaccurate. Processes of
propositional reasoning assess the validity of automatic, af-
fective reactions. This assessment provides the basis for
evaluative judgments, which are reflected in explicit (i.e.,
self reported) attitudes that are termed second-order judg-
ments in cultivation research. Research on explicit and im-
plicit attitudes has shown that implicit attitudes predict
spontaneous behavior better while explicit attitudes predict
controlled behavior better (Gawronski & Conrey, 2004).
Arendt (2009) included implicit attitudes for the first
time in cultivation research. That research, which involved
a sample of 92 participants, demonstrated a small cross-
sectional correlation between newspaper exposure and im-
© 2010 Hogrefe Publishing
 F. Arendt: Cultivation Effects of a Newspaper
plicit attitudes toward the EU. This finding must be repli-
cated with a larger sample. Because of the cross-sectional
nature of both Arendt studies, and their lack of first-order
measures, an empirical investigation that addressed these
drawbacks was needed.
Overview of the Present Empirical
Work
Cultivation research has two steps. First, researchers must
conduct (or refer to) a content analysis to reliably outline
selected features and trends in the world that newspapers
present to their readers. Based on this empirical evidence,
researchers formulate cultivation hypotheses. In a second
step, researchers aim to determine whether those who
spend more time reading the newspaper are more likely to
perceive social reality in ways that reflect the world of the
mass medium. Following this research paradigm, Study 1
attempted to outline the Krone world with regard to specific
aspects of social reality. Based on these findings, cultiva-
tion hypotheses were formulated. Study 2 attempted to test
these hypotheses.
Study 1
As previously mentioned, Krone has been criticized by
many observers. Two topics in particular were often men-
tioned: the European Union and crime coverage. Krone is
accused of having news coverage that (a) is very negative
toward the EU and (b) overrepresents foreigners as crimi-
nal offenders (Horvath, 2006). To produce empirical evi-
dence to deduce evidence-based cultivation hypotheses
with regard to these two different topics, a content analysis
that focused on these two aspects of social reality was con-
ducted.
Method
Sample and Procedure
The Krone news coverage between February and May 2009
was analyzed. All articles were selected and coded accord-
ing to the two topics. The unit of analysis for the EU topic
was an EU-related article. The unit of analysis for the crime
topic was a person who was suspected of having committed
an offense. The coding was done by the author. 1,140 arti-
cles were coded as relating to the EU topic and 1,920 per-
sons as pertaining to the crime topic.
© 2010 Hogrefe Publishing
149
Variables
Each EU-related article was coded in terms of whether it
exhibited a positive, negative, ambiguous, or no evaluation
of the EU. The coding was made according to a coding
schema from Früh (2007, pp. 249–260), which was used in
previous studies (Arendt, 2008, 2009). An article was cod-
ed “negative” if the EU was associated with negative con-
cepts such as “corruption” or “democratic deficit.” An ar-
ticle was coded “positive” if the EU was associated with
positive connotations. The code “ambiguous” was used
when both positive and negative associations were present.
The code “no evaluation” was used when there were no
evaluative associations. Because the same coding schema
was used in two previous studies in which articles about
the EU from the same newspaper were coded by the same
person, and Cohen’s Kappa-values indicated a highly reli-
able measurement (Arendt, 2008, 2009; κ > .90), no sepa-
rate reliability analysis was conducted for the coding of the
EU evaluation variable.
With regard to the crime topic, units were coded accord-
ing to whether an offender was labeled as an “Austrian” or
as a “foreigner” or “no relevant information available.” A
total of 1,912 cases were analyzed. For the reliability anal-
ysis, a second trained coder coded 100 cases. The Cohen’s
Kappa-value for the coded variable “nationality of the of-
fender” was .91, indicating a highly reliable measurement.
Results
With regard to the EU, 48.5% articles were coded as neg-
ative. Only 1.5% were coded as positive. Most of the re-
maining articles had no evaluation, and only a few were
considered ambiguous. Regarding the crime topic, the na-
tionality of the offender (Austrian or foreigner) was coded
in 1,004 cases. For the rest of the articles, no information
pertaining to the nationality of the offender was available.
Based on these 1,004 cases, 65.3% of all those suspected
of having committed an offense were labeled as foreigners.
Offenders from Serbia, 10.8%, and Hungary, 9.4%, were
the most frequently represented in the foreigner category.
Discussion
First, the results of the content analysis indicate that Krone
has a very negative view of the EU. Second, data from the
Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt, per-
sonal communication, January 28, 2009) show that in 2008,
27.2% of all those suspected of having committed a crime
were foreigners. This leads to the conclusion that there was
a massive overrepresentation of foreigners in Krone’s
crime reporting (reality: 27.2%, Krone: 65.3%). Offenders
from Serbia (reality: 3.26%, Krone: 10.8%) and Hungary
(reality: 0.91%, Krone: 9.4%) were the most overrepresent-
ed.
Journal of Media Psychology 2010; Vol. 22(4):147–159
150 F. Arendt: Cultivation Effects of a Newspaper
Study 2
Development of the Cultivation Hypotheses
Based on the theoretical background discussed above and
the findings of the content analysis, the following cultiva-
tion hypotheses could be derived:
Hypothesis 1: The more someone reads Krone, the more
this person overestimates the frequency of foreigners, par-
ticularly Serbs and Hungarians, as criminal offenders (i.e.,
first-order cultivation).
Hypothesis 2: The more someone reads Krone, the more
negative the explicit attitudes this person has toward the
European Union (i.e., second-order cultivation).
Hypothesis 3: The more someone reads Krone, the more
negative the implicit attitudes this person has toward the
European Union (i.e., implicit cultivation).
Because cultivation theory predicts that at least a part of
the correlation between newspaper exposure and a depend-
ent variable can be attributed to the causal influence of
newspaper exposure (Gerbner & Gross, 1976), an addition-
al hypothesis can be formulated:
Hypothesis 4: There is a causal influence of newspaper ex-
posure on first-order, second-order, and implicit measures.
Additional Theoretical Considerations
Because it is likely that personality-related factors also
have a causal effect on the first-order measures, one addi-
tional variable was considered: symbolic racism (Henry &
Sears, 2002). This variable is conceptualized as a relatively
stable personality trait. “Old-fashioned” racism incorpo-
rates social distance between the races, beliefs in the bio-
logical inferiority of others, and support for formal discrim-
ination and segregation. In contrast, symbolic racism rep-
resents another kind of “new” racism. The word
“symbolic” was chosen to highlight the idea that the beliefs
that are part of this type of racism are rooted in an abstract
system of moral values and ideals. Henry and Sears con-
ceptualized symbolic racism on four dimensions focusing
on more contemporary racism issues: (a) work ethic and
responsibility for outcomes (i.e., the sense that foreigners’
failure to progress comes from their unwillingness to work
hard enough), (b) excessive demands (i.e., the sense that
foreigners are demanding too much), (c) denial of continu-
ing discrimination (i.e., the sense that foreigners no longer
face much prejudice in society today), and (d) undeserved
advantage (i.e., the sense that foreigners have received
more than they deserve). Following the argumentation of
Reimer and Rosengren (1990, p. 199), the effects of news-
Journal of Media Psychology 2010; Vol. 22(4):147–159
papers on relatively stable and deeply rooted variables such
as symbolic racism should be small. A cultivation effect
would only be observable over a long period of time (e.g.,
several years). From that argumentation, an explorative re-
search question could be formulated:
RQ1: Is there a cross-sectional correlation between expo-
sure to a newspaper (Krone) and symbolic racism; does
exposure have a causal influence on symbolic racism; and
does symbolic racism have a causal influence on the fre-
quency-estimates?
To broaden the perspective regarding the EU-topic, two ad-
ditional variables were considered. First, the valence of the
free associations toward the EU was chosen to give partic-
ipants the opportunity to freely recall some of their associ-
ations with the EU. The rationale behind this lies in the
heuristic processing model for first-order cultivation ef-
fects proposed by Shrum (2009). Based on the model, it
can be assumed that exposure to Krone, which reports a lot
of negative attributes regarding the EU, enhances the ac-
cessibility of those attributes. Thus, readers should more
easily recall negative attributes than non-readers (while
other variables are held constant). Because Shrum’s model
deals with first-order cultivation, and the present study
measures free associations in the context of second-order
measures with regard to newspaper cultivation, the theoret-
ical knowledge is not sufficient to develop a hypothesis.
For that reason, another explorative research question was
formulated.
RQ2: Is there a cross-sectional correlation between expo-
sure to a newspaper (Krone) and the valence of the free
associations with the EU, and does exposure have a causal
influence?
A second variable, which should broaden the perspective
pertaining to the EU-topic, is behavioral intention (e.g.,
intentions to vote in favor of Austria exiting the EU). Nabi
and Sullivan (2001) attempted to determine if heavy tele-
vision viewing influences not only first- and second-order
measures (violence in society), but also behavioral inten-
tions (intentions to engage in protective behavior). Their
findings indicated that amount of television viewing direct-
ly influenced prevalence estimates of violence in society as
well as intentions to take protective measures. Because the
present study has a different main focus and because there
is a lack of theoretical knowledge concerning this variable
in the context of newspapers, another explorative research
question was formulated.
RQ3: Is there a cross-sectional correlation between expo-
sure to a newspaper (Krone) and behavioral intentions (to
vote in favor of Austria exiting the EU), and does exposure
have a causal influence?
© 2010 Hogrefe Publishing
 F. Arendt: Cultivation Effects of a Newspaper
Method
Overview
Most cultivation studies are based on a cross-sectional de-
sign. By definition, correlations cannot be interpreted caus-
ally without additional theoretical assumptions. The cross-
lagged panel design (Burkholder & Harlow, 2003; Kenny,
1975; Reinecke, 2005) with two waves, which is used in
the present study, allows more confident causal inferences.
Participants
A total of 453 students enrolled in communication courses
at the University of Vienna, Austria, participated in this
study. A time lag of two months for the two-wave panel
design was chosen for economic reasons (because of the
length of the semester). 73.8% were female. The partici-
pants ranged in age from 18 to 36 years (M = 21.15, SD =
2.34). 262 students participated in the study both at Time
1 and Time 2. The panel mortality was due to some students
not attending courses at both times. 42.9% of participants
at Time 1 and 43.8% of participants at Time 2 read Krone.
Materials
The materials consisted of a questionnaire, a 13-page taped
booklet that contained the paper-format Implicit Associa-
tion Test (IAT, Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998;
Lemm, Lane, Sattler, Khan, & Nosek, 2008) on the first six
pages, and a survey on the following seven pages. The same
questionnaire was used at both times.
Measures
Krone Exposure. Exposure was conceptualized as a latent
variable. Data for four manifest variables were collected:
1. Bipolar measure (question: “How often do you read Kro-
nen Zeitung?”; answer: seven-point bipolar scale from nev-
er to every day); 2. Days-per-week measure (question:
“How many days a week do you read Kronen Zeitung?”);
3. Minutes-per-week measure (question: “How many min-
utes a day do you read Kronen Zeitung?”; calculation: min-
utes-per-day multiplied by days-per-week); 4. Last-14-
days measure (question: “On how many of the last 14 days
did you read Kronen Zeitung?”). The outcome of two com-
mon factor analyses (one for Time 1 and one for Time 2)
was one factor at both Time 1 and Time 2, which explains
most of the variance of the indicator variables (Time 1:
85.77%, Time 2: 81.80%). Correlation analyses were per-
formed with the factor scores of these latent variables. The
composite reliability (i.e., construct reliability; see Dia-
mantopoulos & Siguaw, 2007, p. 90) indicates a highly re-
liable measurement at both times (Time 1: .96, Time 2: .96).
© 2010 Hogrefe Publishing
151
Frequency of Foreigners
Participants were asked: “What percentage of all people
who are suspected of having committed an offense are for-
eigners?” They had the following choices for answering
this question: “27, 29, 31, 33, 35, 37, 39, 41, 43.” The first
number, 27, reflected the reality answer (as indicated by
official statistics), and the last number, 43, reflected the
Krone answer (as indicated by the content analysis of Study
1). When the survey questions were formulated, it was un-
clear whether the proportion of foreigners was stable above
60 percent during the whole period of two months. Because
of that, the Krone answer was chosen to be lower than it
actually was. It should be noted that there is an ongoing
debate about the most accurate question format (Hetsroni,
2007; Rossmann, 2008, p. 36).
Frequency of Serbs
Participants were asked: “What percentage of all people
suspected of having committed an offense are Serbs?”
They had the following choices for answering the question:
“3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.” The first number, 3, reflected
the reality answer, and the last number, 11, reflected the
Krone answer.
Frequency of Hungarians
Participants were asked: “What percentage of all people
suspected of having committed an offense are Hungari-
ans?” They had the following choices for answering the
question: “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.” The first number, 1,
reflected the reality answer, and the last number, 9, reflect-
ed the Krone answer.
Symbolic Racism
Because of space limitations in the questionnaire, each di-
mension of symbolic racism was assessed with one item,
which could be rated on a seven-point scale from totally
agree to totally disagree: (a) “Foreigners work as hard as
Austrians,” (b) “Discrimination against foreigners is no
longer a problem in Austria,” (c) “Foreigners are demand-
ing too much from the rest of society” and (d) “Foreigners
have received too many rights, but must not attend to a
comparable amount of duties.” The outcome of two com-
mon factor analyses (one for Time 1 and one for Time 2)
was one factor at both times, which explained 57.83% of
the variance at Time 1 and 58.90% of the variance at Time
2. Correlation analyses were performed with the factor
scores of these latent variables. The composite reliability
indicated a reliable measurement at both times (Time 1:
.87, Time 2: .86).
Explicit attitudes
The generalized attitude measure from McCroskey and
Richmond (1996) was used. This seven-point bipolar scale
has six items (good-bad, positive-negative, beneficial-
Journal of Media Psychology 2010; Vol. 22(4):147–159
152 F. Arendt: Cultivation Effects of a Newspaper
harmful, fair-unfair, wise-foolish, right-wrong). The out-
come of two common factor analyses (one for Time 1 and
one for Time 2) was one factor at both times, which ex-
plained 69.25% of the variance at Time 1 and 69.29% of
the variance at Time 2. Correlation analyses were per-
formed with the factor scores of these latent variables. The
composite reliability indicated a highly reliable measure-
ment at both times (Time 1: .92, Time 2: .94).
Implicit attitudes
One method used to measure implicit attitudes is the IAT
(Greenwald et al., 1998). The implicit attitudes variable
was measured with a paper-format IAT, which is a validat-
ed method for measuring implicit attitudes (Lemm et al.,
2008). The same paper-format IAT was used by Arendt
(2009). Figure 1 illustrates an example. Participants had to
classify words (e.g., good, bad, Vienna, Brussels) into four
categories (EU, Austria, positive, negative). Two of those
categories were concepts (EU, Austria) and two were eval-
uative attributes (positive, negative). There were two im-
Figure 1. Illustration of a paper-format Implicit Associa-
tion Test.
portant sequences. In the first combined task (congruent
condition), EU was paired with negative and Austria was
paired with positive. For example, if the word “Vienna”
was presented in the middle, participants had to classify it
as belonging to the combination “Austria or positive.” In
the second combined task (incongruent condition), Austria
was paired with negative and EU was paired with positive.
If the word “fair” was presented, participants had to clas-
sify it as belonging to the combination “EU or positive.”
The essential assumption is that categorization should be
faster when the pairing of a concept with an attribute re-
flects a stronger memory association. Thus, a person who
has a negative automatic affective reaction toward the EU
(compared to Austria), should more quickly categorize
word stimuli when EU and negative are paired together as
a category as opposed to when EU and positive are paired.
Performance was defined as the number of correct discrim-
inations in each condition. The words were taken from the
1 This formula was chosen because it was assumed that this algorithm performs better than the algorithm recommended by Lemm et al. (2008).
It must be noted that the two algorithms produce similar values, which correlate almost perfectly (see Arendt, 2009).
Journal of Media Psychology 2010; Vol. 22(4):147–159
explicit attitude measure (good-bad, wrong-right, harmful-
beneficial, fair-unfair). Words related to Austria were “Vi-
enna,” “Falco” (a celebrated Austrian musician), “Ste-
phansdom” (a famous Austrian cathedral), and “Red-
White-Red” (the colors of the Austrian flag). Words related
to EU were “monetary union,” “Brussels,” “member
states,” and “entry talks.” Arendt’s (2009) study showed
that the participants were able to categorize the word stim-
uli correctly. The design of the IAT was constructed accord-
ing to the procedure described by Greenwald et al. (1998).
Each participant completed the test for the incongruent
condition before the test for the congruent condition. The
IAT score was calculated using the following formula: (A –
B)/(A + B), where A represents the performance in the con-
gruent condition and B represents performance in the in-
congruent condition.1 The higher the score, the more com-
patible are the combinations “EU” with “negative” and
“Austria” with “positive” (than the combinations “EU”
with “positive” and “Austria” with “negative”). Thus, the
higher the score, the more negative is the automatic, affec-
tive reaction toward the EU.
Free Associations
In a first step, participants were asked to write down up to
five spontaneous associations to the EU. In a second step,
they were asked to evaluate the valence of these associa-
tions on a seven-point scale ranging from very positive to
very negative (participant-as-coder method, see Quick &
Stephenson, 2008). The mean of the evaluations was used
as the free associations measure.
Behavioral intentions
Participants were asked whether they would vote in favor
of Austria exiting the EU if there would be an election held
on the following Sunday (possible answers: yes or no).
Procedure
Due to the cross-lagged panel design of this study, data
from the participants were collected on two occasions with
a time-lag of two months (March and May 2009). This is
a relatively short time-lag, and was chosen for economic
reasons. Nevertheless, the results could be considered ac-
curate because it is known that a cultivation effect can oc-
cur in such a short time (Rössler & Brosius, 2001). Partic-
ipants completed the IAT in groups of approximately 20
people. The male experimenter informed them that they
would have to classify words into categories. The newspa-
per Krone was not mentioned in order to avoid a systematic
influence (Shanahan & Morgan, 1999; Shrum, 2009). The
participants were then given the questionnaire with the IAT
© 2010 Hogrefe Publishing
 F. Arendt: Cultivation Effects of a Newspaper 153

Table 1. Intercorrelations (Pearson) between Krone exposure and crime-related variables

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 Range M t1 SD t1
Time 1 (n = 339–392, above the diagonal), Time 2 (n = 271–392, under the diagonal)
1. Krone Exposure – .18** .18** .13** .21** standard-
ized
2. Frequency Foreigners .17** – .50** .30** .42** 1–9 4.16 2.33
3. Frequency Serbs .14* .53** – .52** .30** 1–9 4.19 2.21
4. Frequency Hungarians .10* .44** .55** – .19** 1–9 4.11 2.00
5. Symbolic Racism .27** .39** .32** .15** – standard-
ized
M t2 3.75 3.94 3.89
SD t2 2.24 2.12 2.05
Correlations between Time 1 (rows) and Time 2 (columns) (n = 250–264)
1. Krone Exposure .83** .24** .19* .11* .27**
2. Frequency Foreigners .18** .59** .44** .30** .42**
3. Frequency Serbs .19** .37** .62** .37** .32**
4. Frequency Hungarians .21** .26** .38** .50** .15**
5. Symbolic Racism .28** .45** .30** .14** .80**
Note. p < .05, ** p < .01, one-tailed.

and the survey. The experimenter had a stopwatch, which
was visible to the participants, to measure the time partic-
ipants had for each condition. For each combined task, par-
ticipants had 20 seconds. First, they took the test, then they
filled out the survey questions in the following order: ex-
plicit attitudes, behavioral intentions, free associations, fre-
quency of foreigners, frequency of Serbs, frequency of
Hungarians, symbolic racism, Krone exposure. At Time 1,
the experimenter told the participants that he would see
them again in two months. At Time 2, the experimenter
gave a debriefing after the data were collected. The data
collection took approximately 15 minutes each time. Be-
cause Krone was not emphasized at Time 1, it is assumed
that data collection regarding Krone exposure at Time 1 had
no systematic influence on the dependent variables two
months later.
Statistical Analysis
The correlational analyses were performed with SPSS for
Windows (version 15; SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL, USA). To
test the causal influence of Krone exposure, two structural
equation models (SEM) were calculated with Amos (ver-
sion 7.0; Amos Development Corporation, Spring House,
PA, USA). According to Holbert and Stephenson (2008),
three indices are reported: 1. χ²-distributed test statistic ac-
companied by degrees of freedom, the sample size, and the
p-value; 2. RMSEA (absolute index of fit); and 3. CFI (in-
cremental index of fit). Models with RMSEA values of less
than .05 are indicative of good fit, between .05 and under
.08 of reasonable fit, between .08 and .10 of mediocre fit,
and > .10 of poor fit (Diamantopoulos & Siguaw, 2007,
p. 85). CFI-values above .90 are desired (Holbert & Ste-
phenson, 2008). Additionally, a power analysis was per-
formed (MacCallum, Browne, & Sugawara, 1996). Be-
cause of the high statistical power of the models, a model
cannot be considered bad with regard to the model-fit only
because of a significant p-value. The probability of a Type
I error was maintained at .05 for all subsequent analyses.2
Results
Hypothesis 1 predicted a positive cross-sectional correla-
tion between the amount of exposure to Krone and first-or-
der measures. As Table 1 shows, this hypothesis was con-
firmed. Those who spent more time reading Krone were
more likely to overestimate the real-world incidence of for-
eigners, particularly Serbs and Hungarians, as people who
were suspected of having committed crimes. The values of
the Pearson-coefficients did not change substantially if
third variables (age, gender, nationality, rural/urban) were
controlled for using the partial correlation technique (not
shown in the table, all p’s < .01).
Hypothesis 2 assumed a positive cross-sectional corre-
lation between Krone exposure and the second-order mea-
sure. As Table 2 shows, this hypothesis was confirmed. The

2 Some of the greatest misuses of structural equation modeling occur within the model respecification phase. This process should not be
approached with blind adherence to the data (Holbert & Stephenson, 2008). If there is only a data-driven model modification, the modified
model, while demonstrating an excellent fit in one particular sample, may fail when applied to a different sample. According to Diamanto-
poulos and Siguaw (2007, p. 102), model modifications should be firmly resisted unless a clear interpretation can be offered. Because of
that reason, no model respecification will be made until the a priori specified model is absolutely inadequate.

© 2010 Hogrefe Publishing Journal of Media Psychology 2010; Vol. 22(4):147–159

154 F. Arendt: Cultivation Effects of a Newspaper

Table 2. Intercorrelations (Pearson) between Krone exposure and EU-related variables

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 Range M t1 SD t1
Time 1 (n = 340–386, above the diagonal), Time 2 (n = 274–315, under the diagonal)
1. Krone Exposure – .23** .11* .14** .22** standard-
ized
2. Explicit Attitudes .27** – .18** .58** .47** standard-
ized
3. Implicit Attitudes .16* .28** – .10* .05 (–.5)–.5 .06 .14
4. Free Associations .17** .58** .18* – .28** 1–7 3.24 1.19
5. Behavioral Intentions .19** .48** .11* .32** – 0–1 .14 .34
M t2 .03 3.24 .10
SD t2 .13 1.17 .30
Correlations between Time 1 (rows) and Time 2 (columns) (n = 250–264)
1. Krone Exposure .83** .29** .24* .17* .17**
2. Explicit Attitudes .30** .77** .26** .41** .41**
3. Implicit Attitudes .15* .16** .35** .07 –.03
4. Free Associations .17** .50** .10 .55** .21**
5. Behavioral Intentions .29** .41** .13* .24** .50**
Note. * p < .05, ** p < .01, one-tailed

more someone read Krone, the more negative were that
person’s explicit attitudes. After controlling for the same
third variables as above, the coefficients still showed al-
most the same values (not shown in the table, all p’s < .01).
Hypothesis 3 predicted a positive cross-sectional corre-
lation between Krone exposure and implicit attitudes. As
can be seen in Table 2, there is a positive correlation be-
tween exposure and implicit attitudes. Controlling for the
same third variables as above reduced the coefficients, in-
dicating that at least a part of the relationship is due to a
third variable. Despite this fact, the coefficients had the
right sign and had borderline significance at Time 1,
r(353) = .07, p < .10, and Time 2, r(280) = .09, p < .10.
This leads to the conclusion that hypothesis 3 was only
partially supported.
The first part of hypothesis 4 assumed a causal effect of
Krone exposure on first-order measures. A SEM was calcu-
lated to test this assumption. The model shows a mediocre fit
to the data (N = 247; χ² = 613.93; p < .001; power > .96;
RMSEA = .099; 90% CI RMSEA [.090, .108]; CFI = .89). As
indicated in Figure 2, Krone only had a borderline significant
causal effect on the frequency estimate with regard to for-
eigners (indicated by the cross-lag between Krone exposure
at Time 1 and the foreigner variable at Time 2). The data did
not show a causal influence of Krone exposure on the fre-
quency estimate with regard to Serbs and Hungarians.
The second part of hypothesis 4 referred to a causal in-
fluence of exposure on the second-order measure. Because
the EU topic is not directly related to the crime topic, an-
other SEM was calculated to test the second part of the
fourth hypothesis. The model (N = 234; χ² = 624.68; p <
.001; power > .96; RMSEA = .075, 90% CI RMSEA [.067,
.083]; CFI = .92) showed a reasonable fit to the data. The
data showed a borderline significant causal effect of expo-
sure on explicit attitudes. This is illustrated in Figure 3 (in-
dicated by the cross-lag between Krone exposure at Time
1 and explicit attitudes at Time 2).
The third and last part of hypothesis 4 assumed a causal
influence of exposure on implicit attitudes. The data fully
supported this assumption, as shown in Figure 3 (indicated
by the cross-lag between Krone exposure at Time 1 and im-
plicit attitudes at Time 2). Surprisingly, Krone exposure
showed the strongest causal effect on implicit attitudes. In
summary, hypothesis four was only partially confirmed.
Because the results of all of the cultivation hypotheses
have been reported, I will now present the results of the ex-
planatory data analyses for the research questions. Research
question one asked if there would be a cross-sectional rela-
tionship between Krone exposure and symbolic racism. Table
1 shows that there was a significant correlation between
amount of exposure and symbolic racism. The second part of
Research Question 1 dealt with the question of whether Kro-
ne exposure had a causal effect on symbolic racism. This was
not supported by the data. Moreover, symbolic racism had a
small but significant effect on Krone exposure. Besides this
finding, the data in Figure 2 show that symbolic racism had
a causal influence on the frequency estimate with regard to
foreigners, and that the foreigner variable had a significant
effect on the Serbs variable and the Hungarians variable.
Research Question 2 asked if there would be a cross-sec-
tional correlation between Krone exposure and the valence
of the free EU associations, and if exposure would have a
causal effect. As indicated by the data presented in Table
2, exposure correlated with the valence of the free associ-
ations. Those who read more Krone were more likely to
remember negative EU associations. Figure 3 shows that
there was only a borderline significant causal effect of ex-
posure on free associations.

Journal of Media Psychology 2010; Vol. 22(4):147–159 © 2010 Hogrefe Publishing

 F. Arendt: Cultivation Effects of a Newspaper
Figure 2. Cross-lagged panel analysis: first-order cultiva-
tion. The figure shows the standardized coefficients. To
keep the figure simple, we show only latent variables. All
links shown are significant, p < .05, except the dashed
lines, which are borderline significant, .05 < p < .10. Mea-
surement model Krone exposure: all λ’s > .79 at Time 1
and Time 2. The bipolar measure was used as the reference
variable. Measurement model Symbolic Racism: all λ’s >
.38 at Time 1 and Time 2. The comparatively small value
is because of only one item (denial of discrimination). All
other indicators show λ’s > .67. The work ethic measure
was used as the reference variable. CR = composite reli-
ability; AVE = average variance extracted.
The third and last research question asked if there
would be a cross-sectional relationship between Krone
exposure and behavioral intentions, and if exposure
would have a causal effect on that variable. The coeffi-
cients in Table 3 show that those who read more Krone
were more likely to vote in favor of Austria exiting the
EU. There was no causal influence of exposure. Interest-
© 2010 Hogrefe Publishing
155
Figure 3. Cross-lagged panel analysis: cultivation effects
on explicit attitudes, implicit attitudes, free associations,
and behavioral intentions. The figure shows the standard-
ized coefficients. To keep the figure simple, only latent
variables are shown. All links shown are significant, p <
.05, except the dashed lines, which are borderline signifi-
cant, .05 < p < .10. Measurement model Krone exposure:
all λ’s > .79 at Time 1 and Time 2. The bipolar measure
was used as the reference variable. Measurement model
Explicit Attitudes: all λ’s > .53 at Time 1 and all λ’s > .67
at Time 2. The negative measure was used as the reference
variable. CR = composite reliability; AVE = average vari-
ance extracted.
ingly, the data in Figure 3 show that behavioral intentions
had a small but significant causal effect on Krone expo-
sure. Additionally, as indicated by the SEM in Figure 3,
within the dependent measures, explicit attitudes showed
a causal influence on the rest of the EU-related dependent
variables and correlated significantly with implicit atti-
tudes (also shown in Table 2).
Journal of Media Psychology 2010; Vol. 22(4):147–159
156 F. Arendt: Cultivation Effects of a Newspaper
Discussion
This study aimed to gain insights into the cultivation effect
of newspapers and to advance cultivation theory and re-
search by using implicit attitudes as an additional dimen-
sion of the dependent variable. Data from a content analysis
of one particular newspaper found that (a) foreigners, es-
pecially Serbs and Hungarians, were overrepresented as
people suspected of having committed crimes, and that (b)
the newspaper (Krone) had a very negative view toward the
EU. Based on these findings, it was assumed that those who
spent more time reading this particular newspaper (a) were
more likely to overestimate the frequency of foreigners,
particularly Serbs and Hungarians, as people suspected of
having committed crimes (i.e., first-order cultivation), (b)
had more negative explicit attitudes toward the EU (i.e.,
second-order cultivation), and (c) had more negative auto-
matic, affective reactions toward the EU (i.e., implicit cul-
tivation). The data of the cross-lagged panel study with two
waves supported these hypotheses with regard to the cross-
sectional relationships. Only the cross-sectional correlation
between Krone exposure and implicit attitudes failed to
achieve significance after controlling for third variables.
However, the coefficients still showed the right sign and
achieved borderline significance (p < .10). It must be noted
that the magnitude of the coefficients was fully consistent
with the magnitude observed in most of the other cultiva-
tion studies (Shanahan & Morgan, 1999).
Krone exposure had a small and only marginally sig-
nificant causal influence on explicit attitudes and on the
overestimation of foreigners as people suspected of hav-
ing committed crimes. Because Krone exposure showed
no causal effect on the overestimation of Serbs and Hun-
garians as suspected offenders, these empirical findings
should be interpreted with caution. It seems that reading
Krone only affects the overestimation of a more general
social category (i.e., foreigners) and does not affect spe-
cific social categories (i.e., Serbs and Hungarians). This
should be taken into consideration in future research. In
addition, the relatively stable personality trait symbolic
racism had a small causal influence on Krone exposure.
This finding supports the assumption that newspaper’s
contribution to conceptions of social reality is not a one-
way, monolithic “push” process. Rather, the influence of
a mass medium is subtle, complex, and intermingled with
other influences (Morgan et al., 2009).
The most interesting finding of the present study is that
newspaper exposure showed the strongest causal influ-
ence on implicit attitudes. This is of major importance to
cultivation research. Thus, implicit attitudes should be
used as a dependent variable in future research. In addi-
tion, implicit attitudes can also be conceptualized as a
mediating variable: Research on the inferential processes
that people use to identify, sample, and combine infor-
mation to form impressions, and to make judgments and
guide behavior, has shown that there appear to be two
Journal of Media Psychology 2010; Vol. 22(4):147–159
distinct ways in which people process social information
(Hogg & Vaughan, 2005, p. 68). On the one hand, people
can carefully and deliberately consider a lot of informa-
tion to build a judgment (i.e., systematic processing). On
the other hand, people can rely on very few pieces of
information (i.e., heuristic processing). In cultivation re-
search, this phenomenon is best addressed by Shrum
(2009) in his heuristic processing model for first-order
effects. Two basic assumptions of this model are that (a)
people build their first-order judgments heuristically, and
that (b) the accessibility of a construct operates as a me-
diating variable between amount of exposure and first-
order measures (i.e., individuals infer prevalence, such as
the real-world incidence of doctors, from the ease of re-
trieval of relevant examples). If people process informa-
tion systematically, the cultivation effect is reduced be-
cause people use other information than that which is
most accessible.
There are some promising thoughts on a model for sec-
ond-order effects (Shrum, 2009). However, the amount of
empirical evidence and theoretical knowledge is not com-
parable to that of first-order cultivation effects. Shrum con-
ceptualized second-order cultivation as a form of persua-
sion in the tradition of dual-process models such as the
Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty, Brinol, & Priester,
2009). One additional hypothesis could be that automatic
affective reactions play a similar role in the second-order
cultivation process as construct accessibility does in the
first-order cultivation process. It is hypothesized that im-
plicit attitudes operate as a mediating variable between
amount of exposure and second-order measures (i.e., indi-
viduals build their attitudes to some extent on their “feel-
ings” toward the attitude object). As in first-order effects,
whether people construct their attitudes through heuristic
or systematic processing is important. That is, in forming
attitudes, people should rely more on their automatic affec-
tive reactions when they process heuristically because it is
assumed that cognitive elaboration (i.e., during systematic
processing) affects the complexity of propositional think-
ing. It does so by influencing the number of judgment-rel-
evant propositions that people consider in addition to auto-
matic affective reactions. To the extent that any of these
additional propositions are inconsistent with the automatic
affective reactions, systematic processing is likely to re-
duce the correlation between implicit and explicit attitudes.
For example, if systematic processing identifies an addi-
tional proposition (e.g., “There is no war in Europe because
of the EU”) that is inconsistent with the propositional im-
plication of the automatic reaction (e.g., “I dislike the EU”),
expressed explicit attitudes should be more positive than
without this additional proposition. It should be noted that
systematic processing could also increase the correlation
between implicit and explicit attitudes. This should be ob-
servable if the additional proposition (e.g., “There is a lot
of corruption in the EU”) is consistent with the proposition-
al implication of the automatic affective reaction (e.g., “I
dislike the EU”).
© 2010 Hogrefe Publishing
 F. Arendt: Cultivation Effects of a Newspaper
Although a lot of questions remain unanswered, this
study presents empirical evidence that the concept of im-
plicit attitudes could advance cultivation theory and
therefore should be considered in future research. Be-
cause the present investigation only shows a relationship
between newspaper exposure and implicit attitudes, fu-
ture research should test the assumption that automatic
affective reactions play a similar role in second-order cul-
tivation to the role construct-accessibility plays in first-
order cultivation.
There are several limitations to the present study. First,
a cross-lagged panel design allows more confident causal
inferences. However, this does not mean that the design
can prove a causal effect. For example, the higher cross-
lag between newspaper exposure and implicit attitudes,
which indicates a causal effect of newspaper exposure on
implicit attitudes, could partly be due to the different au-
tocorrelations of newspaper exposure (.84) and implicit
attitudes (.31). Additionally, third variables could influ-
ence the findings. Unfortunately, the best method for
demonstrating causality, the experiment, has some limi-
tations with regard to cultivation research, which focuses
on long-term effects (Rossmann & Brosius, 2004). Sec-
ond, the sample in the present study was not representa-
tive. Because the cultivation effect has been repeatedly
demonstrated with representative samples (Shanahan &
Morgan, 1999), including the cultivation effect of Krone
(Arendt, 2009), a sample of students was chosen for eco-
nomical reasons. Third, the chosen time-lag of two
months is very short for the purpose of cultivation. The
findings indicated that Krone exposure had an effect
within the time-lag of two months. Future research
should investigate whether a causal effect of newspaper
exposure also has a cultivation effect with a different
time-lag (e.g., several years). Fourth, future research
should use other topics when investigating implicit cul-
tivation in order to enhance the generalizability of the
results. Fifth, the results cannot be generalized to televi-
sion. Cultivation researchers should also use implicit at-
titudes as a new dimension of the dependent variable
when doing studies that focus on television. Sixth, data
collection regarding Krone exposure at Time 1 could
have had a systematic influence on the dependent vari-
ables two months later.
Despite the limitations, one far-reaching consequence
for cultivation research arises. The data indicate that an-
other dependent variable should be considered: Cumula-
tive exposure to a mass medium seems to influence the
automatic affective reactions toward social objects.
Acknowledgment
The author would like to thank Peter Vitouch, University
of Vienna, for his helpful comments.
© 2010 Hogrefe Publishing
157
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Date of acceptance: May 17, 2010
© 2010 Hogrefe Publishing
 F. Arendt: Cultivation Effects of a Newspaper 159

Florian Arendt is a scientific assistant at the

Department of Communication, University
of Vienna, Austria. His research interests
include media effects (especially cultiva-
tion research), media psychology, and re-
search methods.

Florian Arendt
Department of Communication
University of Vienna
Lammgasse 8/8
1080 Vienna
Austria
Tel. +43 1 42-774-9342
Fax +43 1 42-774-9366
E-mail florian.arendt@univie.ac.at

© 2010 Hogrefe Publishing Journal of Media Psychology 2010; Vol. 22(4):147–159