Do central processing and online processing always concur? Analysis of scene order and proportion effects in broadcast news

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between the central/peripheral processing of the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) and the online/memory-based processing of impression formation by analyzing the order and proportion effect of scene valence in broadcast news. A 2 (position of positive scenes: beginning and ending)×3 (proportion of positive scenes: high, medium & low) between design (N=158) experiment with political campaign broadcast news stories found evidence of central memory-based processing, which is inconsistent with the common belief that central and online processing always concur. Four typologies of information processing are proposed based on the study's findings: central online processing, peripheral online processing, central memory-based processing and peripheral memory-based processing. © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.