ABSTRACT
It is almost a truism that not everyone is equally susceptible to media effects. Within the agenda-setting research tradition, need for orientation, issue obtrusiveness, level of political involvement, media trust, and contextual differences have all been related to variations in the transfer of salience from the media to the public agenda (Soroka, 2002; Tsfati, 2003; Weaver, 1980; Zucker, 1978). Despite the richness of this literature, few scholars have paid attention to higher-order psychological variables as regulating factors of agenda-setting effects. Chief among these long-lasting orientations are human values—people's worldviews and goals they hold for their society and community. As it turns out, a variety of cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral decisions can be explained by the values individuals hold. Allport (1961) even argued that values were the “dominating force in life” (p. 543) because they directed all of an individual's behavior toward their realization. In the political communication field, empirical work has repeatedly demonstrated that values can be powerful moderators of media effects, by either amplifying or dampening them. For instance, postmaterialist values (e.g., protecting the environment) have been positively related to news use and political discussion, whereas materialist values (e.g., fighting crime) have been linked to entertainment media and less frequent political discussions (McLeod & Sotirovic, 1998). Framing effects on decision making have also been related to how strongly people hold certain values (Shah & Domke, 1996).
