Bailey, R., Fox, J. & Grabe, M. E. (2013). The influence of message and audience characteristics on...

The Influence of Message and AudienceCharacteristics on TV News

Grazing Behavior

Rachel L. Bailey, Julia R. Fox, and Maria Elizabeth Grabe

This study examined television news channel changing (AKA grazing, zap-ping) behavior by focusing on the viewing duration and attention paid tostories that varied in sensational content and packaging. These two message-related factors had independent and interactive effects on how long grazersstayed tuned to a channel. Moreover, high sensation seekers, who were moreavid news consumers in everyday life, exhibited different viewing and atten-tional patterns compared to low sensation seekers. While arousing televisionnews was the most watched by all, high sensation seekers unexpectedlyshowed less preference for sensational tabloid packaging of arousing contentthan low sensation seekers.

In 2010 Americans spent more time (70 minutes daily) consuming news than everbefore (The Pew Center, 2010, 2011). Despite doom and gloom over the demise ofthe American TV news audience, television is still the most used news source (ThePew Center, 2010, 2011). The immobility and linearity of this medium, rather thanwhat it disseminates, may have weakened its competitive edge. Yet, when mobileand interactive platform use of established TV news sources like CNN or networknews are considered, traction among the 18–29 age group becomes evident (ThePew Center, 2011). Moreover, the latest Pew Center data identified an emerginggroup of news users who are relatively young (18–34), locally minded, and mobilescreen-using audiovisualites. Perhaps most striking, they find what they need ratherthan wait for it to be served.

Rachel L. Bailey (M.A., University of Missouri-Columbia) is a doctoral candidate at Indiana University.Her research interests include the complex interactions among individual, environmental and mediacharacteristics during media use.

Julia R. Fox (Ph.D., Cornell University) is an associate professor of Telecommunications at Indiana University-Bloomington. Her research interests include how people process, respond to, and remember mediatedmessages, particularly television news messages.

Maria Elizabeth Grabe (Ph.D., Temple University) is a professor in the Department of Telecommunicationsat Indiana University and a research associate in the Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria,South Africa. Her research interests include the content, processes, and effects of news media.

The authors would like to thank Byungho Park, Sungkyoung Lee, Seunjo Lee, and Kythaparampil JacobKoruth for their help with data collection.

The authors have been listed alphabetically.

© 2013 Broadcast Education Association Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 57(3), 2013, pp. 318–337DOI: 10.1080/08838151.2013.816704 ISSN: 0883-8151 print/1550-6878 online

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Active consumption of news has been growing steadily with the proliferation ofcable TV news outlets that invite flipping through channels and skipping unwantedmaterial. These fast sampling rates of the viewing environment, enabled by thetelevision remote control (Walker & Bellamy, 1991), were dubbed news grazing forthe first time in a 2004 Pew Center report (Morris & Forgette, 2007; Pew, 2004).1

Since then, the percentage of grazers has increased, from 46% to 57%, and thepercentage of news users who tune in and stay tuned dropped, from 52% to 38%in 2010. Bottom line, more Americans now graze than stay tuned for audiovisualnews (Pew, 2010). Grazers are mostly 18–34 years old, slightly more likely to bemen, consume other news media as much as non-grazers but stay tuned only to thatwhich captivates their attention (Morris & Forgette, 2007). This is most likely the kindof news referred to as sensational, marked by focus on negatively compelling topics(e.g., crime, disaster, scandal) and flashy packaging (camera and editing maneuvers)to draw attention (Grabe, Lang, & Zhou, 2003; Grabe, Zhou, & Barnett, 2001;Hendriks Vettehen, Nuijten, & Beentjes, 2005; Hendriks Vettehen, Nuijten, Peeters,2008; Uribe & Gunter, 2004; Wang, 2004).

It is about 60 years since Zenith introduced a television remote control called LazyBones. Yet, media researchers have made few inroads beyond audience self-reportsto study the behavioral (clicking, zapping, channel surfing, grazing) ramificationsof this technology. The key findings from these audience self-report studies, somegrounded in the Uses and Gratifications perspective, connect grazing behavior totwo main gratifications: to get more out of television (e.g., finding the best newssource), which was more common in younger individuals and to avoid unappealingmaterial (e.g., advertisements and ‘‘people you don’t agree with’’) which was morecommon among less educated people (Walker & Bellamy, 1991; Walker, Bellamy& Traudt, 1993; Wenner & Dennehy, 1993). These findings line up with the con-temporary demographic profile of a news grazer, but as invaluable as this work wasin uncovering changes in news consumption patterns, it is time to move beyondaudience self-reports of how much and why grazing happens. To that end, thestudy reported here employed real-time measures of audience (1) channel changingbehavior and (2) attention levels indicated through heart rate while viewing newsstories that varied in sensational content and packaging. In addition to this contribu-tion, this study employed individual difference variables beyond the demographic(i.e., sensation seeking) to examine grazing behavior and attention. This approach,to make direct observations through behavioral and psychophysiological measureswhile incorporating complexities of message qualities and individual-level audi-ence influences into the design, delivered new and more comprehensive angles onunderstanding news consumption choices.

Sensational News: A Grazer Favorite?

Sensational news has been defined both by its content (topics) and its packaging(production style). Specifically, emphasis on arousal-producing content (e.g., acci-

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dents, disasters, crime), with a short supply of public affairs stories (e.g., politicsand economics), marks the sensational approach (Grabe et al., 2001; Hendrikset al., 2005, 2008; Slattery, Doremus, & Marcus, 2001; Uribe & Gunter, 2004;Wang, 2004). Sensational packaging is also recognized by generous application ofthe bells and whistles of production techniques. Five production variables (music,sound effects, slow motion, use of flash frames as transitions between shots, andobtrusiveness of reporter’s voice tone) were found to distinguish sensational (ortabloid) from other news formats (Grabe et al., 2001; Hendriks et al., 2005, 2008;Uribe & Gunter, 2004).

Experimental studies have tested the impact of sensational news content andproduction features on a number of evaluative, emotional, cognitive, and physio-logical responses employing self-report, skin-conductance (arousal), and heart rate(attention) measures in line with the limited capacity model (Lang, 1994). Resultsshow sensational content draws viewer arousal, attention, and self-reported liking(Grabe et al., 2000, 2003; Hendriks et al., 2008). But whether sensational contentand packaging would keep viewers tuned to a channel, if they have a choice, hasnot been assessed. The goal here is to assess volitional time spent viewing a channelas a behavioral index of viewing preference. This is a sizable step beyond previousstudies (Grabe et al., 2000, 2003) that asked participants to watch a predeterminedset of stories while assessing their attention through heart-rate measures. The firsthypothesis is informed by these findings but prompts measurement of both attentionand channel changing behavior:

H1: There will be main effects for content such that news viewers will (1) spendmore time viewing and (2) pay more attention to channels with arousingthan calm content.

There is evidence that news consumers use production features as cues to distin-guish between sensational and non-sensational stories and that these perceptionsdrive self-reported responses. For example, Grabe et al. (2000, 2003) found viewersrated stories less informative, believable, enjoyable, and objective, and rated ac-tions, people, and events more threatening when sensational packing features wereadded. Yet, both self-reported and psychophysiological (skin conductivity) arousalmeasures revealed sensational packaging heightens engagement (Grabe et al., 2000,2003; Hendriks et al., 2008). Moreover, higher arousal associated with sensationalpackaging paved the way for more attention (HR index) (Grabe et al., 2000, 2003).These findings related to sensational packaging features prompt a second hypothesisabout volitional behavior in channel viewing:

H2: There will be main effects for formal features such that news viewers will(1) spend more time viewing and (2) pay more attention to channels withsensational than non-sensational production features.


It is reasonable to expect that the double dose of sensational content and formalfeatures will be more potent in drawing and keeping attention than stories withoutthese message characteristics. Not only are sensational formal characteristics (e.g.,music, sound effects, flash frames) likely to elicit automatic attention, but arousingcontent is also expected to draw attention (Lang, 2006; Lang & Yegiyan, 2009). Instudies that used still images as stimuli, highly arousing content was linked to longerviewing times than low arousing images (Lang, Kurita, Rubenking, & Potter, 2011;Lang, Shin, & Lee, 2005). Hypothesis three was formulated to test these patterns infull motion television news messages:

H3: There will be interaction effects for content and form such that news viewerswill (1) spend more time viewing channels and (2) pay more attention tochannels with arousing content and sensational production features thanchannels with calm content and non-sensational production features.

Audience Characteristics: Individual Trait Differences inSensation Seeking

Message characteristics, while central to mediated communication, offer a par-tial template to understand how people interact with media. Differences amonghumans in terms of personalities, needs, cognitive predispositions, and a host ofother potential sources of variance are often collectively referred to as individualdifferences. In the context of messages that vary in sensation provoking potential,it seems advantageous to draw from sensation seeking (SS) literature to study newsgrazing behavior.

Based on the observation that humans vary in seeking and avoiding highly arous-ing situations, the SS trait was identified by psychologists (Janda, 1996; Zuckerman,1988, 1990; Zuckerman & Kuhlman, 2000) and appropriated in several relateddisciplines. During media encounters, high sensation seekers pay more attention,exhibit more arousal and report more favorable behavioral intentions in response tothe arousal potential of high-sensation stimuli, which include several key formal andcontent features such as intensity, novelty, uncertainty, complexity, suddenness ofchange, size, brightness, and color (Donohew, Palmgreen, & Lorch, 1994; Stephen-son et al., 1999; Zuckerman, 1988). In short, high sensation seekers are more likelythan low sensation seekers to prefer arousing negative pictures (Zuckerman, 1988).

SS tendencies have made a strong showing in media research over the past20 years, with particular focus on action-packed or violent content (Hoffner &Levine, 2005; Krcmar & Greene, 1999; Nabi & Riddle, 2008), health risk messages(Donohew et al., 1994; Lang, Chung et al., 2005; Palmgreen & Donohew, 2010),and, recently, social media (Haridakis & Hanson, 2009). Given the industry empha-sis on—as well as public and scholarly concerns about—sensationalized televisionnews, the paucity of academic inquiry into SS as a mediator in news consumption


is striking. The few studies that have explored the relationship between SS and newsuse have produced somewhat incomparable and seemingly contradictory findings.

Schierman and Rowland (1985) found high sensation seekers reported greaterpreference for news reports compared to low sensation seekers. But subsequentresearch pointed in the opposite direction. In a study of self-report media use,Potts, Dedmon, and Halford (1996) found documentaries (along with music videos,daytime talk, stand-up comedy, and cartoons) to be among high sensation-seekerfavorites, but newscasts and dramas were negatively associated with high SS. Theauthors expressed surprise that high sensation seekers did not care for the newsgenre’s arousing and novel content. Yet, a survey (Perse, 1996) of adult cablesubscribers bolstered those unexpected findings: high sensation seekers preferredmusic and action-adventure programs, whereas low sensation seekers favored newsand magazine shows.

Perhaps conflicting evidence on what high sensation seekers prefer to view is anartifact of the research methods employed. As a survey response option, news mightseem boring to high sensation seekers—especially in comparison to other types ofmedia listed in the response options, such as crime drama or music videos. Thesensational content and style of tabloid news should be appealing to high sensationseekers when they view it on screen. Given the lack of research resolve on how newsviewership relates to SS, this study makes a contribution by assessing SS trait levelsand news consumption in everyday life. This leads to the first research question:

RQ1: Is there a relationship between self-reported news use in everyday life andhigh versus low SS trait levels?

News is a diverse genre and the particular content and style of news packagingmight influence exposure and attentional responses of high and low sensationseekers. High sensation seekers exhibit augmented cortical reactions and strongerover time heart rate decelerations (increased attention) in response to intense au-diovisual stimuli (Davidson & Smith, 1986; Zuckerman, 1990; Zuckerman, Simons,& Como, 1988) compared to low sensation seekers. Mediated stimuli, includingtelevision news (Fox et al., 2004a; Grabe et al., 2000, 2003; Lang et al., 2005), havebeen shown to elicit physiological responses similar to physical world encounters(Reeves & Nass, 1996). The only known psychophysiological data on televisionnews viewing and SS point to greater arousal and attention in high compared tolow sensation seekers (Fox, Lee, & Shin, 2004b). Participants in that study wereexposed to two ‘‘action news’’ stories: one about crime, the other about a trafficaccident. Low sensation seekers responded to the stories with accelerated heartrate, consistent with a defensive response, suggesting that, if given the choice, lowsensation seekers might prefer to view non-sensational news content.

Also relevant here is the Perse (1996) examination of television news viewingand SS that also employed self-report measures of channel changing. High sensa-tion seekers reported changing channels more often, citing boredom and a searchfor arousing content as key motivators. Taken together these findings offer a way


to understand SS and news grazing. Yet, direct observation of channel changingbehavior is needed, leading to the following hypothesis:

H4: There will be an interaction effect for SS and content such that high sensa-tion seekers will spend more time viewing arousing content and pay moreattention to arousing content than (1) low sensation seekers and (2) calmcontent.

Although it’s been more than 40 years since tabloid TV news was introduced toNew York City audiences (Diamond, 1980), there is practically nothing known abouthow this packaging style might intersect with SS. Yet, studies on visual complexityare helpful in directing form-related hypotheses. Specifically, the sensational pack-aging techniques employed in this study (slow motion, flash frame editing, music,sound effects, obtrusive reporter voice tone) have conceptual correspondence withvisual complexity in studies of static images, where it is explicated as more richlydetailed, asymmetric, associationally suggestive, and emotional (Zuckerman, Bone,Neary, Mangelsdorff, & Brustman, 1972). In those studies, high sensation seekersshowed greater preference, compared with low sensation seekers, for polygonswith more turns (Looft & Baranowski, 1971), figures with greater complexity, andambiguous formal dimensions of surrealistic and impressionistic paintings (Furnham& Bunyan, 1988; Zuckerman, Ulrich, & McLaughlin, 1993). In a study of Web sites,Martin, Sherrard, and Wentzel (2005) confirmed a high sensation seeker penchantfor visual complexity when they expressed more favorable attitudes toward visuallycomplex Web site designs and their content than low sensation seekers. Based onthese insights into how formal features generally relate to the SS trait, the followingforecasts are made for sensational television news packaging:

H5: There will be an interaction effect for SS and form such that high sensationseekers will spend more time viewing channels that feature stories withsensational packaging and will pay more attention to these channels than(1) low sensation seekers and (2) channels without sensationally-packagedstories.

Based on existing evidence of high sensation seeker proclivity for arousing mediacontent and visual complexity, the following hypothesis is posed:

H6: There will be an interaction effect for SS, content, and form such that highsensation seekers will spend more time viewing channels that feature arous-ing stories with sensational packaging and will pay more attention to thesechannels than (1) low sensation seekers and (2) calm content channels with-out sensationally-packaged stories.

Finally, when accounting for individual differences, it is important to considermedia use patterns outside the laboratory setting. People who watch more news


might have more fully developed schemata for news compared to those who watchless (Findahl & Hoijer, 1985). In an investigation of individual differences amongnews grazers, it is important to make a formal assessment of this conjecture, leadingto a final research question:

RQ2: If there is a relationship between self-reported news use in everyday lifeand SS trait levels (RQ1), will statistical control of news use affect therelationship between sensation seeking, channel viewing changing, andattention?

Method

Design

This study employed a 2 (content) ! 2 (formal features) ! 2 (SS level) mixedfactorial design. Content had two levels, arousing and calm. Formal features, alsoa within-subjects factor, was represented by packaging styles: sensational and non-sensational. Sensation seeking (SS), a between subjects variable, refers to the amountof SS behaviors reported by a participant on the Zuckerman Form V scale. A mediansplit was used to distinguish low from high sensation seekers, creating a two levelSS factor.

Stimuli

Four news channels presented stories that varied in content and packaging, in thefollowing way: one had six arousing content stories in sensational format, anotherhad the same six arousing content stories in non-sensational format, a third had sixcalm content stories in sensational format, and the last had the same six calm contentstories in non-sensational format. The six stories with arousing content covereddrive-by shootings, tornadoes, children killed in a fire, physical conflict at a KKKrally, public flag burning, and abortion protests. The topics of the six calm storieswere: physical plant layoffs, a drug patent lawsuit, city sewer repairs, health carefor municipal employees, standardized high school exams, and advances in steelproduction. Two versions of each story were constructed– one without and the otherwith sensational formal features (music, sound effects, slow motion, flash frames,obtrusive tone but same reporter voice) that define sensational news packaging(Grabe et al., 2001; Hendriks et al., 2005). Other than packaging features, the storieswere identical and presented back-to-back on different channels. Stimuli were pre-tested for content and form manipulations using the Self Assessment Mannequin(SAM) measure of self-reported arousal. Arousing stories (M D 5.75, SD D 1.47)were rated more arousing than calm (M D 2.76, SD D 1.50), F(1,38) D 257.79,p < .001, e2

D .85. Sensationally-packaged stories (M D 4.40, SD D 1.57) were


more arousing than those without sensational features (M D 4.11, SD D 1.28),F(1,38) D 13.31, p < .001, e2

D .13.

Measures

Time Spent Viewing Channels.

Any time a subject spent more than 5 seconds watching a channel, the number ofseconds was tallied. The totals for each of the four channels (arousing sensational,arousing non-sensational, calm sensational, calm non-sensational) were compared.

Heart Rate.

Based on theoretical notions that cognition and emotion are embodied processesthat unfold during environmental interaction, physiological measures are used asindicators of psychological states, such as attention (Anderson & Burns, 1991;Cacioppo, Tassinary, & Berntson, 2000). The autonomic nervous system controlsHR. When our surroundings (mediated included) demand attention, parasympa-thetic regulation lowers HR to quiet the body for such activity (Lang, 1994). As anindex of attention, HR was measured with two 8mm Ag-AgCl electrodes placed onparticipants’ forearms (a ground electrode was also placed on the non-dominantforearm). A Coulbourn bio-amplifier with a 60 Hz filter recorded HR in interbeatintervals. These raw data were converted to weighted averages of HR to give asecond-by-second account of HR changes. After every channel change (with aproceeding viewing duration of at least 10 seconds), 10 seconds of data wereextracted. These data were averaged across channel changes and change scoreswere calculated using the first second after the change as a baseline. Thus, these persecond weighted averages are reported as average beat per minute (BPM) changes.

Sensation Seeking.

Zuckerman’s Form V scale (Zuckerman, Eysenck, & Eysenck, 1978) assessed thistrait on four dimensions, represented by subscales, and independently tested forreliability. Thrill and adventure seeking (˛ D .58), experience seeking (˛ D .44),and disinhibition (˛ D .52) were low in internal reliability, given the conventionof .70 and above as desirable (Morris, Fitz-Gibbon, & Lindheim, 1987), whileboredom susceptibility (˛ D .17) was unreliable and excluded from subsequentanalyses. Exclusion of the boredom susceptibility subscale is supported in part byprevious research that found the subscale unrelated to viewing violent televisioncontent (Krcmar & Greene, 1999). Additionally, other studies have found boredomsusceptibility often ranks lowest on reliability among subscales, and the experienceseeking and disinhibition subscales often produce coefficients in the .4 to .6 range(Aluja, Garcia & Garcia, 2004; Ridgeway & Russell, 1980). Coefficients below the.70 convention are still considered acceptable (DeVellis, 1991). Further, followingrecommendations for item analysis to increase reliability (DeVellis, 1991; Morris,


Fitz-Gibbon, & Lindheim, 1987), one item of the thrill and adventure seekingsubscale was removed due to poor performance, which brought this subscale’sreliability to ˛ D .75. The resulting reliability for the sensation seeking index of the29 items from the three remaining sub-scales was within the desired range (˛ D .70).This index was used to identify high and low sensation seekers through a mediansplit, as is typically done (e.g., Lang, Chung et al., 2005; Perse, 1996; Schierman &Rowland, 1985).

Television News Use and Demographics.

Participants were asked how often they watched local newscasts, national news-casts, and magazine news shows per week using a four-point scale of less thanonce a week, once a week, 2–3 times a week, and 4 or more times a week.These three items were used as a television news use index (˛ D .60). While thiscoefficient is below the desired .70, it is not considered unacceptable (DeVellis,1991). Participants were also asked to provide their age on a ratio scale and toidentify their race and gender as nominal level variables.

Participants and Procedure

Sixty-four participants took part in the study. Audio dropout occurred during datacollection for six participants and experimenters were unable to collect psychophys-iological data for eight other participants due to problems with channel changingapparatus. Because those subjects were not attached to physiological data collectionequipment, their participatory experience might have been different from those whowere. The data for 14 participants were therefore excluded from analyses. Findingsreported here were based on the data collected from 50 participants (mean age 21.8,age range 18–23, 32 women 18 men, 77% Caucasian, 86% watch local news oncea week or less, 59% watch national news once a week or less, 82% watch newsmagazine shows once a week or less). With 50 subjects, this experimental design,and standard type 1 error probability, small to moderate effects should be detectedwith .8 sensitivity or power.

Participants were told during recruiting that they would be viewing televisionnews stories from their choice of four channels. Upon arrival at the lab they signeda consent form, were attached to electrodes for physiological response measures,and told they could choose from four different channels and change the channel atany time after the first news story had started. The experimenter demonstrated thechannel changing device and randomly selected a channel on the channel changingapparatus before each participant began viewing. To prevent participants fromencountering the same part of a story on more than one channel, stories with thesame content but differing packaging features were roadblocked to play at the sametime on their respective channels. For example, the story about drive-by shootingson the channel with arousing content and sensational packaging ran simultaneouslywith the story about drive-by shootings on the channel with arousing content and


non-sensational packaging. Thus participants who switched channels in the middleof that story might have encountered its continuation but not repeated information.After viewing, participants completed the SS scale and self-report questions, thenwere debriefed, thanked, and dismissed.

Data Reduction and Analysis

Freedom of choice in channel viewing resulted in inter-subject variation in expo-sure levels for each channel. To deal with this variability, channel viewing durationwas tracked and summed across channel changes only if a subject stayed on a givenchannel for at least five seconds. For HR data, 10-second segments just after channelchanges were used in analyses. Participants differed in the number of channelchanges they made, and therefore varied in (1) the number of 10-second HR datasegments and (2) the content they were exposed to when the HR segments wererecorded. Thus, each participant’s individual segments were averaged for each of thefour channels (calm non-sensational, calm sensational, arousing non-sensational,arousing sensational).

Results

Message Characteristics

To test the first three hypotheses related to the influence of message characteristicson exposure choices and attention, viewing duration and HR data were subjectedto 2 (content) ! 2 (packaging) repeated-measures ANOVAs.

Hypothesis 1 predicted young news viewers would (1) spend more time viewingand (2) pay more attention to arousing content channels compared to calm contentchannels. The first part of this hypothesis was supported by a significant effect forcontent on viewing duration, F(1,49) D 47.81, p D .0001, !2

p D .49. Channels witharousing content (M D 156.63, SE D 6.94) were viewed longer than channels withcalm content (M D 60.62, SE D 6.96). However, no significant content effects werefound on heart rate, F < 1.

Hypothesis 2 predicted a viewing preference and higher attention levels forchannels with sensationally packaged stories. The main effect for packaging wassignificant on viewing duration, F(1,49) D 5.33, p D .03, !2

p D .10. Viewers spentmore time on channels with sensational packaging (M D 124.39, SE D 6.90) thanthose without (M D M D 92.86, SE D 6.81). No significant effects of packaging onheart rate were found.

Hypothesis 3 predicted viewers would spend the most time viewing and paygreater attention to the arousing sensationally packaged channel. There was nosignificant interaction effect on heart rate, but the content by packaging interaction


Figure 1Content ! Formal Features Interaction on Time Spent Viewing

on viewing time was significant, F(1,49) D 16.61, p D .0001, !2p D .25, in the

predicted direction, as illustrated in Figure 1.Paired-comparisons were conducted to examine the interaction, using the Bon-

ferroni corrected ˛ D .01. The addition of titillating packaging features signifi-cantly increased viewing of arousing content (arousing non-sensational vs. arousingsensational, t(50) D 3.76, p D .0001). Participants also spent more time viewingthe arousing sensationally packaged channel than the calm sensationally-packagedchannel (calm sensational vs. arousing sensational t(50) D 7.44, p D .0001) andthe calm non-sensational channel (calm non-sensational vs. arousing sensationalt(50) D 5.12, p D .0001). The double dose of arousing content and sensationalpackaging drew the longest viewing times, followed by arousing content withoutsensational packaging, calm non-sensational packaging, and sensationally packagedcalm stories. Adding sensational tabloid features to relatively boring content did notmake participants stay tuned (calm sensational vs. calm non-sensational, t(50) D

1.40, p D .17).In summary, channel viewing predictions of the first three hypotheses found strong

support in the data, but attention predictions did not.

At the Intersection of Message and Audience Characteristics

Research Question 1 asked whether there is a relationship between self-reportednews use and SS levels. SS and news use were positively correlated, r D .34, p D .02.


However, because the dependent variables were analyzed using SS as a between-subjects group variable, a one-way ANOVA was also conducted. A significant,F(1,49) D 4.95, p D .03, !2

D .09, main effect for SS emerged on news use. Highsensation seekers reported more news consumption (M D 6.21, SD D 2.15) thanlow sensation seekers (M D 4.96, SD D 1.85).

Hypotheses 4 through 6 each made predictions about the two dependent variables(time viewing and heart rate) in relation to SS and message characteristics. For testsrelated to the interaction of SS and message characteristics on exposure preferences,viewing duration data were subjected to a 2 (content) ! 2 (packaging) ! 2 (SS)repeated-measures ANOVA. Only H6 found some support. High sensation seekersspent more time viewing sensationally packaged arousing content than calm contentwithout sensational packaging, t(23) D 3.12, p D .005. But a significant content !

packaging ! SS interaction on viewing duration, F(1,49) D 3.92, p D .05, !2p D

.07, was not in the predicted direction. One-way ANOVAs conducted to examinethis interaction show high sensation seekers spent significantly more time than lowsensation seekers viewing the arousing non-sensational channel F(1,49) D 5.61,p D .02, !2

D .10. As seen in Figure 2, high and low sensation seekers spentequal time viewing calm content, with or without sensational packaging. Moreover,both high and low sensation seekers spent more time viewing arousing than calmcontent. While low sensation seekers spent considerably more time viewing thesensationally packaged arousing content channel than the arousing content channelwithout sensational features (t(26) D 4.33, p D .0001), there was no significantdifference in the time high sensation seekers spent viewing those channels.

To test H4–H6 predictions related to SS, message characteristics, and attention,HR data in beats per minute change scores were subjected to a 2 (content) !

Figure 2Content ! Formal Features ! SS Group Effect on Time Spent Viewing


2 (packaging) ! 2 (SS) ! 10 (time in seconds) repeated-measures ANOVA. Nosignificant (all F’s < 1) interactions surfaced.

News Use as a Covariate in Audience Characteristic Analyses

The significant main effect of SS on news use necessitated an answer for RQ2,which asked whether statistical control of news use would affect the relationshipbetween SS, time on channel, and attention. Hypotheses 4 through 6 were re-examined using news use as a covariate. Figure 2 represents the outcome. Similarly,HR data in BPM change scores were subjected to a 2 (content) ! 2 (form) ! 2(SS) ! 10 (time in seconds) repeated-measures ANCOVA with news use includedas a covariate (see Figure 3).

Hypothesis 4 predicted an interaction effect for SS and content such that highsensation seekers would spend more time viewing arousing content and pay moreattention to arousing content than (1) low sensation seekers and (2) calm content.Controlling for news viewing did not change the results: neither of these interactioneffects were significant, F < 1.

Hypothesis 5 predicted an interaction effect for SS and form such that highsensation seekers would spend more time viewing channels that feature storieswith sensational packaging and would pay more attention to these channels than(1) low sensation seekers and (2) channels without sensationally-packaged sto-ries. With self-reported news consumption controlled, the packaging ! SS inter-action approached statistical significance, F(1,49) D 3.07, p D .09, !2

p D .06,but results were not as predicted. Low sensation seekers spent more time view-ing channels with sensational features (M D 136.65, SE D 10.06) compared tothose without (M D 79.72, SE D 9.97) and did so more than high sensation seek-ers (M D 111.35, SE D 10.69). Yet, the added control did not influence heartrate findings; the packaging ! SS ! time interaction remained non-significant,F < 1.

Hypothesis 6 predicted a three-way interaction effect for SS, content, and pack-aging such that high sensation seekers would spend more time viewing arousingsensationally packaged stories and would pay more attention to these channelsthan (1) low sensation seekers and (2) calm non-sensationally packaged channels.With self-reported news use statistically controlled, a significant content ! pack-aging ! SS interaction on viewing duration was confirmed, F(1,49) D 5.00, p D

.03, !2p D .09. Previously reported one-way ANOVA contrasts remained intact; high

sensation seekers spent more time viewing arousing non-sensational channels thanlow sensation seekers but did not differ in time spent viewing other channels. SeeFigure 2. The control variable also drove a significant packaging ! content ! time !

SS interaction on HR, F(9,36) D 2.23, p D .04, !2p D .36. As represented in Figure 3,

high sensation seekers paid more attention (showed deceleratory HR responses) toarousing content channels. Moreover, high sensation seekers showed acceleratoryresponses for calm messages, particularly those with tabloid features, whereas low


Figure 3Content ! Formal Features ! Time ! SS Group Effect on BPM Change

(Top: Low SS, Bottom: High SS)

sensation seekers exhibited an initial deceleratory trend while viewing calm contentwith sensational features, followed by a steep acceleration.

Discussion

Key findings here illustrate the importance of moving beyond message versus au-dience (individual difference) effects and focus on the interaction of these variables.Content and formal dimensions of messages, individual differences in news viewingbehavior, and trait levels of SS worked in concert here to shape the consumption and


cognitive processing patterns in young news grazer participants. Yet, the findingsmust be taken against the backdrop of a controlled experimental environment inwhich participants chose between four channels of one medium. In the contempo-rary media environment users have hundreds (if not thousands) of channels to grazeon—concurrently with other media. The size of the experimental grazing field paledin comparison to what users are accustomed to. Limited as the choices might havebeen, comparisons between the channel manipulations of this study meet internalvalidity standards.

Arousing content packaged in sensational format was the overall favorite, for bothlow and high sensation seekers. Interestingly, after self-reported news use in every-day life was accounted for, low sensations seekers surfaced prominently in positivestatistical associations with the flashy reality-altering production features of tabloidnews. This trend was observed in their initial (first 5 seconds) allocation of cognitiveresources to calm sensationally packaged stories and in the significantly longer timethey spent viewing arousing content with, than without, sensational features.

Sensational features applied to arousing content may have emphasized the me-diated nature of the messages for low sensation seekers—thereby making the neg-atively compelling experience more palatable to a trait group that would typicallyavoid such content. This insight is visible in Figure 3 comparing low sensationseeker HR responses to arousing sensational versus non-sensational stories in the 2–4 second time window. They registered a sharp rejection response to arousing non-sensationally packaged news—the more life-like version of the stimuli—whereas thesensationally packaged versions registered a much less severe rejection response.Interestingly, when it comes to calm content, sensational packaging again hadan attention-engaging impact on low sensation seekers. Figure 3 shows practi-cally mirror opposite heart-rate trends associated with their sensational versus non-sensational calm news viewing. During the first 6.5 seconds of encountering calmcontent, the presence of sensational packaging increased low sensation seekerattention whereas the absence of sensational packing made calm messages muchless captivating for this trait group.

Compared to low sensation seekers, high sensation seekers also preferred arousingcontent, as is indicated by viewing time and attention findings (after controllingfor daily news viewing). Yet, high sensation seekers sharply differed from lowsensation seekers in responding to message packaging dimensions. They actuallyshowed the most HR deceleration (cognitive resource allocation) for the arousingsensational channels. And, unlike low sensation seekers, their rejection response tocalm sensationally packaged stories began with stimulus onset. In short, they seem topay less attention to content with sensational packaging. One possible explanationfor this somewhat unexpected finding is that high sensation seekers in this studywere more experienced news users and therefore more versed in the conventionsof audiovisual news formats. By accounting for individual differences in news use,the high sensation seeker preference for arousing content emerged even stronger,especially when messages were offered without sensational packaging features. It ispossible that these spurious formal features serve as reminders of the mediated


nature of messages. For low sensation seekers the reminder of mediation mayserve as a protective shield from risk when they encounter arousing stories. Forhigh sensation seekers, by contrast, arousing audiovisual news that more closelyresembles real life is simply more conducive to the thrill of experiencing risk.Strikingly, when sensational packaging is added to calm content, high sensationseeker viewing duration and HR data suggest boredom or even outright stimulusrejection.

These stimulus rejection findings among high sensation seekers for calm sensa-tional stories are unexpected in light of literature on SS and visual complexity (e.g.,Martin, Sherrard, & Wentzel, 2005; Zuckerman et al., 1993). It is reasonable toexpect titillating production features to amplify viewing interest in relatively dullcontent. Yet, the cited visual complexity studies used static representations (e.g.,paintings, drawings, and Web sites) in finding a positive relationship between SSand stimulus complexity. The bells and whistles of sensational packaging added tofull motion television news are an important point of dissimilarity. Visual complexity,defined as the number of independent units in a stimulus, might not neatly transferfrom static to life-like, full-motion messages. Moreover, the addition of attention-grabbing features to relatively boring content creates a level of content-form incon-gruity that was not achieved in any of the other visual complexity study conditions.High sensation seekers in our study were more avid news consumers in everydaylife and arguably had more fully deployed audiovisual news schemata. Stimulusrejection patterns are likely due to a content (calm) and packaging (sensational)combination that violated their schematic expectations. Indeed, the stylistic hype ofboring news probably appeared incongruently peculiar and far removed from thelife-like quality that makes news a compelling genre for them.

These interesting individual differences in viewing and processing behaviors offera reminder of the entanglement of audience and message characteristics, filteredthrough individual variance in biologically predisposed personality traits and infusedby expectations learned through environmental encounters. By examining the intri-cacies of relationships between these variables, we were able to track associationsbetween people and their mediated environments that evolve dynamically overtime. While this study is a modest marker on the map, the examination of combinedmessage and audience characteristics through behavioral, psychophysiological, andself-report dependent variables is notable. Given that we spend an average of about12 hours per day (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010) in the mediated world grazingseamlessly between—or concurrently from—multiple platforms that are bulging withcontent options, the navigational behavior related to this scenario seems worthy ofmore media research attention.

Notes

1Most studies employ the original questionnaire item as an operational definition of newsgrazer. Respondents who completely or mostly agree with the statement: ‘‘I find that I often


watch the news with my remote control in hand, flipping to other channels when I’m notinterested in the topic’’ are treated as grazers (Bennett, Rhine, & Flickinger, 2008; Morris &Forgette, 2007; Pew, 2004). A related study on election news grazing employed the followingquestion: ‘‘When you are watching (program or channel watched most often) how many timeswould you guess that you switch to other programs that contain information about the 2008presidential campaign?’’ (Hardy & Jamieson, 2011).

2Five other gratifications were also tied to remote control use, including annoying others,controlling family TV viewing, accessing music videos, avoiding commercials, and finding outwhat is on TV (Walker & Bellamy, 1991; Walker et al., 1993; Wenner & Dennehy, 1993).

3This appears contrary to the Fox et al. (2004b) study that identified high sensation seekersas having more affinity for arousing news content. One key difference between the two studies,however, is our focus on sensational packaging features in addition to arousing content.

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