新聞跑馬燈對閱聽眾新聞知識處理的影響 - 政大學術集成

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(1)                                                       . 國立政治大學國際傳播英語碩士學位學程 International Master’s Program in International Communication Studies College of Communication National Chengchi University. 碩士論文. 立. Master’s Thesis 治政大. ‧ 國. 學. 新聞跑馬燈對閱聽眾新聞知識處理的影響. ‧. The impact of news crawls on viewers’ news information processing. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Student: Jwu-Giun Kao 高竹君 Advisor: Tsung-Jen Shih 施琮仁教授中華民國 102 年 7 月 July 2013.

(2) 新聞跑馬燈對閱聽眾新聞知識處理的影響 The impact of news crawls on viewers’ news information processing. Student: Jwu-Giun Kao. 研究生:高竹君指導教授:施琮仁教授. 政治大國立政治大學. 國際傳播英語碩士學位學程. 學. ‧ 國. 立. Advisor: Tsung-Jen Shih. ‧. 碩士論文. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. eAnThesis gchi. i n U. v. Submitted to International Master’s Program in International Communication Studies National Chengchi University In partial fulfillment of the Requirement For the degree of Master of Arts. 中華民國 102 年 7 月 July 2013.

(3)                                                        . 新聞跑馬燈對閱聽眾新聞知識處理的影響 The impact of news crawls on viewers’ news information processing. Student: Jwu-Giun Kao. 研究生:高竹君指導教授:施琮仁教授. 政治大國立政治大學. 國際傳播英語碩士學位學程. 學. ‧ 國. 立. Advisor: Tsung-Jen Shih. ‧. 碩士論文. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. eAnThesis gchi. i n U. v. Submitted to International Master’s Program in International Communication Studies National Chengchi University In partial fulfillment of the Requirement For the degree of Master of Arts. 中華民國 102 年 7 月 July 2013.

(4) Acknowledgement I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Prof. Tsung-Jen Shih, for his excellent guidance, caring, and insightful comments. His guidance helped me in all the time of experiment and writing of this thesis, and enlightening me the first glance of research. I would also like to thank the rest of my thesis committee, Prof. Mei-Ling Hsu and Prof. Wen-Ying Liu, for their encouragement and immense knowledge. I have learned so much during the process. I thank Conny. 政治大 for her administrative help and gentle reminders, and IMICS for the inspiring and 立. ‧ 國. 學. fulfilling two years. I also want to thank those who participated in my experiment,. ‧. for their sweet support. Finally, I would like to thank my dear friends and family,. sit. y. Nat. in particular, my husband, Vincen Lin, for supporting me and always standing by. n. al. er. io. me through the good times and bad. This would not have been possible without you.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(5)                                                        . Table of Contents. Introduction………………………………………………………………………….3 Literature Review…………………………………………………………………... 7 Increasing prevalence of news crawls………………………………………………...7 News crawls………………………………………………………………………….12 Information learning through television news viewing………………………………15 Information processing……………………………………………………………….24 Information complexity and overload………………………………………………..31. 政治大 Participants…………………………………………………………………………...36 立 Research design………….…………………………………………………………...37. Method……………………………………………………………………………….36. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Measures……………………………………………………………………………...41 Manipulation check…….…………………………………………………………….44 Procedure…………………………………………………………….……………….46 Results……………………………………………………………………………….47. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. Discussion……………………………………………………………………………54. i n U. v. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..….60. Ch. engchi. References…………………………………………………………………...………63 Appendices…………………………………………………………………………..79 A. Chinese Questionnaire……………………………………………………………79 B. English Questionnaire……………………………………………………………83.

(6)                                                        . List of Tables. Table 1. T-test: group statistics…………………………………………………….…45 Table 2. T-test: independent samples test………………………………………….…46 Table 3. ANOVA: predicting viewers’ attention to news clip………………………..49 Table 4. Two-Way ANOVA: predicting viewers’ recall of news information………..51 Table 5. ANOVA: predicting interaction effect of number of news crawls and content relevancy on viewers’ recall of main news content…………………………………..51. 政治大. Table 6. ANOVA: Predicting interaction effect of number of news crawls and content. 立. relevancy on viewers’ recall of news crawl content……………………………….....52. ‧ 國. 學. Table 7. Two-Way ANOVA : Predicting viewers’ information seeking need………..53. ‧. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(7) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 1. . Abstract Whether use of news crawls in television news is really beneficial for viewers remains a controversial issue. Many news producers in the practical field believe that news crawls is the answer to attract viewers’ attention. In addition, that viewers will ultimately be accustomed to the “web-page” like television screen is a firm belief. According to Lang’s (2000) Limited Capacity Model, however, human beings possess a very limited ability to digest information. Dysfunctional memory is likely to occur if. 治政 message overloads. Related research in this field is scarce 大and does not deal directly 立 ‧ 國. 學. with number of news crawls and content relevancy on information processing. Therefore, this thesis addresses these gaps by investigating the impact of two factors,. ‧. that is, number of news crawls and content relevancy between news crawls and main. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. news, on viewers’ news information processing (attention and recall in particular).. i n U. v. Data was collected based on a computer-based experiment in a university campus. Ch. engchi. with a total of 145 participants. Results showed that relevance between news crawl content and main news content has significant impact on viewers’ attention and recall of news information. Unrelated contents lead to better attention and recall than related contents. More news crawls does not necessarily lead to poorer recall of news information. Keywords: news crawl, content relevancy, attention, recall, information processing..

(8) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 2 中文摘要. 電視新聞跑馬燈對閱聽眾的影響，實務和學界仍持不同見解。過往學術文獻認為，人類消化訊息的能力有限，若是超越個人所能負荷的訊息消化能力範圍，可能產生訊息過剩而導致注意力降低或訊息處理不完全，包括對訊息的記憶不全(Lang, 2000)。新聞跑馬燈的數量和新聞跑馬燈與主新聞的相關性，對閱聽眾處理訊息的影響，過去文獻研究並不豐富和完整，故本論文從新聞跑馬燈的數量和與主新. 政治大. 聞的相關性，了解此二變項對閱聽眾訊息處理能力（特別是注意力和記憶）的影. 立. 響。實驗受試者係招募本校大學和研究生共 145 人，在電腦上看完新聞影片後再. ‧ 國. 學. 填答實驗問卷，以完成實驗。實驗結果顯示，跑馬燈與主新聞內容的相關性，對. ‧. 閱聽眾的注意力和記憶力有顯著影響，跑馬燈數量則無造成顯著影響。當跑馬燈. Nat. io. sit. y. 和主新聞的內容不相關時，觀眾對主新聞內容的注意力與記憶反而會增加。跑馬. al. er. 燈數量的增加並不會降低閱聽眾對新聞內容的記憶。新聞跑馬燈的數量及其與主. n. v i n Ch 新聞的相關性，在閱聽眾記憶新聞內容方面並無顯著的交互作用影響。 engchi U 關鍵字：新聞跑馬燈、注意力、記憶、訊息處理.

(9) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 3. . Introduction In light of modern technology, and the severe competition among news networks, news crawls are widely used by 24 hour news channels to provide as many news items as possible in one news story to attract viewers’ attention. News crawls are used most excessively for breaking news such as natural disasters or political scandals. During emergencies like these, number of news crawls is very likely to soar,. 政治大. simultaneously, often providing non-relevant information with the main news (Wei,. 立. 2005). Viewers then are likely to receive up to nine news items (Wei, 2005) in just. ‧ 國. 學. one news story.. ‧. As much as news crawls have its significant impact to news producers, use of. Nat. io. sit. y. excessive news crawls raise the issue that many news people have debated: can news. al. er. crawls bring negative effects for viewers and contradict with good journalism practice?. n. v i n C h Institute, St. Petersburg, Senior faculty, Jill Geisler at Poynter e n g c h i U Florida, stated that. “crawls are good journalism when they augment a program in progress with important news told in context. They are bad journalism when they are dated, incomplete, alarmist or misleading” (McClellan & Kerschbaumer, 2001, page 17). To news producers, news crawls not only help busy people to attain the most up-to-date information (Rustom & Medlock, 2002), but also increase the value of a news story (Romano, 2002). Many news producers also believe that people living in the internet.

(10) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 4. era will eventually get used to the crowded television screen, because “television as a web page” is the future trend (McClellan & Kerschbaumer, 2001). Yet research have indicated that not every viewer thinks news crawls is pleasing to watch and may find them distracting (Sassone, 2009; Sassaman, 2008). Several psychological theories, in terms of an information processing system, including the limited capacity model and cognitive load theory, suggested that too. 政治大. much information will create message complexity (Lang, Bolls & Kawahara, 1996).. 立. Similarly, the information complexity model (Lang, 2000) suggested that message. ‧ 國. 學. complexity diminishes a person’s already limited abilities to digest information (Lang,. ‧. 2000; Kirschner, 2002) and pay attention (Lord & Burnkrant, 1993).. Nat. al. er. io. (Schwartz, 2003; Hunter, 2002).. sit. y. Misunderstanding, confusion, and low recall of information are likely to occur. n. v i n C toh attract viewers (Lang, As much as complexity works e n g c h i U 2000), it is not equivalent. to attention all the way (Lord & Burnkrant, 1993). Many studies indicated that viewers who watch a heavily cluttered television screen are less likely to understand or remember much of what they see or hear. Instead, they can only obtain a general idea (Potter, 2002; Brosius, 1993). This also suggests that complexity certainly does not guarantee efficient learning. In addition, viewers who watch unrelated news elements are more likely to suffer information overload than viewers who watch news .

(11) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 5. elements related to the same topic (Potter, 2002). In sum, these theories raise the questions and resonate with the core of this thesis. How well do viewers react in attention and recall of news information, under exposure to large numbers of news crawls? Will it be worse or better for viewers’ to recall news information, if news crawl content is not relevant with the main news? Literature in this field regarding these questions is scarce and mainly focused on the. 政治大. content of crawls (Coffey & Cleary, 2008), with viewers’ attention and recall of news. 立. information less examined. In an attempt to address this gap, this thesis looks into two. ‧ 國. 學. factors---the number of news crawls, and the relevance between news crawl content. ‧. and main news content, on viewers’ attention and recall of news information. To. Nat. io. sit. y. further distinguish the impact caused by the two factors, viewers’ attention and recall. al. er. of the main news content and news crawl content will be discussed separately.. n. v i n Cimplemented An experimental method was the hypotheses. News coverage h e n g ctohtest i U. of typhoon Tembin was selected as news story topic and main content of the sample video in the experiment. This type of news topic was selected because natural disasters are considered a type of breaking news (Reynolds & Barnett, 2003), where massive use of crawls is most frequently implemented as a strategy to attract viewers (Wei, 2005). Therefore, this type of news topic allows participants to feel accustomed to watching a news clip cluttered with news crawls like so in real situations when .

(12) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 6. typhoons happen. Sample video was edited into four versions of news clips to test participants’ recall of news information. Due to the habit of massive use of news crawls in Taiwan’s television news networks, findings of this research will contribute as a reference in better news production. Future research in studying the effect of media modality differences and news graphic designs, as well as research in viewer recall of information and learning. 政治大. process, can also benefit from the results of this study. Other fields besides mass. 立. communication, such as educational research studying the impact of use of visual. ‧ 國. 學. graphic materials on learning, may also find the results of this research useful.. ‧. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. . Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(13) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 7. Literature Review Increasing prevalence of news crawls News crawl usage before the 911 terrorist attack in 2001 was rare (Marshall, 2001). The attack led several television news networks to bombard the screen with news crawls providing updates of urgent information (Stoeffel, 2011). However, after the attack, news crawls remained and became standard issue at screen bottom in many. 政治大. of U.S.’s news channels. No television networks had dared to be the first to put an end. 立. to the scrolling texts “crawling” more and more on to the screen (King, 2002),. ‧ 國. 學. because in more practical terms, crawls may seem to deliver the most information in. ‧. the least amount of time creating a sense of “crisis”, and that sense of “crisis”, is good. Nat. io. sit. y. business for television news. To simplify, a news crawl is a line of texts running at the. al. er. bottom of the screen, mainly providing headline type of news information (Marshall,. n. v i n C h of news crawls includes 2001; Warren, 2011). Another service e n g c h i U cross promotion of the news network or other parent company media products. For example, a news crawl promo such as “You’re Watching CNN, the most trusted name in news,” is essentially a commercial for the network (Coffey & Cleary, 2008). Crawls since the1980s were primarily used for updates of stocks in financial markets (Duffy, 1990), then moved on to business news networks such as the Financial News Network in the 1990s (Coffey & Cleary, 2008), called the ticker .

(14) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 8. instead of the crawl because they literally tick at due time (Edsall, 2008). Shields (2003) stated that the concept behind news crawls can be traced back to 1869, when American inventor and businessman, Thomas Edison, made a fortune out of the modified version of the stock market ticker. Stelter (2008), however, wrote in his article that the inspiration of news crawls actually originated from the horizontal “zipper” of news headlines that lit up the New York Times headquarter back in 1928.. 政治大. Till the twentieth century, Bloomberg Television decided they want to bring the. 立. internet web-site look to U.S. television screen (McClellan & Kerschbaumer, 2001).. ‧ 國. 學. Crawls later on were used in television news channels to convey major breaking news,. ‧. weather emergencies, elections and national crisis (Poniewozik, 2010). On the day of. Nat. io. sit. y. the 911 attack, Fox News was the first to launch the new look of a “revolutionalized”. al. er. television news screen with news crawls running non-stop at the bottom of the screen. n. v i n (Richmond, 2002). This strategyCwas followed byUCNN and MSNBC in less than h esoon ng chi 30 minutes (Poniewozik, 2010). Eventually the attack receded, but the signifier of the emergency never did. Focusing back at Taiwan’s television industry, the first television network was established in 1962 (Sun, 2006), which was 16 years after the first television network in the U.S., The DuMont Television Network, was established (Hilmes, 2004). Yet revamp was quick after abolishment of the Martial Law in 1988 (Rampal, 1994) and .

(15) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 9. passage of the Community Antenna Television Law which occurred five years later (Sun, 2006). Cable news channels replaced the old three-channel stage and soon gained popularity on the island (Shih, 2012). Inevitably this led to fierce competition among television news networks. At least eight television news channels provided 24 hour news (Li, 2001). In order to draw viewers’ attention, one method frequently implemented by news producers in Taiwan, is expanding use of news crawls in news. 政治大. reporting (Wei, 2005). Competing to provide as much information as possible,. 立. meticulous use of screen space is taken to an ultimate level (Wei, 2005). While news. ‧ 國. 學. graphics already clutter the screen with weather forecast and stock indexes, news. ‧. crawls at the same time run on the lower and either side of the screen delivering. Nat. io. sit. y. information that may or may not relate to the main news content (Wei, 2005). During. al. er. severe natural disasters (Wei, 2005), it is quite often to see three, or up to four news. n. v i n C hborder around the television crawls, running like a moving text screen. In the U.S., the engchi U cluttering screen situation is not as serious compared to Taiwan (Wei, 2005), however still criticized by many people that it is a big disturbance in the process of news viewing (Richmond, 2002). Evidently, as a result of the competitive and profit-driven factors, television news industry across time and country, implement the same strategy---the use of news crawls---to win over audience. Debates over whether news crawls was a bad practice of journalism or that they .

(16) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 10. were simply too distracting for viewers due to the cluttered screen (Beinart, 2001; Edsall, 2008) and information overload (Potter, 2002), still remains an important issue (Goldman, 2001), because there is no one simple solution to satisfy all supporting and opposing parties. For opposing voices in the public and academic fields, the disadvantage is more to the news crawl than meets the eye. In addition to being a distraction itself during news viewing and cluttering the screen, some argue that it is. 政治大. an easy way out for television news networks to not filter information that really. 立. matters (Mansbridge, 2004; Poniewozik, 2010)---displaying all kinds of hard and soft. ‧ 國. 學. news that seem plain trivial. Others criticize news crawls to be a simplified form of. ‧. news providing insufficient details confusing or misleading viewers (King, 2002).. Nat. io. sit. y. Despite the controversies, most television news networks defend the crawls to be. al. er. something that keeps viewers attuned (Stelter, 2008) and is still a feasible solution to. n. v i n C hFormer executive producer bring up the ratings (Edsall, 2008). of “Today,” Steve engchi U. Friedman, stated that “television has decided it is no longer radio with pictures; it is television with text, especially on cable” (Learmonth, 2006). Former CNN Executive Vice President and General Manager, Teya Ryan, once stated that “the crawl is about adding news value” (Romano, 2002). CNN’s new creation in 2008, the “flipper”, however, was the first friendly gesture made by a television news network to answer annoyed viewers’ prayers (Tate, 2008). .

(17) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 11. The flipper, claimed by CNN, still provides information but does not distract viewers and provides a cleaner screen (Stelter, 2008), because it literally flips instead of scroll at a much lazier speed (Rosenthal, 2008). Instead of the narrow scrolling news crawl that runs along the bottom of the screen, a wider flipper graphic presents information one at a time (Dickson, 2008). On the other hand, several television news networks had stood their ground, proving that they had taken steps to minimize any hypnotic or. 政治大. trancelike effect that might be induced by the constant scrolling information (Hatch,. 立. 1998). CNN Headline News for example, kept crawls running at varying intervals. ‧ 國. 學. depending on different groups of information and day part (Hatch, 1998). Fox News. ‧. consulted visual specialists and conducted focus groups and settled on six-second. Nat. io. sit. y. intervals believing it is the most appropriate length of time to catch people’s attention. n. al. er. without boring them (Hatch, 1998). As for MSNBC, their approach was less scientific. Ch. and merely relied on instincts (Hatch, 1998).. engchi. i n U. v. Another reason supporting the beliefs of television news producers to keep using news crawls is the highly advanced computer technology. Research had indicated that a majority of younger viewers find onscreen “enhancements” somewhat or very appealing, compared to older people who are at the age of 55 or above (McClellan & Kerschbaumer, 2001). News producers believe it is the TV-as-a-web-page era where people, especially younger people (Potter, 2002; McClellan & Kerschbaumer, 2001), .

(18) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 12. are used to multitasking and receiving large amount of unrelated information simultaneously in boxes, columns and scrolls (McClellan & Kerschbaumer, 2001). However, researchers indicated that what the audience is really experiencing is continuous partial attention---where audiences grasp all incoming information less clearly (Beinart, 2001). Media studies researchers at University of Nevada, stated that unless the elements are all related to the same topic, viewers cannot be comfortable. 政治大. with crowding and consequence might lead to information overload (Potter, 2002).. 立. Diverse opinions on the implementations of news crawls come with. ‧ 國. 學. understandable reasons for both sides, and although news crawls are commonly used. ‧. in television news, the literature on news crawls is scarce (Coffey & Cleary, 2008).. Nat. io. sit. y. Most take an industry-based focus (Hatch, 1998), examining their production, value in. al. er. attracting younger new audiences (Potter, 2002), advertising implications (Stone,. n. v i n Ctohscreen clutter (Lang, 1998), and cognitive issue related e n g c h i U 2000). It is thus the aim of this thesis to look deeper into the impact of news crawls on viewers’ recall of news information and information seeking need, under two main effects---number of news crawls, and relevance between news crawl and the main news content. Viewers’ recall of information will be divided into content of news crawl and the main news and discussed separately. News crawls .

(19) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 13. Graphic design and television have gone hand in hand from the very creation of the medium (Lloyd, 2002). Perhaps where television graphics have been used to greatest effect is within news, in a range so common that television graphics have become a culture and language that speaks for itself (Lloyd, 2002). Overall, television graphics among news industries serves five main functions as follow (Whittaker, 2013): (1) Alerts and updates (e.g., text scrolling graphic); (2) To clarify complicated,. 政治大. yet to happen, abstract details in news stories (e.g., computer graphic) (Lu, 2007;. 立. Wang, 2010); (3) Re-establishing course of news events already occurred (e.g., 3D. ‧ 國. 學. computer graphic) (Lu, 2007; Wei, 2005); (4) To show personality and character of. ‧. the news network; and (5) Attract viewers’ attention.. Nat. io. sit. y. Among the wide array of television graphics, text scrolling graphic, also referred. al. er. to as the news crawl (Lloyd, 2002), is the most frequently used type of television. n. v i n C h(Shields, 2003). Among graphic in news channels nowadays e n g c h i U the five main functions of television graphics described earlier, news crawls mainly allows news networks to attract viewers’ attention by providing as much concise information as possible in the scarcity of scroll space (Wei, 2005), running from a repetition of 60 to 80 headlines in an 8 to 12 minute cycle (Strauss, 2001). Shields (2003) explained news crawls as the set of words that creep along at the bottom of the television screen offering headline-style of data to viewers. Edsall (2008) recognized news crawls as a banner .

(20) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 14. set across the television screen which constantly refreshes with a stream of updates to provide headlines or minor piece of news. Unlike the early days of the crawl, news crawls today covers bits of information from around the country and the world, instead of just one particular issue (Shields, 2003). It may seem very common for viewers to see news crawl contents transform gradually through time, but this may just be one of the many consequences due to. 政治大. fierce competition among television news networks, domestic and abroad. Taiwan. 立. news networks for example emphasize greatly on news crawls and other types of. ‧ 國. 學. television graphics in order to draw viewers’ attention (Wei, 2005). Each news. ‧. network displays different numbers of news crawls (Lu, 2007) throughout complete. Nat. io. sit. y. news hours, conveying concise messages which may or may not relate to the main. al. er. news content (Edwardson, Kent & McConnell, 1985). Yet whether this strategy is. n. v i n C h to news producers really beneficial for viewers is unknown e n g c h i U in Taiwan (Lu, 2007).. While television being a multi-context media presenting audio and video itself, would it be a problem of information overload if viewers are asked to take in news crawls as well? Are viewers who watch a heavily cluttered news program able to understand or remember much of what they see or hear (Potter, 2000)? It is thus the aim of this thesis to further investigate the impact of number of news crawls and relevance between news crawls and the main news content on viewers’ .

(21) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 15. process of information recall. However, it is crucial to first understand the factors influencing viewers’ learning process through television news before looking deeper into information processing. Information learning through television news viewing Studies had indicated that people watch television not only for entertainment, but also to seek the latest information (Lu, 2007). So as an entertainment and information. 政治大. transmitting medium (Drew & Reeves, 1980), the essential question is, does the. 立. television medium have significant effects on learning while viewers watch television. ‧ 國. 學. programs, in particular, television news? Research results in this particular area are. ‧. quite polarized. Several studies indicated that viewers’ learning and comprehension. Nat. io. sit. y. through television news viewing is quite poor (Neuman, 1976; Katz, Adoni & Parness,. al. er. 1977). Many studies have proven that recalls for specific details in television news. n. v i n C hviewers, however, U viewing is relatively poor for most e n g c h i a general idea of the. information appeared to remain (Kellermann, 1985; Brosius, 1993). Other studies however, believe that television news learning can be somewhat more effective, if the following terms are taken into account: (1) appropriate news presentational formats (Gunter, 1980); (2) news story attributes (Berry, 1983); (3) individual goals and needs in television news viewing (Gantz, 1978; Rubin & Perse, 1987); (4) viewers’ prior knowledge to news item or content (Berry, 1983); (5) personal involvement with the .

(22) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 16. news issue (Rubin & Perse, 1987); and (6) appropriate measures of learning (Drew & Reeves, 1980). It is worth noting that these terms are only listed on a general basis and do not necessarily comprise all, however it is clear that types of variables that influence learning through television news viewing should be rigorously considered (Brosius, 1989). Therefore this thesis will look deeper into factors that influence learning through television news viewing in three main perspectives, including news. 政治大. type, individual’s viewing motivation, and situational factors affecting viewers’. 立. television viewing process.. ‧ 國. 學. News type. News content and the way news story is presented affect viewers’. Nat. io. sit. television news stories will be further discussed.. y. ‧. learning (Lu, 2007). In this part news attributes and structural features used in. al. er. Television news programming has been categorized in terms of hard versus soft. n. v i n news content (Voinché, Davie &CDinu, h e2010). n g cTheh itwoUterms were used first by U.S. journalists to classify both individual news reports and news formats (Reinemann, Stanyer, Scherr & Legnante, 2012). Despite the ubiquity of the two terms in the literature, scholars are far from reaching a consensus about how hard and soft news is to be defined (Reinemann et al., 2012). Curran and colleagues (2010) noted in their comparative study that hard news is defined as reports about politics, public administration, the economy, science, technology and related topics. The Project for .

(23) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 17. Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) defined hard news as a story about the government, military, domestic, and foreign affairs (Trigoboff, 2002). Soft news, on the other hand, contains a set of story characteristics, including sensationalized presentation (e.g., changes between camera positions and angles; backdrop of the set) (Browne, 1978); human-interest themes, emphasis on dramatic subject matter (Vettehen, Nuijten & Peeters, 2008) and the absence of a public policy component (Voinché, Davie & Dinu,. 政治大. 2010). Curran and colleagues (2010) stated that soft news is defined as reports about. 立. celebrities, human interest, sport and other entertainment-centered news. Many. ‧ 國. 學. researchers even relate soft news to tabloid journalism due to its sensationalized story. ‧. context (Plasser, 2005; Reinemann et al., 2012; Drew & Reeves, 1980).. Nat. io. sit. y. Evidently, personal likings of hard or soft news vary among people (Wonneberger,. al. er. Schoenbach & Meurs, 2009), in consequence, the degree of liking affects how much. n. v i n C the viewers learn and remember from (Drew & Reeves, 1980). Many h enews n gstory chi U. studies had indicated that sensational features in news stories such as violence or humor, attracts better attention of viewers (Vettehen, Nuijten & Peeters, 2008), however, does not necessarily result in equal amount of learning or recall (Lu, 2007). This will be further discussed later in the information processing section. News crawls as a type of television graphic, influence viewers’ perceptions on news stories as much as the news content itself, thus it is necessary to discuss the .

(24) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 18. impact of news crawls on viewers’ learning. However, because related research does not discuss directly about news crawls and learning, there is little empirical and theoretical support for this part of the literature review. Thus related features involved in television news will be used to discuss its impact on viewers’ learning. To start off, television video (sound plus visual) and audio (sound only) modality affects learning. Graber (1990) stated that the combination of visual and verbal information in. 政治大. television news have influence against learning by viewers, but if visual and verbal. 立. element is discussed separately, visual elements tend to be more memorable than. ‧ 國. 學. verbal ones. Katz, Adoni & Parness (1977) pointed out that the recall of news items. ‧. immediately following a major news broadcast is somewhat improved by seeing the. Nat. io. sit. y. news rather than hearing it. They also stated that seeing television news is relatively. al. er. more helpful to improve the recall of some less attracting news subjects. Results in. n. v i n C hhowever, all is inU this particular area is not consistent, e n g c h i line with better information recall accompanied by higher redundancy of image and sound (Lu, 2007). Fox and colleagues (2004) suggested that text and animated graphics aided recognition for stories that participants rated harder to understand, such as. science-related television news stories. Edwardson, Kent & McConnell (1985) found in their studies that non-redundant crawls hindered aided recall of news stories. When there is a conflict of redundancy in the same news content, viewers tend to focus more .

(25) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 19. on the image than the sound because images requires viewers less effort to process the information, however, this also leads to poorer memory of news content (Lang, 2000). Other studies focused on whether news stories with or without graphic items would better enhance learning during television news viewing. The results are bipolar as well. Edwardson, Kent & McConnell (1985) suggested that news crawls help to increase recall for the topic of news content but not specific details. Gunter (1980). 政治大. also found that picture-content features seem to have profound effect upon learning of. 立. “brief” television news items. On the other hand, many researchers believe that most. ‧ 國. 學. individuals have remarkable ability to recognize and recall visual details (Kellermann,. ‧. 1985; Colombo, Bimbo & Pala, 1999), on certain circumstances as well. (1) News. Nat. io. sit. y. content with vivid information instead of pallid ones, holds viewers’ attention and is. al. er. more easily to be recalled (as cited in Gass & Seiter, 2011); and (2) emotional visuals. n. v i n such as news stories with salientCdetails, stimuli content, and emotional use of h e nhigh gchi U words (Kellermann, 1985). Layout and design of news story per se also contribute to viewers’ learning and. information outcomes (Lu, 2007; Fan, 2008). Research had indicated that titles and captions in television news stories help to increase viewers’ memory of news content (Pipps, Walter, Endres & Tabatcher, 2009), especially with hard news or news topics which viewers often feel more unfamiliar with (Plasser, 2005). News crawls that run .

(26) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 20. in fast and continuous pattern (about 200 words per minute) best attract viewers’ attention and receive best result in recall of information compared with blinking and fade out kind of pattern; as to layout there is no difference in viewers’ memory of information whether news crawl is on the bottom or the left side of the screen (Fan, 2008). Although each factor seem important enough to impact on learning, it is worth. 政治大. noting that the interaction effect of certain factors is more likely to impact on viewers’. 立. learning than a single factor alone, for the production of news stories today is way too. ‧ 國. 學. fancy, viewers are not likely to encounter just one single factor that is capable to. ‧. influence the viewing process (Lu, 2007). If that is that case, discussion of. Nat. sit. al. er. io. even be an issue.. y. redundancy of television news structural features or information overload would not. n. v i n C hand gratifications approach Viewing motivation. The uses posits that people use engchi U. media outlets in order to satisfy certain needs and desires (Rubin, 1993). From this perspective, viewers’ choice of media, or preference for television programs, is influenced by a host of personality traits (Bagdasarov, Greene, Banerjee, Krcmar, Yanovitzky & Ruginyte, 2010). When applied to news programming, viewers are assumed to choose programs according to their preferences for specific programs or genres (Webster & Wakshlag, 1983), in consequence, gratifications sought from news .

(27) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 21. viewing leads to recall of news information (Gantz, 1978).Therefore, underlying the uses and gratifications approach, individuals’ motivation and behavior must be understood before explaining the effects of media use (Rubin, 1993). McQuail (1984) categorized the uses and gratifications approach to individual media use in four main parts, including (1) information (such as the need to seek relevant information) (Cacioppo, Petty & Kao, 1984); (2) personal identity (including finding support for. 政治大. personal values and finding models of behavior); (3) integration and social interaction. 立. just relax or to avoid complicated problems).. 學. ‧ 國. (such as finding a sense of belongingness to others); and (4) entertainment (wanting to. ‧. In sum, activity or passivity of television viewing will influence individuals’. Nat. io. sit. y. learning through television viewing (Wonneberger, Schoenbach & Meurs, 2009), and. al. er. one learns best when actively seeking some particular information (Gantz, 1978). This. n. v i n C h learning andUretention of news information active motivation impacts on subsequent engchi for viewers, because how they select information to be encoded affects how much. amount and duration of information is stored (Childers, Houston & Heckler, 1985). In later section of information processing, this will be further discussed. Situational factors in television viewing. Process of socialization, lifestyle, personal experience, knowledge and attitude are examples of situational factors which could affect an individual to learn through television news viewing (Lu, 2007). While .

(28) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 22. television messages--being a type of stimulus itself---tends to draw viewers’ attention, research had showed that viewers’ attention frequently varies between and within programs, individuals and situations (Lang, Zhou, Schwartz, Bolls & Potter, 2000). It all depends on the content and the situation each individual is engaged in at the current moment. Studies also show that people bring to the news viewing situation a cognitive switching style which they employ in a systematic manner regardless of. 政治大. variations in news content (Rimmer, 1984).. 立. If information perceived through news is not what the viewer had intended to seek,. ‧ 國. 學. for example, the viewer only wishes to seek international economic information but. ‧. was bombarded with domestic and international information on entertainment and. Nat. io. sit. y. social news and nothing about economics, then even for a motivated television news. al. er. viewer hoping to seek information, the inability to attend to the message desired. n. v i n C heffect (Kellermann,U1985). In other situations, would work against finding a recall engchi viewers can predict what is coming on in television programs and adjust their response accordingly. This is the anticipation effect suggested by Rimmer (1984), an expression of the predictable form of television news. Other circumstances would be when an individual’s newly learned information conflict with one’s previous learned knowledge in the information learning process, causing interference in the process of memory. Kellermann (1985) proposed two types .

(29) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 23. of interference in learning and retention of information, retroactive and proactive. Retroactive interference refers to newly learned information interfering with the recall of old information; proactive interference refers to old messages interfering with the storage of incoming new messages. In other words, what an individual had previously known related to the message affects how one learns and remembers the message perceived now.. 政治大. Viewers’ attitudes include believability in news content and the media system, or. 立. personal interest in certain news topics (Lu, 2007). Ashley, Poepsel & Willis (2010). ‧ 國. 學. suggest that corporate media systems controlling and financing media outlets may be. ‧. one of the many reasons to affect viewers’ believability in news content. Browne. Nat. io. sit. y. (1978) noted that nature of the interviewer or interviewee in news programs (e.g.,. al. er. laypersons serve as examples of the public opinion and sometimes eyewitnesses or. n. v i n victims which adds credibility toCthe h interview) e n g c (Vettehen, h i U Nuijten & Peeters, 2008) is also likely to influence how much viewers believe in the news story, as a result, affect viewers’ learning of news content (Drew & Reeves, 1980). Individuals’ perceptions of the newscaster’s motivation may also determine the effect of learning. Since news could serve both entertainment and information functions (Lu, 2007), perhaps those who think news story that serves to provide information might learn more from it than those who consider it is partly to entertain, .

(30) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 24. because the former is consistent with the learning process (Drew & Reeves, 1980). Overall, the process of learning through television news viewing may be affected by many complicated factors, individually and news content structurally speaking. In many situations, interaction among these factors is also likely to bring different results to viewers’ learning process (Lu, 2007). However, aside from the factors discussed, how does the process of learning really work? What are the essential elements that. 政治大. must be present for process of learning to work smoothly? How are the factors. 立. discussed previously in any way influencing process of learning?. ‧ 國. 學. Information Processing. ‧. In the previous section, questions were raised on how process of learning works. Nat. io. sit. y. and the factors that are likely to influence this process. Cognitive psychology scholars. al. er. did many researches on human’s learning process, and declared the information. n. v i n C h2007). The information processing theory in the sixties (Lu, e n g c h i U processing approach to human development emphasizes the fundamental mental processes involved in attention, perception, memory, decision making, and reasoning (Rosnov & Roberts, 2005). This part of the thesis will look deeper into the occurrence of information processing, and the factors that are likely to impact either negatively or positively on information processing during television news viewing. The idea of information processing lies in the very heart of cognitive psychology, .

(31) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 25. in which the human mind is compared to the structure of a computer (Mcleod, 2008). The basic idea of this hypothesis stated that the human mind has the sensory register (such as the eyes, ears and mouth) with equivalent function as the input device of a computer to take in stimuli (White, 1986). Similar to the central processing unit of a computer, the human mind process incoming stimuli and hold information temporarily in short-term memory (or working memory) to be used, discarded or. 政治大. transferred into long-term memory to be stored for an indefinite of time (Radvansky. 立. & Copeland, 2006). The output of information process is then exhibited through. ‧ 國. 學. viewer’s behaviors or actions (Hedge, 2011). Evidently, memory plays a significant. ‧. role within the process of information and is influential to viewers’ subsequent. Nat. io. sit. y. behaviors (Lu, 2007). In light of the main focus of this thesis, which is to investigate. al. er. viewers’ memory performance under the impact of number of news crawls and the. n. v i n relevance between news crawls C andhthe main news content, e n g c h i U moreover, viewers’. information seeking need, it is important to understand the structures and process of memory before further discussing factors that are likely to influence memory performance. Memory structures. Memory does not copy reality at storage nor perfectly reproduce it whenever it is needed, rather, memory is a “constructive” process influenced by our current knowledge (Lucariello, 2004). Our brains tend to keep our .

(32) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 26. memories in nodes, which it then connects with associated other memories. Nodes can be semantic (with straight forward meanings) or affective (with emotional meaning) (Teichert & Schöntag, 2010). This is the most commonly accepted model of memory, the associative network model (Mitchell, 1982). Under the associative network model, Lang (2000) described that memories are conceptualized as being linked to other related memories in an association, and when one end of the memory is activated, the. 政治大. whole association will be activated, a process which supply related memories more. 立. active and available than unrelated memories (Klimesch, 1994). When more and more. ‧ 國. 學. related new information are linked to the already existing associative memory. ‧. network, the more complete information storage is developed, the stronger memory. Nat. io. sit. y. becomes of an individual, and the easier retrieval it will be (Lang, 2000).. al. er. From the cognitive psychology point of view, memory and comprehension are. n. v i n C h B., Roskos-Ewoldsen, defined differently (Roskos-Ewoldsen, e n g c h i U D., Yang, Choi &. Crawford, 2003). Memory relates with information storage, retrieval, and accessibility, whereas comprehension refers to the interaction of newly received and already existing information, in consequence, having impact on one’s explanation and description of the newly learned information (Roskos-Ewoldsen, B. et al., 2003). Evidently memory and comprehension compliment each other, and learning is just the process of the interaction between memory and comprehension (Collins, 1970). .

(33) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 27. Cognitive psychology researchers concluded that the memory structure is composed of the sensory register, short-term memory, and long-term memory (Lang, 2000). The sensory register is referred to the human senses such as the eyes, mouth and nose, to receive external stimuli or information. It has an unlimited capacity storage of incoming information, however, if not eventually transferred into short-term memory, it will disappear in only few seconds, meaning the information. 政治大. will not even be processed by the individual (Lang, 2000). Short-term memory,. 立. literally speaking, has a limited capacity of storage of 5 to 9 items at one time (Lu,. ‧ 國. 學. 2007). Information stored in short-term memory will not be further transferred into. ‧. long-term memory if not processed or rehearsed by human in less than a minute (Lu,. Nat. io. sit. y. 2007). Long-term memory, however, is believed to have an unlimited capacity of. al. er. storage of information, where information stored here is reckoned to be permanent. n. v i n and meaningful (Hedge, 2011). C However, are times when an individual cannot h e nthere gchi U or has trouble to recall information stored in long term memory due to disturbance or lack of retrieval cues (Hedge, 2011). This finding brings the focus of this thesis into a more clear view in which question must be asked, what are the factors contained in a television news story that are more likely to help viewers remember the news content, or adversely, causing viewers to reject incoming information or simply doesn’t wish to remember? .

(34) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 28. Memory process. It is assumed that the human brain can, and usually does, engage in encoding, storage and retrieval simultaneously (Lang, 2000). Lang explained the basic sub-processes of information processing are to perceive or expose to stimuli, select incoming stimuli and turn them into mental representations (encoding), do mental work on those representations and transfer short-term subsystem to long-term subsystem (storage), finally, reproduce them in the same or an. 政治大. altered form (retrieval) (Lang, 2000; Kellermann, 1985).. 立. Encoding. Lang (2000) elaborated on two types of information in mediated. ‧ 國. 學. messages that are most likely to be selected by television viewers for encoding into. ‧. working memory, (1) information relevant to the goals of the individual and (2). Nat. io. sit. y. information that is new, unexpected, or representative of change in the environment.. al. er. To exemplify, if the individual watches television for pure leisure, long term memory. n. v i n CIfhthe viewer intentionally will not be the goal (Lang, 2000). e n g c h i U watches a news program, then it is likely for the viewer to pay attention and remember the news content (McFarlane & Humphreys, 2012). Due to the many skills of information processing an individual might possess, individuals differ significantly in their acquisition of information and the strategies they employ during acquisition (Childers, Houston and Heckler, 1985). In addition, messages perceived in the encoding process is believed to be neither the exact or the .

(35) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 29. replica of the original message, rather interpretations that are constructed by the individual and only a small fraction of the original message remains (Lang, 2000). In other words, processing preference often has more impact on individual’s choice of incoming stimuli than processing ability (Richardson, 1999). This preference can be affected by many reasons such as need for sensation seeking and arousal. People’s need for arousal (Berlyne, 1960) and degree of sensation seeking (Hoffner & Levine,. 政治大. 2005; Rowland, Fouts & Heatherton, 1989) varies across individuals (Martin,. 立. Sherrard, Wentzel, 2005) and plays important roles in individuals’ medium use. ‧ 國. 學. (Bagdasarov, Greene, Banerjee, Krcmar, Yanovitzky & Ruginyte, 2010; Donohew,. ‧. Palmgreen & Duncan, 1980). An appropriate amount of arousal (Rimmer, 1984). Nat. io. sit. y. attracts viewers’ attention and is good for simple learning, and has been proven to. al. er. improve memory for television messages (Bradley, M.M., 1994). However, too much. n. v i n C h lead to better attention amount of stimuli does not necessarily e n g c h i U and is likely to induce an adverse effect for learning complicated tasks (Berlyne, 1960). It is worth noting. here that due to the many situational factors discussed previously, such as individuals’ cognitive switching style (Rimmer, 1984) while watching television news, attention in the viewing process is very likely to be distracted and often cannot be controlled by television producers. Thus in order to allow the experiment of this thesis to run as accurate as possible, attention must be controlled to test viewers’ recall in news .

(36) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 30. content, under the impact of number of news crawls and relevance between news crawls and the main news content. Additionally, according to the filter theory, people’s cognitive systems tend to filter out things they don’t like or don’t interest them, depending on their preference or the characters of the message (Spivey, 2007). The capacity model proposed that the more the amount of incoming stimuli appears, the more resources will be needed to. 政治大. digest the stimuli (Lang, 2000). If incoming stimuli becomes too much and too. 立. complicated, there will not be enough resources to be allocated to digest, causing. ‧ 國. 學. some parts of the stimuli unable to be processed (Lang, 2000). If applied to television. ‧. news viewing, viewers receiving too much incoming stimuli all at once, such as video. Nat. io. sit. y. and audio structural features (brightness, animation, graphics, sound effects, rate of. al. er. presentation) (Lang, 2000) and content information (such as sports, finance, and. n. v i n C hwould be too muchUloading to process, thus entertainment news) (Lang, 2000), engchi resulting in inadequate comprehension of news content (Berlyne, 1971). Another situation is that viewers might encode and store every piece of. information during news viewing in an unprocessed manner. Indicating that viewers’ motivation for television news viewing in the first place never meant for information to be encoded and put to storage (Kellermann, 1985). This explains why many studies have proven that viewers tend to remember fewer details during television viewing .

(37) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 31. and just a general idea of the news story (Bernard and Coldevin, 1985), as previously brought up in information learning and television viewing. Storage. In light of what was discussed earlier about how message would be stored according to the individual’s prior knowledge and experience, in the storage process, the more new information is related to one’s already learned knowledge, the more comprehensive new information will be learned and remembered (Lang, 2000).. 政治大. Retrieval. Lang (2000) stated that the more linkage there is between retrieval cues. 立. and information wished to be retrieved by the individual, the more effective it is for. ‧ 國. 學. the process of retrieval. Situational factors also account for affective information. ‧. retrieval. Proactive and retroactive interference are two circumstances where an. Nat. io. sit. y. individual is likely to be confused of new information with prior or later received. n. al. er. information, causing new information to be forgotten and unable to be retrieved (Eakin & Smith, 2012).. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Information Complexity and Overload The limited capacity model was brought up by Lang (2000) in her compiled study of relative information processing studies of the past thirty years. This theory mainly proposed that human is a natural information processor, however, one’s ability to digest information is limited (Lang, 2000). In other words, when the system storage is up to its limit, one resource must be let go in order to take in a new one, otherwise it is .

(38) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 32. likely to lead to dysfunctional memory (Lang, 2000). Like previously discussed, many factors are likely to influence encoding, storage and retrieval, but the most important thing is whether the individual has enough resources to allocate to each sub-process to accomplish a thorough process of information. Two main factors thus are likely to contribute to inadequate information processing, in which the individual chooses not to allocate resources to process the information, or the individual simply has not. 政治大. enough resources to allocate to each sub-process (Lang, 2000). If apply the two. 立. factors on the focus of number of news crawls and relevance between news crawls. ‧ 國. 學. and main news content on viewers’ memory performance, can viewers’ inadequate. ‧. recall of news content be the result of the viewer’s personal preference for not. Nat. io. sit. y. choosing to process certain information, or that one is unable to process all. al. er. information at once due to excess information provided by news crawls? In this part. n. v i n C hon information complexity of the thesis, discussion will focus e n g c h i U and overload of television news content and its impact on viewers’ recall of news information.. Complexity, as defined by the number of independent units in a stimulus, can lift arousal by increasing the cognitive demands that are necessary to assess the information (Schwartz, 2003). In television news, complexity can be referred to productions techniques such as new crawls (Wei, 2005) and structural features such as number of cuts, edits, pace (Grabe, Zhou, Lang & Bolls, 2000; Lang, Bolls, Potter & .

(39) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 33. Kawahara, 1999), camera movements and graphics in the news content (Lang, Bolls, Kawahara, 1996). Television, of course, is a complex stimulus (Moskalenko & Heine, 2003), and indeed, complex stimulus are able to induce arousal (Berlyne, 1960), so do many television producers believe. The problem is, there is always an optimal level of arousal for each viewer (Berlyne, 1960). Too much or too little arousal would cause an adverse effect, which when applied to television news viewing, too much. 政治大. complexity in news content, viewers too would suffer from inadequate information. 立. processing including attention, comprehension and memory (Lee & Lang, 2009; Lang,. ‧ 國. 學. Park, Sanders-Jackson, Wilson & Zheng, 2007). In fact, the amount of information. Nat. io. sit. television image (Rimmer, 1984; Schwartz, 2003).. y. ‧. processing resource required is directly related to the degree of complexity of the. al. er. Media studies researcher at University of Nevada Las Vegas, Paul Traudt, once. n. v i n C h and stated that “viewers commented on information saturation are comfortable with a engchi U crowded screen if the elements are all related to the same topic. However, incongruent and multiple elements like the weather conditions, stock ticker, sports scores and headlines unrelated to the main topic, can result in information overload” (Potter, 2002). In other words, inserting unrelated information that adds more new details to the news story is also likely to cause the task of processing messages to be more difficult for viewers (Lang, Zhou, Schwartz, Bolls, & Potter, 2000). .

(40) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 34. In sum, information overload is a good example of complexity, and they are two side of a story. In television news viewing per se, structural features, production techniques, sound, and image, all serve the purpose of providing information for viewers. In addition, visual elements like news crawls have been claimed to take up an enormous amount of effort to process (Potter, 2002). Needless to say, if all these information shown before viewers are incongruent and unrelated to the same topic, it. 政治大. is likely to exceed one’s storage capacity and result in information overload (Lang,. 立. obstruct memory for the semantic whole (Bradley, 2007).. 學. ‧ 國. 2000; Bradley, 2007). An overload anywhere in information processing is likely to. ‧. Literature review found on the relationship between use of news crawls and. Nat. io. sit. y. viewers’ information processing is scarce. Furthermore, there is little empirical and. al. er. theoretical support for predictions about the directions of the effects asked in this. n. v i n C h with four hypotheses thesis. Thus, this study deals primarily e n g c h i U and two research questions as follow:. H1: The number of news crawls will negatively affect viewers’ attention to the news clip, including both the news crawls and the main news content H2: Relevance between news crawl content and main news content will positively affect viewers’ attention to the news clip, including both the news crawls and the main news content .

(41) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 35. H3: The number of news crawls will negatively affect viewers’ recall of news information, including both the news crawls and the main news content H4: Relevance between news crawl content and main news content will positively affect viewers’ recall of news information, including both the news crawls and the main news content RQ1: Will the effect of number of news crawls on viewers' recall, including the main. 政治大. news and the news crawls, depend on the relevance between the news crawls and the. 立. main news?. ‧ 國. 學. RQ2: Will the number of news crawls and the relevance between the news crawls and. ‧. main news affect viewers’ information seeking need?. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. . Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(42) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 36. Method The data of this thesis was collected with an experiment embedded in an online survey questionnaire. The purpose of drawing on the experimental approach was to manipulate external independent variables, including number of news crawls and relevance between news crawl content and main news content, to examine the changes in dependent variables, including viewers’ attention, recall, and information seeking need.. 立. 政治大. While other qualitative methods such as in-depth interview or field study can also. ‧ 國. 學. apply to understanding the effects discussed in this thesis, these methods are not that. ‧. suitable for establishing causality compared to the experimental method, and might. Nat. io. sit. y. increase errors in the results due to too many unexpected external interferences such. al. er. as space, time or subjects which could not be easily manipulated. The goal of this. n. v i n thesis is to determine the causalC relationship the variables, and the h e n gbetween chi U. experimental approach offers a more promising way to estimate the causal effects accurately (Arceneaux, 2010). In addition, the experimental method ensures internal validity and, thus, endows this thesis more confidence in making assertions about the influence of its manipulations. Participants Participants (N=145) were recruited from National Chengchi University through .

(43) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 37. the campus-wide online survey system. Out of the 145 participants, 78% were female and 22% were male. Mean age was 20.5. An online questionnaire was designed to test participants’ attention to news crawl content and main news content; recall of news information including content of main news and news crawls; information seeking need; media viewing habits; and personal basic information. Participants arrive at the designated computer lab and were randomly assigned to each of the four conditions,. 政治大. which emphasized different features of the news crawls. Participants went directly. 立. into watching the news clip and then were asked to fill out the online questionnaire in. ‧ 國. 學. order to finish the experiment. A $50NT voucher was given to each participant as a. Nat. al. er. io. Research Design. sit. 2012 and ended on December 26, 2012.. y. ‧. reward of completing the experiment. The data collection began on December 24,. n. v i n C ah2 by 2 experimental This experiment was based on e n g c h i U design embedded in a. computer-based survey. The main conditions of this experimental design included (1) number of news crawls (1 news crawl and 4 news crawls) and (2) content of relevance between news crawls and the main news (all relevant and all not relevant). According to the observations of six 24-hour news channels in Taiwan, including Era News, Eastern Broadcasting Company, Sanlih E-Television Inc., CTI Television Inc., TVBS and Unique Satellite TV, scrolling motion of news crawls in six of the .

(44) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 38. news channels generally appear to switch between (1) running across the screen from right to left; (2) bottom to top; or (3) flipping from bottom to top. Colors, font sizes and types of news crawl were designed differently among the six news channels. Number of news crawls in six of the news channels could appear at a range of 1 to 4, depending on the urgency and significance of the news content. Position of news crawls on the screen would depend on the number of news crawls displayed at the. 政治大. current moment. All six news channels generally display 1news crawl on the bottom. 立. of the screen; 2 news crawls on the bottom and left side of the screen; and 3 or more. ‧ 國. 學. news crawls on all sides of the screen. As for content relevancy between news crawls. io. sit. y. Nat. information.. ‧. and the main news, generally it is a combination of relevant and non-relevant. al. er. The four experimental news clips were edited according to the observations.. n. v i n C hposition of news crawls Scroll direction, layout design and e n g c h i U were manipulated in an attempt to simulate the screen look of an actual television news report. Also, in order to test the impact of number of news crawls and relevance between news crawls and the main news content, number of news crawls were manipulated at an extreme difference of one and four; content relevancy between news crawls and the main news was manipulated to be all relevant and all non-relevant in order to distinguish the significant difference. .

(45) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 39. A 1minute and 12 seconds news clip was selected from the United Daily News Group online news website as the sample video for this computer-based experiment. In an attempt to avoid the effect of famous anchors interfering with viewers’ attention to news clip, or viewers’ personal preference for a specific cable television news channel which might draw more or less attention to the news clip, the sample video was selected from the United Daily online news website which is relatively less well. 政治大. known by the public compared to other popular cable news channels. In addition, all. 立. of interference with the experiment.. 學. ‧ 國. United Daily logos in the experimental news clips were concealed to avoid any type. ‧. The main content of the sample video depicted the strong tropical cyclone,. Nat. io. sit. y. typhoon Tembin, which took place in Taiwan during August of 2012 and unusually. al. er. struck Taiwan repeatedly, causing severe disasters mostly in the southern part of. n. v i n Taiwan. This video was selectedC forhits high intensity of e n g c h i Uurgency, which in real news broadcasts, urgent news content would be packaged with enormous amount of visual elements such as news crawls, and structural features such as edits, cuts and graphics (Wei, 2005). Thus the topic of this video was chosen to match an actual situation where a cluttered television screen is likely to occur. Four edited versions of news clips were created out of the original sample video and used in this experiment. Each participant saw only one version of the news clip, .

(46) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 40. in one of the following conditions: (a) version R1, 1 news crawl with information relevant to the main news content; (b) version R4, 4 news crawls with information relevant to the main news content; (c) version NR1, 1 news crawl with information not relevant to the main news content; and (d) version NR 4, 4 news crawls with information not relevant to the main news content. All news stories were delivered full screen on a computer.. 政治大. In an attempt to simulate the actual television news screen, news crawls were. 立. placed on the bottom of the screen when there was only one and around the screen. ‧ 國. 學. when there were four. Information provided by news crawls were manipulated to be. ‧. all relevant to the main news content depicting the disasters and severe conditions. Nat. io. sit. y. caused by typhoon Tembin throughout Taiwan; or information all not relevant to. al. er. typhoon Tembin including irrelevant information such as entertainment, politics,. n. v i n C hContent of news crawls international news, or social news. e n g c h i U in the four news clips were retrieved from Google online news website at the time point (August 23-25) when typhoon Tembin caused most severe damages throughout Taiwan. News crawls in all four news clips were manipulated to run from right to left when parallel displayed and bottom to top when vertical displayed. News crawl color, font size and type were selected with the aim to allow viewers to watch the news clip with no difficulty. Wording of the bottom crawls in version R1 and R4 were identical; .

(47) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 41. and like so in version NR1 and NR4.. 政治 Non-relevant 大 and 1 crawl. Relevant and 1 crawl. 立. ‧. ‧ 國. 學 Non-relevant and 4 crawls. n. er. io. al. sit. y. Nat. Relevant and 4 crawls. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Of all the four versions of the news clips, the original voiceover and headline remained unchanged, the rest of the graphic elements such as news channel logo were taken out. All four news clips ran at the original video length of 1 minute and 12 seconds. Measures Attention. Two items measured participants’ attention to news crawl content (M = 2.27, SD = 1.04) and main news content (M = 3.87, SD = 0.91). Participants rated .

(48) THE IMPACT OF NEWS CRAWLS. 42. their level of attention of both questions on a five-point scale, ranging from did not pay attention at all (coded as 1) to paid full attention (coded as 5), in the following statements: (1) “What do you think is your level of attention to the news crawl content in the news clip?” and (2) “What do you think is your level of attention to the main news content in the news clip?” Recall of news crawl content. This variable is composed of six true or false items. 政治大. to measure recall of content in the news crawls per se. Participants selected from “yes,”. 立. “no,” or “did not notice” choices, with the following statements: (1) “Did the news. ‧ 國. 學. clip (including news crawl content) provide information of vegetable price changes?”. ‧. (2) “Did the news clip (including news crawl content) provide information on a day. Nat. io. sit. y. off due to typhoon?” (3) “Did the news clip (including news crawl content) provide. al. er. information on the army saving a drowned dog?” (4) “Did the news clip (including. n. v i n C h on surfers who news crawl content) provide information e n g c h i U drowned at sea on the typhoon day?” (5) “Did the news clip (including news crawl content) provide information on power cut caused by the typhoon?” and (6) “Did the news clip. (including news crawl content) provide information on how to seek compensation for tourists whose trip got cancelled due to typhoon?” Out of the three choices in each of the six items, “no” and “did not notice” choices were re-coded as one “no” choice leaving two choices altogether for analysis. The six items were re-coded as one “recall .