Findings & Analysis

Methods
Firstly, we analysed the results quantitively.
We did this in order to; provide a signpost of
information for our analysis; to remain as
objective as possible; and to look at possible
causal relations between the variables.

For this process we simplified the answers into

one-word categories (e.g. yes, no, undecided).

However, our main objective was to

qualitatively analyse the results, in order to
deeply interrogate the issue.

Question 1
Question 1: Did Smith act out of selfdefence?

Diversity of Value
Judgement
There was a significantly higher disagreement in value
judgement seen among the participants in the neutral
group with yes, no, and undecided seen in a ratio of
2:4:4, respectively.

In contrast, in the positive and negative groups, the

value judgements were much more homogenous.

This brought us to the hypothesis that the value

judgements of participants in the positive and negative
groups were affected by the articles.

To analyse this we had to identify the tools used by the

articles in order to manipulate the reader.

Language
Question 2: Do you think that the use of language in this
article affected your value judgement?

Sensationalism
A large proportion of both the positive and negative groups were
aware of the fact that the language in their articles may have been
misleading.

The language used in the positive and negative articles reflect that
of yellow journalism a style of newspaper reporting that
emphasises sensationalism over facts.

For example, we admitted emotive language and phrases, such as

Jones fearing for his life and an emotional interview with Smiths
father about his son. All in all, this is extremely biased language
which shines one subject or the other in a good light.

Negative participant response answered yes there is a lot of

sympathy towards Jones e.g. about his baby receiving death
threats.

One could equate the Daily Mail or other tabloids with this kind of
news reporting.

Memory
Though most participants in the positive and
negative groups were aware of language
techniques used in the article, it is clear from
the results in q.1 that their value judgements
were still affected.

This is also reflected in a study in Psychology of

Popular Media Culture, which showed that
sensationalised media reports, more so those
that provided images, were more easily
remembered by participants than neutral media
reports, even if the participants were skeptical of
them at the time.

Ill-Informed
A negative group participant cared less of the
language and more of the facts that seem to be
presented.

They identified that in the negative and positive

articles, selective items of key information were
included.

We also included many unnecessary details about

the subjects which were not directly relevant to
the case e.g. describing Jones as a former Boy
Scout with round cheeks and blue eyes.

Emotion
Question 3: What emotion of yours was the strongest after reading
this article?

Emotion and Rationality

The positive and negative groups seemed to elicit
stronger feelings of emotion: for example, a participant
in the negative group declared he experienced a
general feeling of how screwed up America is.

However, in the neutral group, people were less stirred

to anger or sadness, one person remarking I had to
detach my emotion from this article from all the other
police gun crime incidences which occur.

This alludes to the possibility that the neutral group

were inclined to be more rational when making a value
judgement on the case, rather than driven by emotion.

Diversity of Emotion
Furthermore, if we look at the data from a
general perspective, there again are more
diverse forms of emotional response within the
neutral group than in the positive and negative
groups with anger, sadness and sympathy at a
ratio of 2:2:1, respectively.

This correlates with the results of question 1, and

begs the hypothesis that the media may use
language that elicits a certain emotional
response in order to project a value judgement
onto the reader.

Bias
Question 4: Are you skeptical of potential bias in
this article?

Bias
Question 5: Does that make you question your
value judgement?

Media Status
Many participants said they were aware that the media
affected their value judgement.

I am skeptical of potential bias in any article.

However, when they read supposingly legitimate articles,
they were not always so discerning.

A substantial amount of participants affirmed that their

suspicion of bias would depend on the author of the
article.

This alludes to the fact that some forms of media have

more power to affect an individuals value judgement
than others.

Consideration
One participant replied to q.5 that they would
google the case and verify the facts for
themselves.

This is a proactive, intelligent way to solve this

discourse failure.

However, as said before, oftentimes emotive

imagery and language can be more easily
memorised and re-consolidated than neutrality.