# Communication and Belief

## [An integrated model of communication influence on beliefs](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3752173/)[^1]
- "Philosophers have long debated the boundaries between the concepts of knowledge and belief (8). Rather than engaging in philosophical debates, we briefly address here the similarities and distinctions between beliefs and knowledge from the pragmatic perspective of how we intend to treat them in our model. In the scientific context, Hindman (ref. 9, p. 6) recently argued that ==“statements of both beliefs and knowledge are intrinsically cognitive processes in that each involves an individual’s claim regarding reality. In the case of beliefs, however, the statement is a subjective proposition about the attributes of some aspect of reality."=="
- **knowledge:** factually verified or objectively accurate beliefs
- "Given... the uncertainty of some forms of knowledge in the domains of science and politics, we do not distinguish between them [belief and knowledge] in our model"
- "==Some beliefs may never be able to be classified as accurate or inaccurate==, what counts as ==knowledge can change over time== as science progresses, and in any case, ==beliefs may be derived from the same processes regardless of their accuracy==."
- "The news media act as scientific gatekeepers between research findings published within the academic community and the wider public. Less than 0.5% of science journal articles receive attention from the news media, and articles about health and medicine garner the bulk of this coverage"
- "The artistic license often taken by entertainment media can make inaccurate science seem realistic."

### Sources of beliefs / things that shape belief
- Socioeconomic status
- "The knowledge gap hypothesis (21) predicts that the impact of media messages on knowledge and beliefs will not be uniform across all segments of society. Rather, mediated information tends to be more rapidly and effectively learned by those individuals who are higher in socioeconomic status (SES), with formal education typically viewed as the central component of SES."
- Knowledge obtained in experiences determined by your SES shape your capacity to process information.
- Alternatively, it's just differences in the usefulness of information based on SES that shapes how that information is processed/received.
- Our desire to follow/belong
- "Cultural cognition assumes that individuals are cognitive misers, meaning that they attempt to use the least possible mental effort to achieve a given aim (48, 49). Thus, individuals rely heavily on cultural schemata to process new information."
- It's much easier to follow someone else. Therefore we prefer letting others process the information for us. To do this we associate ourselves with organizations we trust and allow them to pre-process the information.
- "The belief gap hypothesis argues that, as scientific issues become politicized, greater media attention to those issues will lead to increasingly different beliefs about them depending on one’s political ideology."
- Exposure to different sources of information
- "The impact of using any given source (e.g., ABC vs. NBC vs. CNN vs. Fox News) or form (e.g., CNN vs. CNN.com) of media may depend on which other forms of media (if any) are also being used. Use of redundant sources should lead to diminishing returns rather than additive effects, whereas the use of diverse or complementary sources should lead to additive or possibly even synergistic effects."
- "The use of different media forms should be seen as having both direct and indirect (through encouraging additional information-seeking behavior) effects on beliefs."
- Opportunities to discuss information/beliefs
- "==The effects of mass media may occur by prompting discussion that ultimately alters beliefs; alternatively, anticipated discussion of a given topic may encourage preparatory media use, which itself alters beliefs=="
- Beliefs become solid when an individual is forced to determine where they stand in a debate because they are forced to identify with specific bits of information.
- Beliefs are cultivated by existing beliefs
- "The cultivation hypothesis (60) predicts that the ==more time that individuals spend== in the television (or more generally, media) world, ==the more that their beliefs== about the nature ==of the real world will be similar to the content of the media world==."
- Basically, ==your reality will be what you believe, especially when re-enforced through consistent belief-supporting media consumption.==


### IMCIB Edges
- **Direct communication effects:** Media is directly involved in the propagation of some form of the information.
- "For instance, there would be no reason to expect exposure and processing of news to affect beliefs about global climate change if there was no evidence for at least some minimal news coverage of the topic. By the same token, there would be no reason to expect direct effects of exposure to entertainment programming depictions of scientists to produce accurate beliefs about scientists if the entertainment content portrayed scientists in an inaccurate manner."
- **Mediation Processes:** how we digest the information given through communication
- "Exposure to communication in one mediated form (e.g., television news) can stimulate exposure to additional media sources (e.g., online news) to obtain additional information or confirmation. Third, mediated information is commonly viewed as a stimulant for interpersonal communication just as the anticipation of future conversation can motivate mediated information-seeking behavior to gather information for use in those discussions."
- **Moderation Processes:**
- "Counterarguing should moderate the impact of exposure on beliefs, such that the impact of a given unit of exposure will be weaker in the presence than absence of counterarguing"
- Being forced to defend our beliefs makes our beliefs stronger because we are forced to find things that support our belief or change our belief which we are scared of doing for several reason:
- Time/energy investment
- Loss of community
- **Reciprocal Causality:** Beliefs, the things created through communication reciprocally shape the beliefs that we develop going forward
- "In a reciprocal causal model such as this model, there is no need to directly refer to concepts such as prior knowledge or prior beliefs, because they are incorporated by the reverse causal pathways between beliefs and media use, discussion, elaboration, motivation, and ideology."

### Overcoming existing beliefs
- Entertainment is a prime media for spreading belief that may run contrary to what the audience believes going in.
- "When individuals are aware of persuasive intent, they are more likely to resist the message through reactance (resisting perceived pressure to change) and counterarguing (the production of thoughts that contradict a persuasive message) (59). ==Entertainment media that contain persuasive messages can reduce these forms of resistance through greater involvement with the narrative== (58). This involvement facilitates the development of message-consistent beliefs, especially in audiences otherwise predisposed to disagree with the message."
- Change the media exposure
- "Although some of these variables could directly impact beliefs, their dominant influence is likely to be as causes of communication exposure and processing or variables that could alter—by amplifying or inhibiting—the impact of communication exposure and processing on beliefs."
- "Individuals are more likely to be exposed to information that is consistent with their values, and they are more likely to counterargue information that is inconsistent with their values."
- Ensure that multiple communication forms are being used
- "The use of different communication forms should also alter one another’s impacts... Exposure to primarily redundant media sources should lead to diminishing returns of exposure to each new source, whereas ==exposure to complimentary media sources== (such as one providing useful verbal contextual information in conjunction with one providing dramatic visuals) could ==produce synergistic effects==, in which ==the influence of media as a whole is greater than the sum of the influence of its constituent parts.=="
- Review the implications of accelerants and inhibitors of the learning process, intermediate steps that are necessary for learning, and feedback loops.
- Feedback loops can lead to extremes

> The IMCIB pulls together these diverse strands of research and makes explicit predictions regarding the implications of communication for the development of beliefs—be they accurate or otherwise—that correspond to the content of the communication. In doing so, it makes clear some of the challenges facing not only researchers who study communication effects but also those ==communicators who hope to increase the accuracy of the public’s scientific beliefs==.

## [Reinforcing Spirals Model: Conceptualizing the Relationship Between Media Content Exposure and the Development and Maintenance of Attitudes](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4565521/)[^2]

### What reinforces the status-quo
This diagram demonstrates why people stick with the status-quo or become increasingly engaged in media that reinforces challenged beliefs.

"The RSM argues that a major source for such frequent and ongoing activation is the selective choice of attitude- and identity-consistent communication experiences (e.g., conversation partners and media content, and, in the era of social media, both at once)."

### What causes exploration of contrary views
"On the other hand, it is functional and enjoyable, in living in a complex society, to have wide exposure to information that is likely to have utility (e.g., Knobloch, Dillman Carpentier, & Zillmann, 2003) or offer pleasure and a way to manage and adjust moods and explore personal meaning (Knobloch, 2003; Oliver & Raney, 2011; Zillmann, 1988), which are likely to result in exposure to attitudes about the world inconsistent with one's own. Therefore, selectivity of attitude- and identity-consistent content are likely to operate only to the extent necessary to maintain a reasonable level of comfort with respect to protecting identity-central attitudes and beliefs."

### How are new ideas propagated
"How identity-relevant attitudes are formed through socialization (of which media are a part) and then maintained in a complex, diverse society is a central question for social science. If media's role is to help initially form and then help reinforce those attitudes so that they survive in the face of myriad alternative points of view, it is a significant role indeed. Moreover, media exposure within a reinforcement perspective can influence behavior by strengthening the attitude-behavior relationship through increased attitude accessibility (Fazio, Powell, & Williams, 1989), as well as by modeling how to enact behaviors successfully (Bandura, 2009)."

- Media starts the idea and challenges the existing identity
- Media reinforces the idea with continued exposure
- Media models how to enact behavior connected with idea

### Conceptualizing and operationalizing identity threat

1. ==Economic change leading to reduced employment opportunity and the loss of the identity associated with such reduced opportunity==
2. Immigration: increased diversity is a threat for the indigenous population, and assimilation poses threats to existing social identity among the immigrant population
3. Changes in social and moral values, so that the norms of one's referent group may no longer appear reflected in social norms, laws, and media expression
4. International conflict, or internal strife and breakdown of social and legal order
5. Developmental: adolescence is typically a time of identity shifts.

### Conceptualizing and testing exposure to countervailing attitudes

- Exposure to countervailing beliefs are critical to the existance of an open system.
- Countervailing thoughts prevent feedback loops that lead to extremism
- Exposure generally occurs outside of the normal drive for media consumption, when "sought for reasons of utility, pleasure, or other emotional needs (Knobloch et al., 2003; Zillmann, 1998)... as might strategic interest in opposing viewpoints by the politically involved"
- Over-exposure or certain types of exposure will lead to identity threats which will lead to reaching for identity-consistent media to reach identity homeostatis.
- When one side of an argument/belief escalates, the other will be forced to do the same to allow the believers to maintain their identity. This leads to extreme polarization as groups fight to maintain their identity.
- Openness/belief exposure leads to homeostatis and polarization, however, it would be assumed that that majority are not polarized since reaching a pole requires more effort/energy.

### Maintaining belief balance

- "A person may be a staunch conservative, evangelical, and also an impassioned angler and golfer, a mother, a community volunteer, and a teacher. Time and attention is a finite resource. After a certain point, attention to issues and media content associated with one social identity comes at the cost of devoting resources to other roles and interests. ==Perhaps the single strongest and most compelling reason that spirals reach homeostasis is simply that people satisfice.=="
- "Extent of peer diversity or homogeneity or demographic factors such as education, that might influence willingness to accept complexity and assimilate opposing views."

### Other

- Becoming more extreme in a belief is generally associated with consumption of more extreme media supporting that belief.

### Thoughts

- To avoid extremes, accessible centrist ideas are important. However, without presenting some reinforcement/challenge to a social identity, it won't matter.
- We connect more easily with things that are already close to what we believe

[^1]: Eveland WP Jr, Cooper KE. An integrated model of communication influence on beliefs. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013;110 Suppl 3(Suppl 3):14088–14095. doi:10.1073/pnas.1212742110
[^2]: Slater MD. Reinforcing Spirals Model: Conceptualizing the Relationship Between Media Content Exposure and the Development and Maintenance of Attitudes. Media Psychol. 2014;18(3):370–395. doi:10.1080/15213269.2014.897236