The objective of the project is to study how video images and messages are perceived and assessed by viewers. During the project, the researchers will study the reactions of viewers to statements and videos of local politicians and will observe what factors influence the positive or negative opinions about the speaker.
The objective of the project is to study how video images and messages are perceived and assessed by viewers. During the project, the researchers will study the reactions of viewers to statements and videos of local politicians and will observe what factors influence the positive or negative opinions about the speaker.
Research Objectives
The scientific objective of this research is to investigate how people construe and process information presented in the form of a video with special attention to how information presented in several forms – in the form of a verbal and visual communicate (additional informational news tickers vs. additional images) and varying in terms of emotional content.
A series of experiments is also expected to provide answers to the following research questions:
- If the output material presents the main character in a positive how will negative misinformation elements influence recall and judgment of the main character?
- If the output material presents the main character in a negative way how will positive misinformation elements influence the main character?
Three laboratory experiments are going to be conducted in order to verify the abovementioned hypotheses. A different video material, prepared especially for the project, is to be used in each experiment. The research material has been diversified in order to investigate the power of the misinformation effect in varied content and affective contexts.
Researchers are going to check what respondents have remembered about the video material and ask about their opinions about the main characters after they have seen the video and two weeks later. A local politician (a fictional character) is going to presented in the film and the final document in each experiment will contain a diversified proportion of negative and positive information about this person.
Three different video films are going to be prepared for the purposes of three experiments (a positive, negative and ambivalent material about a politician). In one experiment, each film will be edited into four different versions. The independent variable in all three experiments is going to be the presence of evocative elements in the material (images vs. news tickers), and the dependent variable is going to be recall of the information about events included in the video material (checked directly after viewing the film and two weeks later), as well as the judgment of the main character presented in the video.