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Choosing and Reading Online News:
How Available Choice Affects
Cognitive Processing
Kevin Wise, Paul D. Bolls, and Samantha R. Schaefer
A within-subjects experiment explored how the number of online,
hyperlinked stories available for individuals to choose from affects cognitive processing of a selected story. Participants chose and read unpleasant online news stories from a Web page containing either 5 or 15
headline/photo hyperlinks. Heart rate data indicated more cognitive resources were allocated to reading stories selected from the larger array
of hyperlinks. This increased allocation of cognitive resources also led
to more accurate story recognition. Results of this study provide insight
into information processing of interactive, online news as well as limited suggestions for the design of news Web sites.
Giving people the ability to choose from a wide variety of content when they want
to see it is a hallmark of today’s interactive media landscape. News/information portals, blogs, video-on-demand, and file-sharing galleries all give computer users the
freedom to choose content from vast arrays of options, then acquire and view that
content with the click of a mouse. To date, researchers have not thoroughly examined
the mental processes that occur when people choose and receive information from
Web sites that offer varying amounts of options.
The ritual of scanning, choosing, and receiving hyperlinked content can be repeated multiple times during a person’s visit to a Web site. This ritual and the underlying mental processes involved fundamentally shape the experience of receiving news
online. Therefore, it is important to understand how various features involved in presenting online news affect cognitive processes involved in selecting, reading, and remembering an online news story. This study serves as an initial investigation of how
one feature, the number of hyperlinked stories presented, affects cognitive processing
of a selected story. Results obtained can advance theoretical understanding of infor-
Kevin Wise (Ph.D., Stanford) is an Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication and Co-Director of the
PRIME Lab (Psychological Research on Information and Media Effects) at the Missouri School of Journalism.
His research interests include the cognitive and emotional processing of interactive media.
Paul D. Bolls (Ph.D., Indiana) is an Associate Professor of Strategic Communication and Co-Director of the
PRIME Lab at the Missouri School of Journalism. His research agenda is focused on cognitive and emotional
processing of media content.
Samantha R. Schaefer is a junior Strategic Communication major at the Missouri School of Journalism.
© 2008 Broadcast Education Association
DOI: 10.1080/08838150701820858
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 52(1), 2008, pp. 69–85
ISSN: 0883–8151 print/1550–6878 online
69
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mation processing of mediated content in an unexplored area of news consumption.
Findings may also provide news producers with some insight into Web site design
that will maximize the ability of their audience to be informed by attending to and remembering content of online news stories.
It is proposed here that the mental work a person does in scanning and choosing a
hyperlinked news story has consequences for cognitive and emotional processing of
information contained in the story. Thus, any feature of a news Web site that could affect mental effort invested in selecting stories, such as the number of hyperlinks from
which an individual chooses stories to read, could significantly affect how the content
of a story is attended to and remembered.
There is precedence for theorizing that the number of hyperlinked news stories on a
Web site could influence responses to received information. Scholars studying decision-making have demonstrated that the number of options available for an individual to choose from affects responses to their choice (Iyengar & Lepper, 2000; Wise &
Pepple, in press). This finding has been obtained in the context of choosing among
different brands of a product as well as selecting pictures to view from varying arrays
of photographs. Receiving news from online sources provides another interesting decision-making context in which individuals are presented with numerous options.
Google News, for example, links Web surfers with every available story on a particular event. For prominent events, the number of stories from which a person can
choose may reach into the hundreds. Scholars studying the effects of available options on responses to an individual’s choice have not yet examined it in the context of
choosing stories from an online news interface.
This study is designed to fill a gap in media processes and effects research by examining cognitive processing in the unexplored context of choosing, reading, and remembering online news. Such research is necessary because the mental processes
used in selecting and processing online news could be somewhat different from processes engaged by previously studied decision-making tasks. This research may also
advance theoretical understanding of the relationship between choosing media content and cognitively processing the selected content. Media processes and effects
scholars have not thoroughly explored how media features presented to an individual
in the act of selecting content influences cognitive processes engaged during exposure to the received content.
Studying the relationship between choosing and processing selected online news
stories requires analysis of two mental tasks: (1) scanning pictures and headlines in order to choose a story, and (2) reading the text of the story once it has been chosen.
These tasks are important to consider because the precise demands placed on cognitive resources are likely to differ between them.
A theoretical model that has received widespread support for explaining how individuals allocate cognitive resources to processing mediated messages is Lang’s
Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Media Message Processing (A. Lang, 2006).
First described by A. Lang (2000), the fundamental assumption of the model is that
processing a mediated message involves a continuous interaction between the hu-
Wise et al./ CHOOSING AND READING ONLINE NEWS 71
man information processing system and features of the mediated message. Processing
media content involves allocating limited cognitive resources to the subprocesses of
encoding, storage, and retrieval. The degree to which cognitive resources are allocated to each of these subprocesses varies based on both individual goals and message features. A. Lang (2006) theorized that individuals increase cognitive resources
allocated to processing media content portraying motivationally important information (i.e., danger, food, sex, etc.). This notion seems particularly relevant to cognitive
processing of news as much of the content of news stories deals with potential danger
and other negative events. For this study, it means taking a closer look at the nature of
encoding, storage, and retrieval of information contained in an online news story reporting unpleasant events.
Encoding, storage, and retrieval are not performed in serial order. Rather, as an individual encodes new information from a mediated message, information previously
stored in long-term memory is retrieved as part of the process of storing the new information in memory (A. Lang, 2006). Retrieving information from long-term memory
and holding it in short-term working memory along with any encoded new information from a message is a critical step in effectively storing information from a news
story in long-term memory. At a minimum, an individual reading a news story must
retrieve knowledge of language, stored in long-term memory, in order to make any
sense out of information from the story that is being encoded into working memory.
Thus, processing a news story involves the simultaneous allocation of cognitive resources to encoding, retrieval, and storage. It is critical to note that cognitive resources are not allocated equally among all three tasks. An individual’s goals as well
as features of a news story can elicit increased resource allocation to one of the three
tasks, leaving fewer cognitive resources to be allocated to the others. For example, in
a study on cognitive processing of radio advertisements it was found that as more cognitive resources were shifted to retrieving information out of long-term memory to aid
in storing a message, fewer resources were allocated to encoding details of the message (Bolls, in press).
The clear implication of the limited capacity model for how individuals process online news is that both individual goals and message features will affect the allocation
of cognitive resources across the mental tasks involved in choosing, processing, and
remembering news stories. Both individual goals and message features vary across
the previously mentioned stages of selecting and reading online news. Therefore,
cognitive resources are likely allocated among encoding, storage, and retrieval to
varying degrees depending on the precise processing demands at each stage. This
makes it important to consider the demands likely present at each stage of an online
news-viewing episode: choosing a story from an array of pictures and headlines and
then reading the text of the chosen story.
When a user visits a news Web site, they typically encounter a series of short headlines meant to grab attention and lead into the story. Sometimes, a related photograph
accompanies these headlines. If someone has gone online simply to browse the news,
without a particular informational need, the goal at this stage may simply be to
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choose a story that looks interesting (Tewksbury, 2003). The combination of Web site
features and user goals at the story selection stage seems likely to elicit the allocation
of processing resources to encoding features of the photographs and headlines. Previous research has demonstrated that negative, compelling visual images, such as those
often found in news content, automatically increase resources allocated to encoding
both photographs as well as video (P. J. Lang, Greenwald, Bradley, & Hamm, 1993;
Lang, Newhagen, & Reeves, 1996). It is important to note that such negative, compelling images are often perceived as such because the image represents a potential
threat and therefore would seem to fit the description of motivationally relevant content. But what about storage? It seems likely there is little reason to store information
in long-term memory at the point of selecting a story to read from an array of pictures
and headlines. An individual simply needs to encode the available headlines and accompanying pictures in order to click through the link and read the full story. Storing
detailed information contained in the pictures and headlines in long-term memory is
not necessary to decide which story to select to read and could actually interfere with
processing the oncoming story.
Once a person has chosen a story by clicking through a hyperlink, the mental
task changes dramatically. After all, the stimulus package has changed from an array of unrelated topics and accompanying pictures to a string of related sentences.
The task at this stage is to read the selected story, which should increase cognitive
resources allocated to retrieving information from long-term memory in order to
store information from the story in memory. Most of the mental work involved in
reading text is focused on forming an abstract representation of the text in working
memory (Rayner, Liversedge, White, & Vergilino-Perez, 2003). Linguistic and conceptual processing based on an individual’s stored knowledge is the key to forming
an abstract representation of text in working memory (Carpenter & Daneman,
1981). Thus, most of the work involved in reading text would seem to involve accessing linguistic and conceptual knowledge stored in long-term memory. Few resources would seem to be necessary to encode text appearing on screen into working memory. Indeed, it has been found that within 50 milliseconds, fluent readers
can encode concrete visual features of the text that the eyes are fixated on (Rayner
et al., 2003). Under A. Lang’s limited capacity model described earlier, the mental
task of reading the text of an online news story would appear to require cognitive
resources to be shifted from encoding concrete features of text to retrieving from
long-term memory previously stored knowledge needed for conceptual and linguistic processing of the text. This form of cognitive processing would be most likely to
facilitate memory for story details.
In summary, the mental task of processing pictures and headlines in order to choose
an online news story should elicit the allocation of processing resources to encoding
information contained in the pictures and headlines with low demand for resources
allocated to retrieval and storage. In contrast, reading the text of a story, once it has
been chosen, should significantly increase the amount of cognitive resources allocated to retrieval.
Wise et al./ CHOOSING AND READING ONLINE NEWS 73
A feature of news Web sites that clearly distinguishes the amount of information to
be encoded at the stage of choosing a story to read is the number of hyperlinked stories presented on a particular Web site’s main page. How might the number of
hyperlinked stories an individual can choose from influence subsequent processing
of the text of a selected story? A Web page with more hyperlinked stories ought to require more resources allocated to encoding the presented information in order to
choose a story to read than a Web page with fewer hyperlinked stories. However, it
seems unlikely that the demand on cognitive resources presented by the number of
hyperlinked stories will significantly tax the human information processing system to
the point of constraining resources available to process the text of a selected story. Encoding visuals in a mediated message has been found to be a relatively effortless,
fairly automatic mental task (A. Lang, Potter, & Bolls, 1999). Further, the short headlines connected to photographs are also unlikely to be all that demanding to process.
Rather than overloading cognitive resources, perhaps increasing the number of stories
covering unpleasant events presented on a news Web site increases the motivational
importance of information received leading individuals to increase resources allocated to reading a selected story.
Why might offering more hyperlinked stories on an online news Web site increase
the motivational importance of a story an individual chooses to read? The human cognitive processing system attends preferentially to cues in the information environment
that signal potential threats. Unpleasant stimuli in an individual’s environment can
automatically increase resources allocated to encoding information by activating
what has been termed the aversive motivational system (A. Lang, 2006). This idea has
been applied specifically to cognitive processing of news. Shoemaker (1996) argued
that humans have a biological imperative to survey the environment for threats and
therefore, may actually be somewhat hardwired to process unpleasant news. Features
involved in the presentation of online news could serve as cues that signal the degree
of threat in an individual’s information environment. Such features should increase
the motivational importance of received information leading individuals to allocate
more effort to cognitively processing selected stories.
An example of a specific feature involved in the presentation of online news that has
been found to affect cognitive processing is threatening news photographs. The presence of a threatening photo accompanying an online news headline has been found to
increase effort put into processing the related story (Knobloch, Hastall, Zillmann, &
Callison, 2003). Apossible explanation of this finding is that unpleasant photographs on
a news Web site increase the motivational relevance of presented information. Such an
explanation is consistent with Lang’s limited capacity model (A. Lang, 2006).
Increasing the number of unpleasant photos contained on a news Web site by increasing the number of hyperlinked stories available for an individual to click through
to read could magnify the effect found by Knobloch and colleagues. This would theoretically occur by having hyperlinked unpleasant photo/headline combinations serve
as a cue signaling the motivational importance of information presented on a news
Web site. More such cues should result in an even higher degree of motivational im-
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portance leading to more effortful processing of selected stories. Manipulating the
number of unpleasant, picture/headline hyperlinks presented to participants is one
way to initially test this possibility.
One way of measuring mental effort invested in processing mediated information is
to obtain individuals’ heart rate during media exposure (A. Lang, 1994). Several studies have demonstrated the utility of heart rate as a measure of attention to media content (see Ravaja, 2004, for a review). As previously mentioned, attending to media
content involves allocating cognitive resources to encoding, storage, and retrieval. Increasing cognitive resources allocated to encoding media content has been found to
result in cardiac deceleration (A. Lang, 1990). However, increasing resources allocated to retrieving information out of long-term memory in order to store encoded
media content has been found to result in cardiac acceleration (Bolls, 2002). Reading
the text of a story chosen from an online news site primarily involves just such mental
activity, so an increase in the cognitive resources allocated to reading the text should
lead to faster heart rate. This leads to the first hypothesis:
H1: Reading stories chosen from an extensive array of hyperlinks will lead to greater
cardiac acceleration than reading stories chosen from a limited array of hyperlinks.
The increased mental effort put into reading stories selected from an extensive array
of hyperlinks ought to also be reflected in memory for story details. This leads to a second hypothesis:
H2: Details in stories chosen from an extensive array of hyperlinks will be more accurately recognized than details in stories chosen from a limited array of hyperlinks.
To test these hypotheses, an experiment was conducted in which participants selected individual news stories from a Web site containing both limited and extensive
arrays of options. Participants’ heart rate was recorded while they read each story.
Later, their recognition memory for details from each story was tested.
Method
Participants
Thirty-four undergraduates (14 Male, 20 Female) participated in this study for credit
in an advertising course at a large Midwestern university.
Design
This study was a 2 (Available Choice) x 3 (Repetition) repeated-measures design.
Available Choice referred to the number of news stories that participants had to
Wise et al./ CHOOSING AND READING ONLINE NEWS 75
choose from and had two levels, limited (5) and extensive (15). These operational definitions are consistent with previous research which used 5 options as a limitedchoice condition and described extensive-choice conditions as consisting of a “reasonably large but not ecologically unusual” number of options (Iyengar & Lepper,
2000, p. 996). It was found that the “headline news” section of prominent news Web
sites typically contains 10–12 headline links, and the researchers wanted to use a
multiple of 5 for stimulus preparation and data analysis purposes, so 15 options were
chosen for the extensive array. Participants chose and read three stories from both the
limited and the extensive array of options, thus comprising the Repetition factor.
Stimuli
A news Web site containing two pages of hyperlinks was used. One page contained
5 (limited) hyperlinks; the other page contained 15 (extensive) hyperlinks. Each
hyperlink consisted of a picture and a headline. When participants clicked on a
hyperlink, they were taken to a news story that corresponded to the hyperlink.
The pictures came from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) (Center for
the Study of Emotion and Attention, 2001). The IAPS is a CD-ROM containing hundreds of digitized photographs that have been rated extensively in previous research,
producing reliable ratings along the dimensions of valence and arousal (e.g., P. J. Lang
et al., 1993). Since arousal and valence have been shown to significantly affect the allocation of cognitive resources to processing messages (A. Lang, Dhillon, & Dong,
1995), use of the IAPS photos provided the ability to control these emotional factors.
All of the pictures used in this study were mildly unpleasant and moderately arousing.
The mean valence and arousal ratings of the picture sample were 3.32 (SD = 1.62)
and 4.62 (SD = 2.08), respectively, ranging from 1 (very unpleasant/boring) to 9 (very
pleasant/arousing). Pairwise comparisons among our picture sample yielded no significant differences across both valence and arousal.
Mildly unpleasant pictures were used because previous research has shown that
they elicit more attention than pleasant pictures (Bradley, Greenwald, Petry, & Lang,
1992). Moderately arousing pictures were used in order to generate interest in the
hyperlinks without getting participants so aroused that they would have difficulty attending to the corresponding story.
Once the pictures had been chosen, a student enrolled in a news reporting class
wrote a headline corresponding to each picture. These headlines were pretested in a
small class where students (N = 15) rated each headline with the same instrument
(The Self-Assessment Manikin [SAM]; Bradley & Lang, 1994) traditionally used to rate
the valence and arousal of IAPS pictures. Students also rated how interested they
would be in reading a story based on each headline if they saw it on a news Web site,
using a 7-point scale anchored by “not interested” and “very interested.” From these
ratings, 20 headlines were chosen that clustered around the midpoint of both arousal
(M = 4.49, SD = .53) and interest (M = 5.44, SD = .62). Pairwise comparisons yielded
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Figure 1
Example of Limited (Top) and Extensive (Bottom) Arrays of Online News Choices
no significant differences for all measures among the chosen headlines. These headlines were randomly assigned to the two pages of hyperlinks, with 15 hyperlinks on
one page and 5 hyperlinks on the other. After the headlines had been chosen, the
same student wrote a short (110–130 words) fictitious news story for each of the 20
headlines. The limited and extensive arrays of hyperlinks are shown in Figure 1.
Physiological Recording
Physiological signals were measured, amplified, and recorded using Coulbourn
modules linked to a PC. The VPM software program (Cook, Atkinson, & Lang, 1987)
coordinated the sampling and storage of physiology data.
Wise et al./ CHOOSING AND READING ONLINE NEWS 77
Heart Rate
Two 8mm Ag/AgCl (silver/silver-chloride) electrodes were placed on each participant’s forearms, a few inches above the wrist. The signal was amplified and filtered by
a Coulbourn bioamplifier equipped with high and low pass filtering. A Schmitt trigger
interrupted the PC every time it detected the R-spike of the cardiac wave. Data were
initially collected as interbeat intervals, or milliseconds between consecutive
R-spikes in the QRS complex of the cardiac cycle. Data were then cleaned for movement artifact and transformed to an average beat per minute value for each second of
data collection.
Skin Conductance
Skin conductance was measured in order to control for the potential confound of
varying levels of arousal evoked by the news stories. Two 8mm Ag/AgCl (silver/silver-chloride) electrodes were placed on the palm of each participant’s nondominant
hand. The electrodes were attached to a Coulbourn S71-23 isolated skin conductance
coupler. This signal was sampled 20 times per second and converted to conductance
values in microSeimens (uS).
Recognition
Recognition of details contained in each story was measured through a fouralternative multiple choice test. Four questions were asked about each story participants read. Each question was based on a factual element within the story. The questions from each story were presented in the same block; the first question of each
block identified which story the question referred to. MediaLab software randomized
presentation of each block of questions. When a question appeared on the screen,
participants used a mouse to point and click on what they believed to be the correct
answer.
Procedure
Participants entered the laboratory, sat down at a computer terminal, and provided
written informed consent. An experimenter prepared each participant’s skin for data
collection and attached sensors to the participant, The experimenter told each participant that they would be reading stories from a news Web site. No criteria were given
to guide participants’ choice of stories, they were simply told to click on any headline
that they’d like to read more about. The experiment began once the participant expressed understanding of the procedure.
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Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media/March 2008
Stimulus presentation began with instructions, followed by a 10-second baseline
period in which participants saw a black screen. After this baseline period, the first
news Web site appeared containing either 5 or 15 options. The MediaLab software
program (Jarvis, 2004) controlled stimulus presentation and randomized Web site
presentation order. Participants used a mouse to point and click on the headline of
their choosing, taking as much or as little time as they wanted to choose each headline. After pointing and clicking on a headline of their choice, each participant read
the corresponding story. Again, participants could take as much or as little time as
they needed to read each story. Upon reading the first story, participants clicked a
“Continue” button that returned them to the headline array. Participants then repeated this choosing/reading task two more times, until they had chosen and read
three stories from the first Web page. The entire process was repeated for the second
Web page.
Next, participants took part in an unrelated experiment that served as a distraction
task for this study. The distraction task lasted approximately 30 minutes and required
each participant to watch 10 television commercials, completing a short questionnaire after each commercial. During this task, the experimenter created a recognition
test corresponding to the stories each participant had chosen to read from each Web
site. Upon completing the television advertising experiment, participants completed
the recognition test over the stories they selected to read. At the end of the recognition
test, the experimenter removed electrodes from participants, then debriefed, thanked,
and dismissed them. The entire experiment lasted approximately 1 hour.
Data Reduction
Response curves were created for both heart rate and skin conductance by computing change scores across the period when participants read each story. Because of individual differences in reading speed, the time spent reading each article varied across
participants. In order to use time as a repeated measure in these analyses, it was necessary to transform these reading periods into uniform lengths. This was done by dividing
each reading period into thirds (i.e., beginning, middle, end), then computing the average heart rate for each third. For example, if a participant took 30 seconds to read a particular story, that period was divided into three equal segments of 10 seconds each. The
average heart rate/skin conductance during each of those 10-second segments was then
computed. Finally, each 10-second average was subtracted from the value taken in the
second immediately prior to the appearance of the story.
If the time spent reading a particular story was not divisible by 3, remaining seconds were divided among the first two segments. For instance, a 32-second reading
period would have been divided into segments of 11, 11, and 10 seconds. This technique yielded an equal number of segments that allowed repeated measures analyses
of tonic heart rate and skin conductance level (SCL) by yielding 4 data points for each
segment, counting the onset of each selected story.1
Wise et al./ CHOOSING AND READING ONLINE NEWS 79
Analyses
Both heart rate and skin conductance data were analyzed with a 2 (Choice) x 2 (Repetition) x 4 (Time) repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). Univariate analyses
that violated the assumption of sphericity were adjusted with the Huynh-Feldt degrees
of freedom correction. There are only 2 (and not 3) levels to the repetition factor because
the first story that subjects read from each Web site was removed from physiological
data analyses. Because stimulus novelty is an essential component of the orienting response (A. Lang, 1994), which is accompanied by decreased heart rate and increased
skin conductance, it was feared that novelty associated with the first time of performing
a task could potentially skew the physiological data.
Each question on the recognition test was coded as either a “1” if it was correctly
answered or “0” for an incorrect answer. These numbers were then summed across
each condition and divided by the total number of questions (12). This yielded separate recognition accuracy scores for each condition that were compared with a
dependent-samples t test.
To demonstrate that hypothesized effects could not be caused by differences in
story content, the skin conductance data recorded while participants read each story
was analyzed. If the stories that people chose and read from one array were more inherently arousing than the stories they chose and read from the other array, there
would have been greater skin conductance throughout the reading period. This
would confound the results since arousal is associated with accelerated heart rate and
better recognition memory (Bradley et al., 1992). The Choice ⫻ Time interaction was
not significant, F(3, 81) = .07, ns, indicating no differences in participants’ arousal
while reading stories from each condition.
The amount of time it took for participants to read the stories in each condition was
analyzed to make sure that stories in one condition weren’t inherently more difficult
to read than stories in another condition. Such a finding would confound the recognition data since people should remember fewer details from more difficult stories. The
main effect of Choice on time spent reading was not significant, F(1, 27) = .20, ns;
Limited: M = 26.51, SD = 1.25; Extensive: M = 26.84, SD = 1.38, indicating that the
stories in each condition were of equal difficulty.
Results
Hypothesis 1 predicted that participants’ heart rate would be faster while reading
news stories selected from an extensive array of options versus stories selected from a
limited array. This pattern of results would reflect greater mental effort put into reading a story selected from an extensive array of hyperlinks and pictures. Analysis of the
heart rate data revealed a significant Choice ⫻ Time interaction, F(3, 81) = 3.43, p
<.03, partial-␩2 = .11. As Figure 2 shows, participants experienced greater heart rate
acceleration while reading news stories selected from the extensive array of options
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Figure 2
Heart Rate Change While Reading Online News Stories
as a Function of Limited Versus
in comparison to heart rate experienced while reading stories chosen from the limited
array of options. This result supports Hypothesis 1, suggesting that individuals put
more mental effort into reading the text of an online news story when it is selected
from a higher number of available stories.
According to Hypothesis 2, recognition will be more accurate for specific facts in
news stories chosen from the extensive array of options. There was a significant main
effect for Choice on the recognition data, t(27) = -4.06, p <.01. Participants’ recognition was more accurate for stories chosen from the extensive array of options (M =
.77, SD = .03), compared to recognition of facts in stories chosen from the limited array of options (M = .61, SD = .03). This result supports Hypothesis 2, indicating that
increased mental effort put into reading stories does indeed result in more accurate
recognition of story details.
Discussion
This experiment explored how the number of available hyperlinked stories affects
cognitive processing of online news. Participants chose an online news story from a
Web page containing either 5 or 15 headline/photo combinations, then read the story
they had chosen. It was predicted that people would invest more cognitive effort into
reading the stories that they had chosen from the Web site with more hyperlinked
photo/headline options. This prediction was derived from Lang’s Limited Capacity
Model of Motivated Media Message Processing (A. Lang, 2006). This model proposes
that features involved in the presentation of media content can serve as cues, increasing the motivational importance of received information. It was theorized that in-
Wise et al./ CHOOSING AND READING ONLINE NEWS 81
creasing the number of unpleasant headline/photo links could increase the motivational relevance of presented stories leading participants to put more mental effort
into reading selected stories. If people exerted more cognitive effort processing the
stories chosen from the larger array, it was expected that they would also have better
recognition of details from these stories.
The results of this experiment support the hypotheses. Participants showed greater
heart rate acceleration, indicative of cognitive effort, while reading stories chosen
from the larger array. They also had more accurate recognition for details of the stories
chosen from the larger array.
These findings have both theoretical and practical implications for understanding
how people process online news. It does appear that unpleasant photo/headline combinations contained on news Web sites act as cues capable of increasing the motivational relevance of presented stories. This increase in motivation could have come
from an increase in perceived threat due to the presence of more unpleasant stories.
Knobloch and colleagues (2003) found that the presence of a threat-related photograph increased the effort people invested in processing online stories. These results
suggest that increasing the number of unpleasant, potentially threatening photographs linked to different stories presented to an individual could magnify this effect.
It is important to note that no manipulation of perceived threat occurred in this study,
so this idea is speculative. However, given the nature of the stories used in this experiment, as well as an apparent emphasis on threat reporting in today’s news environment, it seems plausible that someone’s general perception of threat would vary with
the number of bad news stories to which they are exposed.
Results of this experiment suggest that features of online news presentation that
could impact motivational relevance of information presented are critical variables in
determining how stories will be cognitively processed. A. Lang’s (2006) limited capacity model specifically includes motivation, in the form of appetitive and aversive
activation, as a variable influencing how people process mediated messages. Future
research should more directly apply Lang’s model in studying cognitive processing of
online news by directly measuring how features of news Web sites affect aversive and
appetitive motivational activation. The current study indicates that motivational activation should be considered across mental tasks engaged during media exposure.
Here, these tasks included choosing and reading a story. This appears to be especially
important in the context of interactive media where features of every mediated interface (i.e., Web page) could evoke varying patterns of aversive and appetitive motivational activation that influences cognitive processing of subsequent media content.
The nature of photos, headlines, and stories likely increased aversive motivational activation. Future research should also explore features of online news that are likely to
increase appetitive activation. After all, not all news is bad news.
This study serves as a reminder of the importance of considering the precise nature of
mental tasks involved in cognitively processing media content. Results reported here illustrate how the exact mental processes involved in encoding a mediated message can
vary. It appears that the mental processes engaged when an individual invests more ef-
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fort into encoding the text of a selected online news story are similar to mental processes
engaged by encoding high-imagery radio ads. Both tasks appear to result in cardiac acceleration, which in theory, is due to more resources allocated to retrieving information
from long-term memory to aid encoding of the message. This is a different pattern of results than reported in studies of cognitive processing of television where greater effort
invested in encoding has been found to result in heart rate deceleration (i.e., A. Lang,
Bolls, Potter, & Kawahara, 1999). Cardiac deceleration is thought to be due to an increase in cognitive resources allocated to encoding concrete features of a message. Researchers need to theoretically consider how features of messages they are studying
might engage these two different forms of encoding. Varying mental processes underlying encoding could substantially change observed message effects.
Combining results of this study with other recent research allows some interesting albeit preliminary conclusions to be drawn about how available choice moderates the processing of online media. If supported by further research, these conclusions have practical implications for designing news Web sites to be most
informative. In a study of responses to selecting photographs for further viewing,
Wise and Pepple (in press) found that people had weaker orienting responses and
poorer recognition for pictures chosen from an extensive, compared to a limited,
array of options. The results reported here show exactly the opposite effect when
the stimulus is the text of a story. Taken together, these two studies indicate that the
degree to which features of a Web page engage similar mental processes at the
stages of choosing and then processing selected content may moderate the effect
available choice has on memory for online content. In the Wise and Pepple study,
both stages primarily engaged visual encoding of the stimulus. Thus, the mental
processes at both stages were highly similar, leading to poorer memory when
choosing content placed a greater demand on cognitive resources (extensive
choice). In the current study, features of the Web page engaged significantly different mental processes at the choice stage compared to processing selected content.
Thus, increasing the demand placed on cognitive resources in choosing content did
not have a detrimental effect on memory of selected content.
The practical implication of this study for online news producers is that offering
more hyperlinked photo/headline elements connected to stories on a Web page
seems to lead audience members to invest more effort into processing the text of
the story they select. This contradicts the assumption that offering a lot of stories on
a Web page might somehow lead to information overload for a Web site visitor.
The highest number of hyperlinked stories tested in this study was 15. Some online
news portals offer more links than this. There could be a point where the number of
stories offered on a Web page does overwhelm users leading them to disengage
from information processing of presented news. It is also important to note that this
study only looked at cognitive processing of online news. There could be negative
effects due to offering a lot of stories on a news Web site on attitudinal variables
such as attraction, involvement, or credibility, which could have just as important
implications for online news consumption. Future research should examine the in-
Wise et al./ CHOOSING AND READING ONLINE NEWS 83
teraction of cognitive processing and attitudinal responses evoked by features involved in the presentation of online news.
The broader implication of this study is that producers need to learn more about
how features of online news presentation impact motivational activation during news
consumption. It is well established that variation in underlying appetitive and
aversive motivation affects how individuals process information in their environment
(Cacioppo, Gardner, & Berntson, 1999; A. Lang, 2006). Content characteristics as
well as features involved in presenting stories on a news Web site could engage varying patterns of motivational activation. Understanding how different ways of producing an online news stories engage motivational activation could provide insight into
how to design news Web sites that are maximally effective at encouraging individuals
to cognitively process news in a way that makes stories more memorable. It appears
that up to a point, increasing the number of stories a user can choose from is one way
to achieve this.
The limitations of this study point to several interesting avenues for future research.
Online content often combines text with multimedia information, such as text stories
that give the user the option of viewing video content of a particular on-scene or studio report. This study investigated the presentation of simple photographs, headlines,
and written text. This is likely the simplest form of online news content. Clearly, online news portals are increasingly becoming more complex and dynamic in combining text, pictures, audio, and video in the presentation of news. It would be interesting
to explore how different formats for presenting available content a user can choose
from interacts with processing of audio/visual online news content.
A second limitation is that the recognition memory test used in this experiment
lacked some sensitivity. Difficulty of individual multiple-choice questions was not
systematically controlled for each story. Admittedly, the difficulty of each question on
the recognition test probably varied somewhat. However, following procedure established in previous research, recognition for each story was computed as the average
of four questions per story (A. Lang et al., 1999). This should allow the variation due to
varying level of difficulty between questions to go into the error term of the analysis.
Future research could provide even more insight into recognition of details in a news
story by switching from a forced choice multiple-choice test to a speeded recognition
test that would allow signal detection analysis of the data. Such an analysis would
provide insight into memory sensitivity as well as simple accuracy.
Ultimately, results of this experiment further demonstrate that the mental demands
of negotiating online media to acquire selected content affect cognitive processing of
that content when it is delivered. This could be considered as the distinction between
“getting there” and “being there.” In this case, getting there required people to choose
from either a limited or extensive array of hyperlinks, while being there involved reading the story acquired by clicking the chosen hyperlink. When the demands of getting
there changed, so did people’s cognitive responses to the content they acquired. Understanding what people must go through to acquire content from interactive media is
crucial to understanding how they process content once they’ve gotten there.
84
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media/March 2008
Note
1This
technique would not be advisable for analyzing phasic responses because it
dilutes the second-by-second fluctuations that distinguish phasic responses (i.e., orienting, startle, defense). However, averages across time periods are acceptable in
analysis of tonic responses.
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