Yariv Tsfati - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Yariv Tsfati
Media scholars have long ago argued that television news journalists prefer physically attractive... more Media scholars have long ago argued that television news journalists prefer physically attractive interviewees and news subjects (Postman, 1986). While this argument is in line with ample psychological literature documenting the important role of physical attractiveness in a variety of ...
Based on psychological research on the attractiveness effect, this study investigated the role of... more Based on psychological research on the attractiveness effect, this study investigated the role of legislators' physical attractiveness in shaping the amount of their news coverage. The physical attractiveness of members of the first session of the 110th US House of Representatives ...
Routledge eBooks, Sep 7, 2022
Science Communication, 2010
According to the authors, much of media coverage of science and scientists is explained by scient... more According to the authors, much of media coverage of science and scientists is explained by scientists’ beliefs regarding the impact of appearing in media on their careers. Their argument rests on recent advances in communication theory, stressing “the influence of presumed media influence,” and contributes to our understanding of why some scientists receive more media coverage than others. Combined data from a survey of scholars in an Israeli research university ( n = 166) and content analysis data on the frequency of the scholars’ appearances in the media were used to test this argument. Structural equation modeling revealed that the scholars’ belief in the influence of media increased their motivation and efforts to obtain media coverage, which in turn was related to the number of their actual media appearances.
Routledge eBooks, May 23, 2022
Journalism Studies
New modes of journalism, such as testimony journalism, use the first-person to let members of mar... more New modes of journalism, such as testimony journalism, use the first-person to let members of marginalized communities tell their stories in their own words and increase the audience's affinity with them. However, the assumption that this strategy fosters audience affinity has not been empirically investigated. We build on findings from media psychology, demonstrating that the point of view (POV) from which a narrative is told affects engagement with the narrative and persuasion, and apply these insights to journalism studies and news reports. Using a factorial design in an online experiment (n=924), we examined the effect of POV in a newspaper article on the experience of social presence of the article's protagonist, identification with him and attitude changes. As hypothesized, social presence was significantly stronger when reading a first-person article than a third-person article. Moreover, social presence mediated the effect of POV on identification. POV also indirectly affected support for policy and behavioral intentions through the mediation of social presence and identification. The findings suggest that the first-person POV heightens the experience of a real interaction with the protagonist This effect occurs even when the first-person POV testimonial is part of a newspaper article written by a journalist.
Journalism
In the journalism community’s constant search for alternative funding sources, Crowdfunding emerg... more In the journalism community’s constant search for alternative funding sources, Crowdfunding emerged as a promising mechanism that possibly allows new voices and approaches to secure funding for journalism. In this study, we content analyzed 627 journalistic crowdfunding pitches as a form of metajournalistic discourse and the funding public’s reaction to them as expressed in their funding decisions. Drawing on the journalism studies literature, we consider whether the stated journalistic orientation of the proposed project, the occupational and demographic identity of the campaign creator, and the technical proficiency of the crowdfunding pitch can predict funding success. We find that although technical aspects related to how the pitch was crafted and promoted are the strongest predictors of success, certain journalistic orientations, such as promising to conduct investigative journalism, can contribute somewhat to a project’s success. Data show that while self-identification as jou...
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
Scholars have raised concerns that on many issues, citizens are reluctant to trust factual eviden... more Scholars have raised concerns that on many issues, citizens are reluctant to trust factual evidence and statistics. One factor that has been shown to impact the perceived truth in statistics is how they are presented, where negatively framed statistics are perceived as truer than positive. This study explores when this bias applies and not. Results from a survey experiment confirm the presence of a negativity bias in truth perceptions, but also that effects are heterogeneous and moderated by, in particular, the recipients’ preexisting opinions. These findings provide valuable information to public actors responsible for disseminating factual information to diverse publics.
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-crx-10.1177_00936502211032822 for Political Para-Social Relation... more Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-crx-10.1177_00936502211032822 for Political Para-Social Relationship as a Predictor of Voting Preferences in the Israeli 2019 Elections by Yariv Tsfati, Jonathan Cohen, Shira Dvir-Gvirsman, Keren Tsuriel, Israel Waismel-Manor and R. Lance Holbert in Communication Research
This article explores a possible association between skepticism toward the media and audience exp... more This article explores a possible association between skepticism toward the media and audience exposure patterns. Hypotheses predicting a relationship between media skepticism and news media consumption are tested on four large sample data sets. Findings show that media skepticism is negatively associated with mainstream news exposure but positively associated with nonmainstream news exposure.
Journalism, 2017
Media coverage plays an important role in the political career of politicians. The news media att... more Media coverage plays an important role in the political career of politicians. The news media attention that politicians receive depends not only on political and socio-demographic variables, but also on their communication skills and personal characteristics such as physical appearance. This study explores the effect of facial attractiveness on the tone of the televised news coverage of Israeli parliament members. Results demonstrate a positive association between facial attractiveness and the overall coverage. In addition, each unit increase on the attractiveness scale was associated with an increase of 34 percent in the expected number of favorable appearances on TV news, but this association was slightly above the accepted 0.05 criterion for hypothesis testing. There was no significant effect of facial attractiveness on unfavorable or neutral coverage. These findings are interpreted. Implications for journalistic practices, political consultants, and access to the public sphere ...
Newspaper Research Journal, 2014
An experiment about a news report on Israeli policies in Jerusalem demonstrated that exposing par... more An experiment about a news report on Israeli policies in Jerusalem demonstrated that exposing participants to information about biased attitudes toward media reduced the third person and hostile media perceptions. It did not, however, eliminate them.
International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 2016
One of the main lines of reasoning in the contemporary debate on media effects is the notion that... more One of the main lines of reasoning in the contemporary debate on media effects is the notion that selective exposure to congruent information can lead to political polarization. Comparatively little experimental evidence, however, is available to empirically back up the claim of a causal relationship. Even less is known about the mechanisms behind such an effect. We conducted an online experiment with a sample matching the characteristics of the Dutch population closely (N = 501), and investigate how selective exposure can lead to polarized attitudes and which role frames, facts, and public opinion cues play. While we find that facts learned and perceived public opinion can help explaining attitude change, we cannot confirm that people generally polarize.
The SAGE Handbook of Public Opinion Research
Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets
Audience perceptions regarding the credibility of news media have been studied using several conc... more Audience perceptions regarding the credibility of news media have been studied using several concepts, including “media credibility,” “trust in media,” “media skepticism,” and “media cynicism.” In general, researchers interested in the credibility concept are concerned with audience perceptions of news media, not with the actual credibility of journalists. Early research on media credibility conducted at Yale in the 1950s manipulated the credibility of communicators and measured the impact of this manipulation on audience persuasion. Only in the 1970s did scholars begin to treat it not as a static trait of the source but as a dynamic perception of the audience. A major line of research on media credibility has to do with a phenomenon called “hostile media perception,” which takes place when involved people with opposing opinions on an issue perceive the very same, seemingly objective coverage as biased against their respective points of view. Other lines of research have examined th...
Public Opinion Quarterly, 2008
Much of what politicians do, we maintain in this paper, is driven by their belief in the power of... more Much of what politicians do, we maintain in this paper, is driven by their belief in the power of media, which motivates their desire to be featured in news coverage. Our argument rests upon recent advances in communication theory, stressing "the influence on presumed media influence" (Gunther, Albert C., and J. Douglas Storey. 2003. "The Influence of Presumed Influence." Journal of Communication 35(2):199-215) and contributes to our understanding of the mediatization of politics. Combined data from a survey of Israeli members of Knesset (MKs; n = 56), parliamentary reporters' (n = 20) rankings of MKs' media motivations, Knesset records of MKs' political activity, and data on the frequency of MKs' news appearances were used to test this argument. Structural equation modeling revealed that politicians' belief in the power of media increases their motivation and effort to appear in media coverage, which in turn is related both to greater media prominence and to more parliamentary activity. These results are discussed in light of their implications for both our understanding of political actors and the role of journalists. In 2005, a version of "The Apprentice" was broadcast on Israeli Channel 2 to great fanfare. The program's goal was to choose a leader (as it was called), and in it contestants were to demonstrate leadership, for example, by mobilizing JONATHAN COHEN AND YARIV TSFATI are with the
Media scholars have long ago argued that television news journalists prefer physically attractive... more Media scholars have long ago argued that television news journalists prefer physically attractive interviewees and news subjects (Postman, 1986). While this argument is in line with ample psychological literature documenting the important role of physical attractiveness in a variety of ...
Based on psychological research on the attractiveness effect, this study investigated the role of... more Based on psychological research on the attractiveness effect, this study investigated the role of legislators' physical attractiveness in shaping the amount of their news coverage. The physical attractiveness of members of the first session of the 110th US House of Representatives ...
Routledge eBooks, Sep 7, 2022
Science Communication, 2010
According to the authors, much of media coverage of science and scientists is explained by scient... more According to the authors, much of media coverage of science and scientists is explained by scientists’ beliefs regarding the impact of appearing in media on their careers. Their argument rests on recent advances in communication theory, stressing “the influence of presumed media influence,” and contributes to our understanding of why some scientists receive more media coverage than others. Combined data from a survey of scholars in an Israeli research university ( n = 166) and content analysis data on the frequency of the scholars’ appearances in the media were used to test this argument. Structural equation modeling revealed that the scholars’ belief in the influence of media increased their motivation and efforts to obtain media coverage, which in turn was related to the number of their actual media appearances.
Routledge eBooks, May 23, 2022
Journalism Studies
New modes of journalism, such as testimony journalism, use the first-person to let members of mar... more New modes of journalism, such as testimony journalism, use the first-person to let members of marginalized communities tell their stories in their own words and increase the audience's affinity with them. However, the assumption that this strategy fosters audience affinity has not been empirically investigated. We build on findings from media psychology, demonstrating that the point of view (POV) from which a narrative is told affects engagement with the narrative and persuasion, and apply these insights to journalism studies and news reports. Using a factorial design in an online experiment (n=924), we examined the effect of POV in a newspaper article on the experience of social presence of the article's protagonist, identification with him and attitude changes. As hypothesized, social presence was significantly stronger when reading a first-person article than a third-person article. Moreover, social presence mediated the effect of POV on identification. POV also indirectly affected support for policy and behavioral intentions through the mediation of social presence and identification. The findings suggest that the first-person POV heightens the experience of a real interaction with the protagonist This effect occurs even when the first-person POV testimonial is part of a newspaper article written by a journalist.
Journalism
In the journalism community’s constant search for alternative funding sources, Crowdfunding emerg... more In the journalism community’s constant search for alternative funding sources, Crowdfunding emerged as a promising mechanism that possibly allows new voices and approaches to secure funding for journalism. In this study, we content analyzed 627 journalistic crowdfunding pitches as a form of metajournalistic discourse and the funding public’s reaction to them as expressed in their funding decisions. Drawing on the journalism studies literature, we consider whether the stated journalistic orientation of the proposed project, the occupational and demographic identity of the campaign creator, and the technical proficiency of the crowdfunding pitch can predict funding success. We find that although technical aspects related to how the pitch was crafted and promoted are the strongest predictors of success, certain journalistic orientations, such as promising to conduct investigative journalism, can contribute somewhat to a project’s success. Data show that while self-identification as jou...
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
Scholars have raised concerns that on many issues, citizens are reluctant to trust factual eviden... more Scholars have raised concerns that on many issues, citizens are reluctant to trust factual evidence and statistics. One factor that has been shown to impact the perceived truth in statistics is how they are presented, where negatively framed statistics are perceived as truer than positive. This study explores when this bias applies and not. Results from a survey experiment confirm the presence of a negativity bias in truth perceptions, but also that effects are heterogeneous and moderated by, in particular, the recipients’ preexisting opinions. These findings provide valuable information to public actors responsible for disseminating factual information to diverse publics.
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-crx-10.1177_00936502211032822 for Political Para-Social Relation... more Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-crx-10.1177_00936502211032822 for Political Para-Social Relationship as a Predictor of Voting Preferences in the Israeli 2019 Elections by Yariv Tsfati, Jonathan Cohen, Shira Dvir-Gvirsman, Keren Tsuriel, Israel Waismel-Manor and R. Lance Holbert in Communication Research
This article explores a possible association between skepticism toward the media and audience exp... more This article explores a possible association between skepticism toward the media and audience exposure patterns. Hypotheses predicting a relationship between media skepticism and news media consumption are tested on four large sample data sets. Findings show that media skepticism is negatively associated with mainstream news exposure but positively associated with nonmainstream news exposure.
Journalism, 2017
Media coverage plays an important role in the political career of politicians. The news media att... more Media coverage plays an important role in the political career of politicians. The news media attention that politicians receive depends not only on political and socio-demographic variables, but also on their communication skills and personal characteristics such as physical appearance. This study explores the effect of facial attractiveness on the tone of the televised news coverage of Israeli parliament members. Results demonstrate a positive association between facial attractiveness and the overall coverage. In addition, each unit increase on the attractiveness scale was associated with an increase of 34 percent in the expected number of favorable appearances on TV news, but this association was slightly above the accepted 0.05 criterion for hypothesis testing. There was no significant effect of facial attractiveness on unfavorable or neutral coverage. These findings are interpreted. Implications for journalistic practices, political consultants, and access to the public sphere ...
Newspaper Research Journal, 2014
An experiment about a news report on Israeli policies in Jerusalem demonstrated that exposing par... more An experiment about a news report on Israeli policies in Jerusalem demonstrated that exposing participants to information about biased attitudes toward media reduced the third person and hostile media perceptions. It did not, however, eliminate them.
International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 2016
One of the main lines of reasoning in the contemporary debate on media effects is the notion that... more One of the main lines of reasoning in the contemporary debate on media effects is the notion that selective exposure to congruent information can lead to political polarization. Comparatively little experimental evidence, however, is available to empirically back up the claim of a causal relationship. Even less is known about the mechanisms behind such an effect. We conducted an online experiment with a sample matching the characteristics of the Dutch population closely (N = 501), and investigate how selective exposure can lead to polarized attitudes and which role frames, facts, and public opinion cues play. While we find that facts learned and perceived public opinion can help explaining attitude change, we cannot confirm that people generally polarize.
The SAGE Handbook of Public Opinion Research
Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets
Audience perceptions regarding the credibility of news media have been studied using several conc... more Audience perceptions regarding the credibility of news media have been studied using several concepts, including “media credibility,” “trust in media,” “media skepticism,” and “media cynicism.” In general, researchers interested in the credibility concept are concerned with audience perceptions of news media, not with the actual credibility of journalists. Early research on media credibility conducted at Yale in the 1950s manipulated the credibility of communicators and measured the impact of this manipulation on audience persuasion. Only in the 1970s did scholars begin to treat it not as a static trait of the source but as a dynamic perception of the audience. A major line of research on media credibility has to do with a phenomenon called “hostile media perception,” which takes place when involved people with opposing opinions on an issue perceive the very same, seemingly objective coverage as biased against their respective points of view. Other lines of research have examined th...
Public Opinion Quarterly, 2008
Much of what politicians do, we maintain in this paper, is driven by their belief in the power of... more Much of what politicians do, we maintain in this paper, is driven by their belief in the power of media, which motivates their desire to be featured in news coverage. Our argument rests upon recent advances in communication theory, stressing "the influence on presumed media influence" (Gunther, Albert C., and J. Douglas Storey. 2003. "The Influence of Presumed Influence." Journal of Communication 35(2):199-215) and contributes to our understanding of the mediatization of politics. Combined data from a survey of Israeli members of Knesset (MKs; n = 56), parliamentary reporters' (n = 20) rankings of MKs' media motivations, Knesset records of MKs' political activity, and data on the frequency of MKs' news appearances were used to test this argument. Structural equation modeling revealed that politicians' belief in the power of media increases their motivation and effort to appear in media coverage, which in turn is related both to greater media prominence and to more parliamentary activity. These results are discussed in light of their implications for both our understanding of political actors and the role of journalists. In 2005, a version of "The Apprentice" was broadcast on Israeli Channel 2 to great fanfare. The program's goal was to choose a leader (as it was called), and in it contestants were to demonstrate leadership, for example, by mobilizing JONATHAN COHEN AND YARIV TSFATI are with the
This chapter presents findings from a survey fielded immediately after the elections tying change... more This chapter presents findings from a survey fielded immediately after the elections tying changes in voting intentions from right wing parties to the Likud to perceptions of media bias and perceptions that there is a chance that Hertzog will form a government after the elections. Such perceptions—that the opinion climate tends towards the Zionist Camp—were themselves influneced by perceptions of media bias and media influence. The chapter stresses the role played by right wing media in cultivating the perception that mainstream media are biased against Netanyahu.