Sick and tired: The effects of message framing and self-efficacy on viewers of health news stories.

Abstract

Dean, Brandes, and Dhardwadkar (1998) introduced the theoretical concept of organizational cynicism, comprised of a set of beliefs, emotions, and behavioral tendencies toward members of an organization. Capella and Jamieson (1997) discussed political cynicism, manifested as a response to the framing of mediated messages. This study combines these two approaches to the study of cynicism to explore effects of the framing of mediated health news on viewers' beliefs, emotions, and behavior toward representatives of health care organizations. In addition, viewers' self-efficacy in health care interactions is examined to explore potential response differences to health care messages. Results reveal that message frames and self-efficacy both play important roles in viewers' responses to health news content. Viewers' beliefs, emotions, and perceived behavioral tendencies were all affected by the type of organizational message viewed. While the self-efficacy of viewers did not lead to differing emotional responses after viewing the message stimulus, participants did report significantly different beliefs about health care, and perceived anticipated behavior, based on their level of self-efficacy.