Effects of Infographics on News Elaboration, Acquisition, and Evaluation

• In Event: CAT Interactive Papers #3

Abstract

The present study investigated how infographics may affect individuals’ news processing, focusing on multimodality and interactivity as its signature characteristics. News readers’ prior knowledge and issue involvement, which affect their ability and motivation to process information respectively, were considered as potential moderators. In a 3 (text vs. graphic vs. text + graphic) x 2 (hyperlinks vs. no hyperlinks) between-subjects experiment (N = 360), participants read a news article concerning economic issues. Adding graphics to the news heightened the extent to which they engaged in message-relevant thinking (i.e., news elaboration), albeit only among those with higher issue involvement. However, in-text hyperlinks hindered information recall among those with less prior knowledge, creating an information acquisition gap between more and less resourceful individuals. The graphical representation of news appeared to have heuristic appeals to those less involved in and less knowledgeable about the news topic, leading to more favorable news evaluations.

Authors

• Eun-Ju Lee, Seoul National U

• Yeweon Kim, Seoul National U