Teasing Influence: News Teases, Elite Cues, and Information Use

ABSTRACT The impact of television news teases has not been explored from the standpoint of response to political positions featured in the tease taken by religious and business elites. We theorize that the novelty of these ostensibly nonpolitical elites offering their perspective in a news tease about a report on immigration and economic growth leads to increased audience attention to the news tease. Utilizing a randomized experimental design, we expose treated subjects to clergy or business CEOs agreeing, disagree, or offering no reaction to an economic report linking “illegal” immigration to economic growth. Results show that subjects are statistically more likely to notice the tease featuring the pastor agreeing with the report findings. The same “pastor agrees” tease also spurs treated subjects to engage in an information search of news stories related to the tease content and to look first at stories attributed to Fox News. Our results suggest multiple avenues for additional research on news tease effects featuring elite statements.