conflict & communication online, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2009
www.cco.regener-online.de
ISSN 1618-0747

Michael Nerad
Integration, text framing and conflict perception

This paper examines the influence of media frames on recipients' mental models (individual frames). For this purpose an experiment was performed in which the change in response behavior (pre-post measurement) between two pairs of items was analyzed. On the basis of our theoretical position and research, we were unable to find any main effect of media frames. However, we did detect a systematic change in response behavior. This change depends to a great extent on Ss' a priori mental models (std. beta = -0.4). Furthermore, an interaction effect (std. beta = 0.12) between the media frame (win-win vs. win-lose) and a pre-variable (type of school) were found. These results demonstrate the essential role of the congruence vs. incongruence of a priori mental models and media frames.