Television Exposure and Attitude Change: The Impact of Political Interest

A number of media effects studies have speculated that politicallyuninvolved individuals are susceptible to attitudinal or behavioralchange as a result of media exposure. This possibility is investigatedby testing a causal model of change in attitude toward PresidentNixon during the Watergate period (1972–1974). The initialanalysis suggested that political interest was a source of interactionin the model; it was thus treated as a specifying variable bytesting separate models for high and low interest respondents.Though exposure to Watergate-related television had no discernibleimpact on attitude toward Nixon for high interest individuals,it was the only significant predictor of 1974 Nixon attitudefor persons with low political interest.