| In today's online media environment, readers face a multitude of messages---some having the potential to contradict each other. The effects of context have largely been used to measure readers' perceptions of effectiveness, primarily in advertisements. Flipping the focus to journalistic effectiveness, this study sought to determine any cause-and-effect relationship of advertisements in the context of an online news article. Contextual effects have been defined through a reader's involvement and perceptions of assimilation and contrast to the content. This study sought to discover how these variables interact with contrastive advertisements affecting news credibility in an assimilative context. The participant sample for this study was largely from California State University, Fullerton's communications department and totaled 84 people. The average participant was 23 years old and female. Data were gathered through an experiment and post-test survey using a treatment and control group. The treatment group was exposed to a news article and contrastive advertisement, while the control group only viewed the news article. The advertisement acted as the factor showing difference between the groups and the impact of contrast. Data from the experiment did not render any statistical significance proving the advertisement's negative impact on news credibility. However, written explanations to context perceptions provided insight to how viewers approach media environments and how opinions are formed. |
